This historic Beaufort house was in two Hollywood films. You can get a glimpse inside
This year’s Fall Festival of Houses and Gardens in Beaufort, which highlights the city’s historic and architecturally significant houses, will feature a home that’s appeared in two Hollywood films and other gems that are usually off-limits to the public.
During the festival, visitors and residents tour historic, private homes and gardens in the city’s National Historic Landmark District, getting a rare glimpse behind closed doors of the city’s high-style architecture produced by pre-Civil War planters, which has become known as the “Beaufort Style.”
The city also is known for the folk architectural patterns of its post-war African American community.
“It’s a way that people get introduced not just to the exterior of these houses,” Cynthia Jenkins, executive director of the Historic Beaufort Foundation (HBF), told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, “but the settings and the interior.”
Jenkins calls visiting the houses in historic downtown Beaufort along the Bluff, on the Point and in the downtown commercial district and walking the gardens “truly a magical experience.”
The tour, which typically draws 500 to 600 history and architecture buffs from around the country, generates revenue for HBF’s preservation efforts, as well as income for food and lodging establishments and the city via accommodation taxes.
Anybody can buy tickets.
On Friday, HBF announced the lineup of homes and gardens in the festival, which is Oct. 22-23.
A highlight of the weekend will be Sunday’s brunch and tour of the Edgar Fripp House, also called Tidalholm, built around 1853 and featured in the 1979 film, “The Great Santini,” based on the 1976 novel by Beaufort’s Pat Conroy, and the 1983 film “The Big Chill.”
Owner John C. Tashjian, a New York City developer, purchased Tidalholm for $1.76 million in 2017 and restored it. It’s address is 1 Laurens St.
Jenkins and local architect Rob Montgomery will discuss the Beaufort Style of architecture and way of life.
Jenkins, who was married at Tidalholm, has conducted research on its owners and guests after it became a guest house in 1935.
“It’s sort of a who’s who of early 20th century people,” Jenkins said.
Many well-heeled northerners stayed at Tidalholm, she noted. Writers were frequent guests as well. Southern Literary Review, Jenkins said, was founded there. And, during the winters, the publisher of Reader’s Digest was a frequent guest.
Saturday’s walking tour will take visitors through modest cottages to grand residences to historic churches built between 1786 and the early 1900s.
Highlights include:
▪ Milton Maxcy House at the corner of Church and Craven streets, which was constructed around 1810 and remodeled in the 1850s. Also known as the “Secession House,” it was the location where leaders of the Beaufort District declared secession from the United States. It later was used as a Union hospital during the Civil War.
▪ John Joyner Smith House, built around 1850 on Bay Street. It may be most famous for having a false front door. During the Civil War, it was the Union headquarters for General Isaac Stevens.
▪ “Petit Point” on Washington Street, behind University of South Carolina Beaufort, which was built around 1855.
▪ Talbird-Sams House on Hancock Street, built around 1786.
▪ Adam Davis Hare House on Craven Street, built around 1924.
▪ The Parish Church of St. Helena and its churchyard, one of the oldest active churches in North America.
▪ An officer’s cottage that was saved and relocated from U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island to the Point neighborhood.
▪ The John Mark Verdier House on Bay Street, which underwent an exterior renovation in 2021 taking it back to its 1804 paint scheme.
Tickets for sale
Reservations are strongly recommended. Tickets for the Saturday tour are $60 for HBF members and $75 for nonmembers. Tickets for the Sunday brunch and tour of the Edgar Fripp House are $130 for HBF members and $150 for nonmembers.
Call HBF at 843-379-3331 or online at historicbeaufort.org. Online ticket sales close Oct. 20. Tickets will also be available for purchase from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, at the fall tour station in the Arsenal Courtyard, 713 Craven St.
