It's Oleander time!

Oleanders at Colonial Lake, Charleston, S.C.

The Oleanders are in bloom at Colonial Lake making a nice frame for the Baker House. When I recently featured old pictures of the downtown hospitals someone asked about the old Baker Hospital. This is it. It is now ritzy condos.

Baker House:  The Baker House was constructed in 1912 as the Baker-Craig Sanitarium. This sixty-bed hospital and nursing school was founded by Dr. Archibald E. Baker Sr. and Dr. Lawrence Craig. The Baker House was designed by John D. Newcomer and Ernest V. Richards, prominent architects of the period. The building is a rare example of early 20th-century Eclectic architecture in Charleston, with Mission Revival and Craftsman design features. The Baker Hospital relocated in 1981, and in 1983 the building was rehabilitated for residential use. The building is protected under a conservation easement by the Preservation Society.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. I am trying to spruce up my yard and stopped at Lowes to load up my little car with greenery, blossoms and edging stones. I've been spending so much at Lowes I might as well arrange to have my paycheck directly deposited there. On the way home I stopped at the new Black Bean Company restaurant on Savannah Highway. Yum! They have a full dinner menu now and had live music playing. It was a healthy, tasty oasis in the KMart parking lot.