Horse-Racing will come back in style this November 13^th, with the 18^th running of the Charleston Cup steeplechase. This popular event has traditionally attracted a festive crowd, who take great pride in equestrian dress and lavish displays of food and drink. The morning of the races over 16,000 spectators will enjoy the excitement as the nation’s top riders, trainers, and owners ready themselves to compete for for purses totaling $50,000.  Gates at historic Stono Ferry will open at 9am for a full day of races, featuring some of the finest thoroughbreds in the steeplechase circuit. The excitement of the steeplechase comes from its series of jumps over barriers, which requires incredible skill and athleticism from both horse and rider. Sanctioned by the National Steeplechase Association, the Charleston Cup is a grand throwback to historic days of the South Carolina Jockey Club that won fame throughout the nation for skillful racing, and the Stono Ferry event revives the very sociable aspect of the steeplechase, with live music, food, and a gala atmosphere. Ready to join in on all the fun?  For ticket information and gate times, call 843-766-6208, or visit www.charlestoncup.net. (Original art by Landis Powers)

The Sound of Charleston, Special Holiday Edition is a wonderful way to hear the sounds of the Christmas season in one of the city’s most historic locations, the Circular Congregational Church at 150 Meeting Street. From Gospel music to Gershwin, the variety of musical offerings have been chosen as a flavor of Charleston’s musical heritage, and the picturesque Roman Revival structure will be festively decorated with traditional ornaments and lights. Concerts will be featured on Nov. 30, and Dec. 7, 14, 21 and 28, from 7-8:15 pm. After each performance, guests are invited to join the cast for a merry gathering with cookies and hot wassail. Tickets are $16 for youths, $28 for adults, and $25 for seniors, students, and active duty military. Tickets are available at the Charleston Visitor Center at 375 Meeting Street, or online at www.soundofcharleston.com, or by phone at 843-795-7275.

One of the most enjoyable events at Christmas time is the annual Holiday Festival of Lights at James Island County Park, November 9th-December 31st. With more than two million lights filling three miles of the park sky with dazzling nightly displays, the festival presents a stunning and literally moving visual experience from the car or a 54-car passenger trolley that is ideal for the entire family. In addition, families can stop in and participate in children’s train rides, marshmallow roasts, carousel rides, and enchanted
forest walking trail, live music, refreshments and gift shops, and the always-popular sand sculpture display. Tickets may be purchased at the park gate on James Island, and touring by vehicle is $12 per car, or by train, $3 per person, under 2 years free. For information., call 843-795-7275.

The gargantuan limbs of live oak trees stand like mesmerizing sculptures throughout coastal South Carolina, and the grandest of them all is the Angel Oak on Johns Island. Arborists estimate the massive tree is more than 1500 years old, and is more than 28 feet in circumference, with its farthest branch 187 feet from the trunk, and a with a canopy that creates shade that covers 17,200 feet. The name was derived from the Angel family that owned the property many years ago, but is scientifically in the family Quercus Virginiana. The term “live oak” refers to the fact that this species is green all year, and does not lose its leaves in the winter. The live oak is heralded for its beautiful wood and longevity, but few come close to the age of this marvelous tree. As is typical of the live oaks, growth is more lateral than vertical, and the tree is only 65 feet high, but spreads massively outward with extensive limbs that seem to defy physics. The giant tree is now property of the City of Charleston, and visitors can visit for free and enjoy this awesome natural architecture. The tree is located near the intersection of Maybank Highway and Bohicket Road on Johns Island. Because of concerns that development or environmental changes could harm the tree, an advocacy group has been formed to preserve it and offers considerable information about this natural wonder at www.savetheangeloak.org.

The Confederate Home at 68 Broad Street is one of the most often-photographed buildings in a city famous for its historic images. The structure was built in 1800 in the Federal style as a private residence and became home to Governor John Geddes from 1810-1825. The expanded eight-bay facade was a departure from the narrow street frontage of the Charleston single house, signaling the great wealth in the city during the post-Revolutionary years when cotton exports boomed. Yet it was Charleston’s meager financial fortunes decade later that actually saved the building and made it the landmark it is today.

