Robert Mills House
1616 Blanding Street

Native Charlestonian Robert Mills designed this Classic Revival mansion for Ainsley and Sarah Hall in 1823 as a replacement for their earlier home located across the street. By incorporating elements such as symmetry, a projecting pedimented portico, and stately Ionic columns into its front facade, Mills recalled the classic architecture of ancient Greece. Spanning the home's entire rear façade is a wide porch supported by slender columns and gentle arches, a characteristic found in many Mills designs. Originally, the building's brick façade received a red wash to color its mortar, which was then penciled over with white lead paint to give the appearance of perfect mortar lines laid in a Flemish bond pattern.

Though Hall was known as a pioneer merchant, his untimely death in 1823 at the age of forty left his widow with financial troubles. Ultimately, she sold the property to the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia for use as a seminary. In 1927, the Synod moved out, but the site remained in use by three religiously affiliate institutions for next thirty years -- Chicora College (overflow housing, 1927-30); Westerveldt Home (an institution for children of missionaries, 1932-1938), and Columbia Bible College (1938-1958). By 1960, Mills' once grand creation had fallen into major disrepair and was slated for demolition, having stood vacant for two years.

A grassroots preservation movement began and coalesced to form Historic Columbia Foundation in 1961. This group of citizens, led by Columbia's own preservationist Mabel Payne and many other generous women and men, created a successful campaign to save the building. Historic Columbia bought the structure in 1963 and four years later the property was opened as an historic house museum that interprets architecture and the decorative arts of the 1820s -1830s. Tours of this mansion are offered daily from Tuesday through Sunday on the hour. Tickets are available in the Museum Shop, adjacent to the house.

Staci Richey and John Sherrer

Return to Articles.