Restoring Charleston: Bonus Material

The Whetsell Bridal Cabin

    In the summer of 2016, we rehabbed the Appleby House and the Bridal Cabin, filming both projects for television. Until this week, I had no idea of the link between these two properties on opposite sides of St. George, South Carolina.

The Appleby House

    After the Appleby House was condemned by building officials, the descendants donated it to the local historical society, and this group sold it to me. The Queen Anne was built at the turn of the century to replace the family home beside Appleby's Methodist Church, a home which was lost to fire in the late 1800's. This Appleby property was the mustering site for Company C of the 24th Regiment of SC Volunteers in the war between the states, when St. George was known as "George's Station." M.T., A.C., and Adam Appleby were members of Co. C and the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Annie Leila's

    The Whetsell land was vacant and overgrown when I spotted it during the winter of 2016. At over nine acres, it contained two houses, perfect since the TV producers had asked me to buy three pig's ears, and I already had a ratified contract for Appleby. I researched the property at the county's deeds office and began working to connect with the owner(s). As it turned out, the person who owned the tract had inherited it from someone who had also acquired it through probate. The owner lived in the Upstate; they had no affinity for the property and were happy to sell it to me. After I took ownership in the spring of 2016, I began to learn the history of the property and the family that had owned it for over a century. Mamie and John M. Whetsell Sr. built the Bridal Cabin for their son John Jr. and his fiancé Annie Leila Parler when they got married just before World War II. Then when the elder Whetsells passed on, Junior and Annie lived in the main house for the rest of their lives, using the small cottage as a guest house or rental. Their last house is my current project; Annie Leila's. 

J.M.Whetsell Sr. plat

    This week, I discovered a really old plat of a property that John Whetsell Sr. bought in 1903. The two hundred and fifty acre parcel was on the Edisto River. Along with the Edisto, there is a path through the property labeled Charleston Road. This property was owned by 24th Reg. Capt. A.C. Appleby, and Mr. Whetsell bought it after reaching an accord with A.S. Appleby.    

    Even though this document is handwritten, I can make it all out, save one word:  The above represents a tract of land containing two hundred and fifty acres and is part of what is known as the A.C. Appleby land laid out and measured by request of A.S. Appleby, lines S40.11 + S50E taken from a plat-made by W.C. Griffith dated Nov. 7, 1873 and has such marked ___ bearings and boundaries as are shown in above plat surveyed July 22, 1903. By Jno. L. Gavin Surveyor + C.E.

    Restoring Charleston started with the Appleby House and ended with the Whetsell's Bridal Cabin. Even though both projects were finished years back, it was still very cool to find this plat that connects these two prominent St. George Families.  

How the House in the Woods became Annie Leila's

     My projects have received names. With each one, the identifying moniker happened naturally. My first pig's ear had been devastated by a dryer fire that grew out of control. When folks would ask me about that project, they'd call it things like, "That house you did that was condemned after the fire." So it became "the Fire House." In 2004, I bought another home that building officials had declared uninhabitable. This rotting place was a victim of Hurricane Hugo that slammed into South Carolina in 1989, and it became my "Hurricane House." With each project came similar stories. Another example is the Country Victorian I bought in 2013 that was in American Rehab Charleston. It was, "The house you fixed up on TV," or the "TV House," until I did Restoring Charleston, and then it became the "American Rehab House." 

    In 2016, I needed three more houses for television. Along with the Appleby House, I bought a nine acre property on the other side of St. George with two houses: a bridal cabin that producers named the "Lowcountry Cottage" and the home which I called "the House in the Woods." Schedule and budget demands forced us to pull one home from our plans, so when we wrapped up our filming in August, I was left with my current project house shown in the pictures above. It was back off the main street in town and so engulfed by trees, bushes, and vines that many local residents didn't realize there was a home back in there. 

    The county library has a book that documents all the historic houses in area. In this book, the house is tagged as the "Whetsell House," but when neighbors mention the old home, they regularly call it "Annie Leila's House" or more simply "Annie Leila's," a reference to Annie Leila Whetsell, the previous owner who had lived in the house for most of their lives. 

    Annie Leila is a very pretty name. I've never known anyone named Leila and certainly no one named Annie Leila. I liked the name, The House in the Woods, but I like Annie Leila's much more. She called it home for decades and surrounded it with beautiful plants that I now enjoy. The neighborhood is still full of people that Annie Leila called friends and loved like family. So naming the property after her just feels right... and sounds a lot better than "Trent's." :)