Before the Civil War, the big house had been converted as the Carolina Hotel, but in the wake of hostilities, it was nearly abandoned and purchased as benevolent home and college for the mothers, widows and daughters of Confederate soldiers, in 1867 by Charleston philanthropist Amarinthea Yates Snowden who mortgaged her own home to buy it. After the building was damaged by the Charleston earthquake of 1886, there was not enough money to replace the aging structure, but insurance paid enough to provide a new roof. Among the most popular building styles at the time was the Mansard Roof, a Baroque concept of high-hipped roof with elaborate dormer windows that offered more space, lighting and distinguishing look. The new roof made the old building spectacular, and even on a street and in city renowned for architecture, it always turns the head.

  Charleston Architecture - The Branford-Horry house at 59 Meeting Street is somewhat unusual in that it is a double house design equipped with a frontal piazza. If there is any columned covering on the front of a double-house, it is typically a narrow portico that does not extend the width of the building, as in the Josiah Smith house down the street at 7 Meeting. Furthermore, the house-length piazza found on most single-house designs runs down the side, not the front. The reason the house has this feature is that it was built and redesigned in two different eras. A successful rice planter, William Branford, built the house in the 1750’s, when the double house was a mark of great wealth and stature, and Branford’s property stood prominently at the corner of two of Charleston’s grandest avenues, Meeting and Tradd streets. Nearly 80 years later, Branford’s grandson, Elias Horry was a prominent businessman, politician and socialite, who apparently wanted to add his own distinguishing feature to the house he inherited. Horry’s street-front piazza is an exceptional mixture of wood and ironwork. The second floor feature a wooden parapet and iron grille work matching that of South Carolina Society Hall. In the architrave between first and second floors there are carved triglyphs also like those on the Society Hall portico. But perhaps the most striking feature is the sheer mass of the first floor columns - each made of solid long-leaf pine. These powerful columns are of wood with growth rings so dense, they are nearly impervious to rot, and when one recently did show signs of age and needed repair, there was no such wood in existence today to match it, so mahogany and sepili was used. Finally, one of the most noteworthy aspects of the grand piazza is that it was once the location of a city bus stop, and for many years, bus riders enjoyed Horry’s addition as a way to get out of the rain or sun.

  Bet You Did Not Know - The scenic riverfront drive along Murray Boulevard was mostly former mudflat that was filled in during an ambitious landfill project in 1911. The area beyond today’s South Battery Street was known as South Bay, and for most of its history was largely unused, except for a few assorted docks and wharves. The earliest was Gibbes’ Wharf, which extended from the William Gibbes House more than 300 feet as a loading area for various goods brought in from the surrounding sea islands. These goods were sold in an outdoor market o the east of the Gibbes house, while to the west, smaller lumber docks brimmed with loads for mills along the Ashley River. By the late 19th century, plans were made to build a promenade from the Ashley around the peninsula east to the Cooper, and after several efforts were stalled, Charleston philanthropist Andrew Buist Murray offered money to complete the project. Coffer dams were planted in the mud as a barrier against the river, and steam dredges transferred tons of soil from the river bottom to build up the wetland area. The first promenade was a road bed of crushed shell for a pedestrian walk and carriageway, and by 1913, the first houses were being built on the new boulevard named for Murray.

  Charleston Market Report -

Charleston Real Estate Market Continues Positive Progress
Year-to-date figures show 12% sales growth, 4% increase in prices

CHARLESTON, SC— (November 13, 2012) According to preliminary data released today by the Charleston Trident Association of REALTORS® (CTAR), 898 homes sold at a median price of $185,112 in October. These figures, representative of all homes sold through the Charleston Trident Multiple Listing Service (CTMLS), show a 34% increase in sales volume and a slight 2% decline in prices when compared to preliminary figures from October 2011.

Year-to-date figures demonstrate continued positive progress for the local real estate market: 8,794 homes have sold at a median price of $187,597 thus far in 2012. At this point last year, 7,827 homes had sold at a median price of $179,925. This year’s figures show 12% growth in sales volume and a healthy, sustainable 4% growth in median price.