Architectural History: Bloomsbury - Part 2.

Thank you Dick Simons for providing us with a copy of the Fall 2009 edition of the magazine, Carologue. From an article by Katherine W. Giles entitled Albert Simons, "The Dean of Charleston Architects," I derived information on Albert Simons.

To understand the Bloomsbury of today you need to know the man who guided its restoration. Albert Simons has been called the Charleston "Dean of Architects." Born in Charleston on July 6, 1890, he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. There, he studied under the acclaimed French architect Paul Cret. After graduating in 1912, he toured Europe and North Africa for 18 months. Upon his return, he went to work for the prominent Baltimore architect Lawrence Hall Fowler, through whom he was privileged to meet Howard Sill.

With the out-break of World War I, construction came to a stand-still. Simons lost his job in Maryland and returned to Charleston. He occupied himself by studying and drawing the city's old buildings. When the noted artist Alice Ravenel Huger asked for some architectural drawings for her book, Simons obliged. He helped to create what would become the acclaimed, The Dwelling Houses of Charleston. Next, he joined the architectural firm of Todd, Simon, & Todd. His first restoration job was the installation of bathrooms in the William Washington House at 8 South Battery. All were impressed with his ability to modernize without destroying the historic integrity of the home. In 1917, Simons married Harriet Porcher Stoney; they had four children.
After the war, Simons joined forces with Samuel Lapham. In 1920, they formed Simons and Lapham. It was tough times, they found work in unlikely places: local plantations and homes purchased by wealthy northerners (of which Bloomsbury is a perfect example). His pen walked through history and he wrote several seminal works including Plantations of the Carolina Lowcountry and the Octagon Library of Early American Architecture, Volume I: Charleston, South Carolina a definitive work on Charleston architecture.

The history of architectural renovation in Charleston has his fingerprints everywhere. In 1931 Simons led the effort to establish Charleston's Board of Architectural Review. For forty years, he was the only architectural member. He was part of the restoration of many of Charleston's most noted architectural gems: the Heyward-Washington House, the Joseph Manigault House, the Dock Street Theatre, the Nathaniel Russell House, and the Historical Society's fireproof building. And thanks to his work, the Robert Mills's Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C. was saved. Today we can all enjoy it as the National Portrait Gallery.
Robert P. Stockton of the Preservation Society of Charleston once observed, "Mr. Simons said he preferred the use of 'friendly persuasion' in preventing the harmful alteration or destruction of historic structures. 'Sometimes I won; sometimes I lost,' he said. But always, was avoided the kind of confrontation which might make an applicant take his case into court, 'where a judge may have keen knowledge of the law, but may have no sense of architectural propriety."

Through many years, Simons continued to practice and served on the National Committee of the Historic American Building Survey, the State Board of Architectural Examiners, president of the Carolina Art Association, associate member of the National Academy of Design, and as a member of the Society of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Albert Simons died on May 23, 1980. With continued gratitude, we hereby highlight the man who provided the architectural expertise that saved Bloomsbury in the early 1930s.