Waiting in the vestibule for the 4 p.m. tour a small crowd began to mount. We were advised by the little ladies who keep the peace there that we could also wait out on the veranda, but strictly nowhere else until our guide arrived.

We huddled in the wicker rockers and tried our hand at the "courting bench" apparently created by the owner as a means to keep an arthritic relative "active." A sort of long see-saw on rockers, younger folks tried out the contraption for the fun of it and leaned that the rocking and swaying also managed to bring them eventually closer together as they edged toward the center. At the unique moment of unity, a kiss and a promise was expected.

The guide began her tour of the interior explaining that it had been built originally by a young man who had come to the new world at the age of seventeen from Scotland to build his fortune. In a short time he had earned enough from his rice plantations to build one of the first homes in the new area of Charleston’s waterfront on reclaimed wetlands. He married and raised thirteen children in this home until speculations on another commodity, wheat, and an ensuing financial panic forced him to sell the home. (Don’t worry, he recovered beautifully, later on.)

The new owner, Charles Alston, from a wealthy rice plantation dynasty, bought the house and offered changes to increase its original grandeur, including the addition of the upstairs verandas and columns which emulated the Greek Revival style of that period. Most of the furnishings which visitors see in the home are originals that had been keep safe by his offspring and heirs over the centuries following.

What treasures they are! Faux marble wall finishes, popular even back then, adorn most of the walls in colors that have been authenticated by scientific analysis. One of the first gas chandeliers installed into the city hangs ever still in the front foyer, lighting the series of Italian engravings from the 18th century which hang there, acquisitions from the families European travels.

A Girandole mirror, circa 1810 hangs in the dining room and 18th century silver pieces from renown smiths in London are displayed in a glass cabinet. Upstairs, a magnificent library with a collection of 2,000 leather bound rare edition books collected by three generations of the Alston family are on display along with an impressive 18th century telescope and rifle made by James Purdey. We are told that a man was judged not only by his wealth, but by his collection of books. Great critieria!

Read part two, for more fascinating facts.