Authentic Architecture

Remaining outbuildings on an old plantation on Edisto Island


Frame building with "fake" Gothic windows and door - was this a carriage house?


Detail outside frame building.


Tabby ice house


Inside the ice house showing tabby walls.


In a world where everything seems to be shouting (including plenty of the new modernist work) this is what I call quiet architecture. We came across it on our trip out to Edisto Island. These buildings were part of the original plantation - surely built at different times, but notice the care with which they applied the same elements of design. I'm sure a purist would screech at the slightly Victorian details on the tabby ice house (Tabby is a building material made of equal parts lime, sand, water, oyster shells and ash - then plaster is applied to the surface.) But these quirky elements tie them to this land at a particular place and time and that they are still standing for us to enjoy makes my heart sing.