29 July 2015

Old Navy Base - Quarters H-I

Charleston Navy Base, North Charleston, SC   
My last post left everyone so sad seeing the fading glory of the building on the old Navy Base that today's photo is intended to be a more positive view. This is the neighbor of yesterday's photo.

Lovely! In my recent visit I noticed that the walkway and driveway at Quarters H-I was all new, the landscaping was fresh and lovely and the building looks in good shape. Happy day!

This particular building was often featured in the series Army Wives. Here is a 2012 article from the Post & Courier by Robert Behr:
Old Navy Base's Best Building Renewed: It may be the finest architectural work on the former Charleston Naval Base, and a $1.5 million renovation is putting Quarters H-I back into use after remaining vacant for more than a decade.
Built in 1905, this Renaissance Revival work is a highly eclectic blend of classical, arts and crafts and Italianate flourishes -- a Beaux Arts beauty built of first-rate materials.
While the old Navy base has industrial buildings far grander in scale, none of them match this for attention to detail, befitting its original use as the offices of the Commandant, his staff and for the Captain of the Yard.
Its grandeur also fits its prominent site. The 8,000-square-foot rectangular building sits atop one of the base's most prominent hilltops and on axis with the Cooper River in Frederick Law Olmsted's Chicora Park design (Charleston briefly created its own equivalent to New York's Central Park here before President Theodore Roosevelt and the U.S. Navy got interested in the land).

2 comments:

William Kendall said...

It's a beauty- well taken care of!

Catalyst said...

Ah that's better. Well preserved.