Honoring 3 generations

An issue of "House & Garden" fell into the hands of Henry P. Staats around August 1939, and Charleston would never be the same.

The magazine featured St. Michael's Episcopal Church on its cover and an in-depth exploration of Lowcountry buildings inside.

Photo Gallery

59 Church Street

The Staats-Huffman-Forester family has cared for 59 Church St. for almost seven decades. Click here for a look at one of Charleston's oldest and best preserved homes.

It piqued the interest of the Yale-trained architect then practicing in Litchfield, Conn.

He, his wife Juliette and their young daughter Gay were looking for a southern home to escape the harsh northern winters. Perhaps because of the magazine, they visited Charleston first.

They happened to get a glimpse inside one of the city's oldest surviving homes, 59 Church St., a circa 1735 residence owned by a fellow Northerner as a second home.

That owner happened to mention he was going to sell. Within days, Staats arranged to buy it. His daughter, Gay Huffman, recalls her father marveling over his impulsive act on the train ride back north.

"He said, 'I've never done anything like this in my life,' " she said.

Once in Charleston, Staats befriended historian Samuel Stoney, became involved in the Carolina Art Association and served as a founding trustee of the Historic Charleston

Foundation.

Staats helped set up the foundation's very first house tours. "When dad first started the tours, the idea was to make money to give back (to the homeowners) for a new roof, a new coat of paint," Huffman said. "Things were pretty bad around here." Today, the proceeds support the foundation's work.

Staats served for 19 years on the foundation's board, and then his wife Juliette served 15 additional years and was made a lifetime trustee in 1987.

Their granddaughter, Cathy Forrester, has served seven years and has maintained the house since her grandmother's death.

(Forrester's preservation work now focuses on the Lowcountry environment; she serves as development director of the Coastal Conservation League and also recently wrote "At Home -- Charleston," a look at the city's customs and social traditions.)

And their Church Street home constantly has been available for the foundation's tours and other special events.

The family takes pride in how the house isn't, in their words, "jacuzzied up," and they lived there for decades without central heating or air. Huffman said her father "was really a bug about the paneling. He didn't want anything cut through it, and he didn't want the contrast of hot and cold moving the paneling."

For those who suggest that the city of this era was closed to outsiders, the Staats' experience provides a dramatic rebuttal.

"It was a complete love story with my parents and Charleston," Huffman said.

Katherine "Kitty" Robinson of the foundation said the group is deeply indebted to the family. "From the foundation's lifelong existence, they have been partners in every success," she said.

And one of the biggest ways the family has given back is its future donation of the home to the Historic Charleston Foundation. While the original idea -- hatched in 1959 --was to open it as a house museum, the current plan would allow the foundation to resell it to a sympathetic owner and use the proceeds to support its work.

"Charleston is very different now than it was in 1959," Forrester said.

For instance, now there are four house museums within a two-block radius of 59 Church St., and the neighbors likely aren't as fond of the idea of living next to a house museum, regardless of how well it's kept up.

"My father couldn't envision what Historic Charleston Foundation has become," Huffman said. "He never could have envisioned the whole scene of trophy houses down here right now."

The family's three generations will be honored Tuesday. The Staats-Huffman-Forrester family will receive the Historic Charleston Foundation's highest honor, the Frances R. Edmunds Award, at a Founders Day event at 5 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 61 Church St.

Also, the Samuel Gaillard Stoney Conservation Craftsmanship Award will be presented to Robert Dempsey, David Hoffman and Jim Rhode. The Robert N.S. and Patti Foos Whitelaw Founders Award will be given to those who restored the houses at 93 and 97 Broad St., 32 Legare St. (the Sword Gate House) and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

The event is open to the public, and it's only fitting that the reception afterward will be held in the garden of the Nathaniel Russell House at 51 Meeting St., which Staats helped the foundation buy in 1955 by going door to door, asking for donations.

Robert Behre may be reached at 937-5771 or by fax at 937-5579. His e-mail address is rbehre@postandcourier.com, and his mailing address is 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.