Borough House, Kitchen-Storehouse, State Route 261 & Garners Ferry Road, Stateburg

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS SC,43-STATBU,1E-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Part of the Borough House plantation complex on west side of State Route 0.8 mile north of intersection of Route 261 and State Route Stateburg, Sumter County, South Carolina U.S.G.S. Wedgefield, SC 7.5 Minute Quadrangle Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Coordinates: . Present Owner Richard K. Anderson The Borough House RFD 3 Box 276 Sumter, South Carolina

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS SC,43-STATBU,1E-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Kitchen-Storehouse, or Summer Kitchen, is a dependency of the Borough House plantation complex. Originally built of rammed earth in it is one of six dependencies (in addition to portions of the main house) to be built of this material. This complex is of potential national significance because of the number of early Greek Revival structures it contains which were built of this unusual material. The Borough House complex was listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Stateburg Historic Distric in and as an individual site in PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION NOTE: Background material and site history for the Summer Kitchen may be found in data pages for the Borough House, Stateburg, Sumter County, South Carolina, HABS No.

Data specific to the Summer Kitchen follows below. Kitchen-Storehouse HABS No. (Page 2) A. PHYSICAL HISTORY 1. DATE OF ERECTION: c. 2. ARCHITECT: The designer of the Summer Kitchen is thought to be Dr. William Wallace Anderson, owner of the Borough House from to (For further information on Dr. Anderson, see Borough House data pages, p. 6.) 3. ORIGINAL AND SUBSEQUENT OWNERS: see Borough House data pages, pp. 4. BUILDERS AND SUPPLIERS: The Summer Kitchen was originally built chiefly by slaves under the direction of Dr. Anderson. The rammed earth construction method used by Dr. Anderson was based on a description in Rural Economy by Johnson (New York: Dr. Anderson's copy of this book is in the Borough House library.

It is not known whether slave labor or hired workers executed the original finish carpentry and interior surfaces. The clay used to build the earth walls was dug on site, and the stones and brick used for foundations and the chimney were also supplied locally. Glazing was undoubtedly purchased, but the supplier is not # known. Hardware for the doors may have been made locally. The contractors who rebuilt the kitchen portion of the building in the are not known, though rammed earth construction was used in the reconstruction. 5. ORIGINAL PLANS AND CONSTRUCTION: a. PLANS: No original plans are known to survive. b. CONSTRUCTION: Foundations of the building were not examined by HABS and no written data specific to the foundations of this structure were found.

However, the earth in the region is a dense, solid clay, and for this reason the foundations are very likely flagstones superimposed by brick, similar to that observed in for the nearby Church of the Holy Cross (also a rammed earth structure) by Thomas A.H. Miller, an agricultural engineer from the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Public Roads. Exterior walls are made of rammed earth, with the chimney on the north side and gables built of brick, integral with the wall. All the rest of the structure is wooden, except for the asphalt shingle roofing. Please see data pages for the Borough House for further discussion of the rammed earth construction method used in this building. Ki tchen-S to rehouse HABS No. (Page 3) 6.

ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS: In the kitchen portion of this building was destroyed by a falling tree in a severe storm. It was not rebuilt until the and it is not known how much of the original kitchen (such as the chimney, and doors, etc.) may have survived and been reused from the original building. The storehouse, or dairy, portion of the building survived the accident intact, and can be seen standing alone in a photograph taken in by Thomas A.K. Miller. It is thought that White who was raised at the Borough House, relied on memory in directing the reconstruction, which was supposedly carried out on the original foundations.

According to Anderson, the present owner, the current contents of the kitchen (such as cookware) were original to the building and were retrieved from the rubble in The original roofing material was probably cypress shingles, the present asphalt roofing being of modern installation. The building was probably built with simple soffits and cornices, given the lack of classically styled columns and details in the stairway porch. Sometime in the late century scalloped bargeboards were added to the gables to give the building a Victorian flavor. The rooftop whimsy a ceramic bird perched on the peak of the south gable persued by a ceramic cat lower down the roof was installed by White. (The cat was replaced in by Capt.

Anderson after the # original was destroyed by ice.) Gutters were added in to reduce erosion of the foundations by rainwater. B. HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND ASSOCIATIONS Please see data pages for the Borough House, pp. The Kitchen-Storehouse is the only building on the property known to have a dated "cornerstone" in this case set into the middle of the south wall of the storehouse. The kitchen has been known to Anderson and her family as "the Old Kitchen" and the storehouse as "the Dairy". PART II. ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION A. GENERAL STATEMENT: 1. ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER: The architectural style of this one-story building is plain and modest; classical ornamentation such as Tuscan columns and detailed friezes are lacking.

The building contains two rooms and a porch with an exterior stair which leads to a pease attic over the storeroom. The columns Ki tchen-Storehouse HABS NO. (Page 4) supporting the porch and the stairs themselves are constructed from common lumber, there being no turnings or moldings. Exterior walls are finished with a yellow-tinted stucco. Shutters, porch woodwork, and the doors are painted a dark green; all other woodwork is white. The roof is light gray, owing to its asphalt shingles, and there is a dormer with shutters set on the west side of the roof over the stair landing to provide headroom at the top of the stairs. The use of classical design principles in the Summer Kitchen is much less rigorous than in dependencies such as the Weaving House or Dr. Anderson's Office.

