729 East Bay Street

Photo by Susan Millar Williams

by Susan Millar Williams 

The Josiah Smith Tennent House reminds us that grand structures meant for gracious living and entertaining were still being built by Southern planters on the eve of the Civil War, and that the ways these buildings have been repurposed over the past century and a half reflect major changes in the world economy.  

Constructed around 1859 on high ground overlooking Town Creek, 729 East Bay Street was supposed to be the city home of Mary Ramsay Tennent and Josiah Smith Tennent, both of whom were the children of rice planters who owned many slaves. The spacious Greek Revival-style single house was designed to take advantage of spectacular views of the water, with French doors and piazzas to catch the sea breezes. But the first shots of the Civil War exploded within sight of the house, at Fort Sumter, just two years after it was completed. Josiah soon joined the Sumter Guards, and Mary took their five children and moved to relative safety in the country. The Tennent house was used as a Confederate hospital, and so was another structure nearby, which came to be known as Tucker Hospital. Josiah died in 1864, at the age of forty-seven, and Mary apparently never returned to Charleston after the war ended.

Carsten Wulbern, a German-born wholesaler of groceries, liquor, and tobacco, bought the house in 1874, while the city was occupied by Federal troops during Reconstruction. Wulbern lived there until the earthquake of 1886 caused serious damage to the building.

The Charleston Cotton Factory opened across the street from the house in 1882.  While there had always been industry in the area, the presence of the factory turned this once-placid corner into a hive of purposeful activity. In 1889, perhaps because he was tired of putting up with the noise and smoke, Wulbern sold his house to the factory, which used it for offices and as housing for the superintendent.  

The City of Charleston eventually bought the property and used an empty section of the lot to construct a warehouse for the incinerator that had been built north of the house. In 1993, the city sold the Tennent House to Agape Ministries to house community services, including a dental clinic. The grounds were landscaped to include the Philip Simmons Community Garden, centered on a life-size sculpture of Simmons working at his anvil. The house was purchased by attorney Akim Anastapoulos in 2014, and the statue was relocated to Hampstead Park.

For more information:

• The Josiah Smith Tennent House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• To see a historic photo of the house and read more about the most recent owner. 
• To read more about the house in the early twenty-first century.