Rucker's
Reno
Due to Neil's renowned professionalism and community profile, he was personally chosen by Charleston's own Darius Rucker to lead the redesign of his historic downtown home.
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119 Broad Street was built by Morton Waring in 1803 then sold to a banker merchant named Mordecai Cohen in 1811, who was the second wealthiest man in South Carolina.
This large, 10,888 sq ft, 3 1/2 story, Charleston single house sits on a .63 acres which is an extremely large property in downtown Charleston.
The white marble façade was added in the late1890s
In 1959, the arch diocese purchased the property and carved the house up as offices.
In 2018 The arch diocese put the property up for sale. When Darius found out there were developers interested in purchasing the property subdividing it and building five houses on one of the lots he purchased the house and put a conservation easement on the property Through the Preservation Society, thus protecting the property from future development such as this.
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Design Program:
The design program was to renovate and modernize the house to bring it back from an office use, to its original glory as a single family home, using as much of the original fabric as possible.
There had never been a modern kitchen, full modern bathrooms or central air conditioning properly designed into the house, so great efforts were made to design these features into spaces which were never meant to be, while preserving fireplace mantles, plaster moldings, original wood floors, windows doors and architectural features.
The historical fabric of the building had already been greatly compromised by Elevators, ductwork and walls being cut and added to the building. All of which was carefully removed And patched back together with great thought and detail to the matching of period materials and craftsmanship.
Once Darius’s public relations team found out about the renovation, they decided it should be documented which wound up being an 8 episode, Design Network series called Ruckers Reno and can be found on UTube.
The second design objective was to design a pool and pool house on the adjacent property that developers had planned to build five speculative homes before Darius saved it!
In spite of the drastic reduction of density being proposed, neighbors came out in force to object to the design of a pool and pool house on the location. Arguing that houses in charleston do not have such large swimming pools and that it should remain a garden.
A year later, the design has been approved and permitted through the city and will begin construction in spring of 2024.