To begin, the building lacks the one- or two-axis symmetry used in the other rammed earth dependencies. The surviving original room the storeroom is square in plan, with walls 18 inches thick, giving "outside" dimensions of about by which echo dimensions used in the main house. The door to this room, by over the casing, is almost a double square in proportion, as is the kitchen dutch door at by The kitchen, however, has few clear simple proportions; outside, it measures by The overall dimensions of the building, about by are close to a 7:4 rectangle, if is considered as the basic unit; is more widely used as a unit in the complex, however. The ratio of is equal to the Golden Mean as is the height of the roof ridge to the height of the drip above the foundation top.

These relationships seem somewhat accidental, since they are absent in any other simple dimensional ratios tested (such as IS'-O'^lS'-O" in plan). The east elevation, about 32 feet long, might well be considered to be twice as long as it is high since the peak of the roof is about above the kitchen floor. When one turns to the north and south elevations, however, they present little more to go on. The north or end elevation shown on p. 5 will fit a square about 20 feet on a side, and from this one can see that the height of the soffit is exactly half the height of the chimney, but it should be recalled that this poortion of the building is a reconstruction. It should also be noted that the kitchen walls, at 15 inches thickness, are noticeably less massive than the storehouse walls.

Whether this was White's decision, or whether she accurately reproduced the original conditions, isn't known. It is plausible that the storeroom was originally given its heavier walls, the smaller door, and its tiny window in order to keep the indoor space cool for the storage of dairy products. Anderson's family has frequently referred to the storehouse as "the dairy." 2. CONDITION OF FABRIC: The exterior walls, foundations, and roof are all sound. Interior finishes, windows, and doors are all intact. The building is actively maintained by its owner. Kitchen-Storehouse HABS to. (Page 5) Kitchen-Storehouse HABS No. (Page 6) B. DESCRIPTION OF EXTERIOR: 1. OVERALL DIMENSIONS: About by in plan. Height to the roof peak from the storehouse base is about or about above grade.

The top of the chimney is above grade, 2. FOUNDATIONS: Visible above grade only as a base, where they are covered by the same crepe finish as the walls. 3. WALL CONSTRUCTION: Rammed earth, with brick used for the gables 4. PORCH: The Summer Kitchen has an open, one-story porch at the southwest corner of the building which shelters an open stairway to an attic over the storehouse. The attic over the kitchen itself was not used for any storage. 5. CHIMNEYS: The single large, brick and stone chimney serves a large hearth and a bread oven. It is covered by a crepe finish on the exterior to match the walls. 6. OPENINGS: a. DOORWAYS AND DOORS: The building has two grade level doorways, located on the east side. Both have simple casings and solid wooden doors built up from planks.

Access to the kitchen is by a dutch door, while the storehouse is reached by a single door. At the top of the porch stairs, the door to the pease attic is a plain affair, unpainted, made up of planks and secured with a hook and eye. b. WINDOWS: There are three six-over-six, double-hung wooden sash windows. Each is flanked by two solid, wooden shutters made up of planks. 7. ROOF: Single gable. Internal construction of wood. C. DESCRIPTION OF INTERIOR: 1. FLOOR PLANS: This structure contains three rooms, two on the ground floor and the last in an unfinished attic. The storehouse is approximately 10 feet square, and the kitchen is about by The hearth is 6 feet wide. 2. FLOORING: The floor in the storeroom is unfinished brick, and squared slate flagstone is used in the kitchen.

The floor in the attic is random-width boards approximately 3/4 inch thick. Ki tchen-storehouse HABS No. (Page 7) 3. WALL AND CEILING FINISHES: The interior walls are finished in plaster applied directly to the earth walls. The ceiling in the kitchen is plaster on lath, while that in the storehouse is open joists covered on top by the pease attic floor. 4. OPENINGS: Windows and the door were described above, but all have deep reveals on the interior due to the thickness of the walls. 5. DECORATIVE FEATURES AND TRIM: a. TRIM: The sole trim on the interior is a simple beaded baseboard and a simple molding run around the door and window casings. There is no mantlepiece in the kitchen. b. HARDWARE: All hardware is wrought iron. The doors are carried on strap hinges and are fastened by nails.

The dutch doors are kept shut by a box lock, while the storehouse door is kept closed by a hasp and pin. Shutter hardware (strap hinges, pintles, and keeps) is also wrought iron, fastened by nails. 6. MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT: The structure contains plumbing for a sink in the kitchen, but it has no electrical service or ventilating equipment. D. SITE 1. GENERAL SITING AND ORIENTATION: The Summer Kitchen is located to the immediate northwest of the Borough House. It is reached from the house by a gravel path which surrounds the Summer Kitchen on the east and north sides. The west and south sides face grassy paths, and the building is surrounded by foundation plantings consisting chiefly of roses and herbs.

Please see data pages for the Borough House for further description of the surrounding grounds and consult measured drawings of the landscape and site. PART III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION Please see data pages for the Borough House for a complete bibliography PART IV. PROJECT INFORMATION The Summer Kitchen was recorded as part of the Borough House recording project. Please see data pages for the Borough House for the project description