The Joseph Yates House

The Joseph Yates House. 27 Meeting Street. This three-story Charleston single house was constructed by local merchant and cooper Joseph Yates after he purchased the property in 1810. The dwelling replaced a two-story wooden house that belonged to colonial politician and military leader Colonel Elias Vanderhorst., Constructed of brick on a partially raised basement, the Joseph Yates House contains a typical Charleston single house plan with the narrow end facing the street and a central stair hall with a single room on each side. It is significant as part of a larger row of brick single houses that represents the city's vernacular architectural traditions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a booming mercantile port. The dwelling is capped with a hipped roof and features a decorative stringcourse between the second and third stories. By 1920, the iron gates were installed and a nineteenth-century piazza was replaced with the current entrance tower. Additional twentieth-century ironwork adorns the façade's second story., In 1855, former president of the South Carolina Railroad Henry W. Conner purchased the Joseph Yates House and used it as a rental property. By the start of the American Civil War, the property was rented by Britain's consul, Robert Bunch, who established both a residence and an office within the dwelling. Initially tasked with assimilating into the Charleston elite to encourage the reversal of certain slavery laws, Bunch ultimately influenced the outcome of the Civil War by advising Great Britain not to intervene, despite the country's mercantile ties to the port of Charleston. During Bunch's tenure at the Joseph Yates House, General P. G. T. Beauregard, commander of the Confederate forces in Charleston, established his headquarters just a few doors south at No. 37 Meeting Street., In the early twentieth century, the dwelling served as a female-operated boarding house by the Gadsden family. By 1927, widow Katherine Hughes resided here while running the Cabbage Row Book Store at No. 89 Church Street, famously known as “Catfish Row” in Dubose Heyward's 1925 novel Porgy.