Now a wing of a larger house, this modest two-story structure was the home from 1919 to 1924 of author Dubose Heyward (1885–1940), author of Porgy, one of the first works to portray Southern African-Americans in a positive light.

[3] Dubose Heyward was born in 1885 into an aristocratic Charleston family, which fell upon hard times, leading him to engage in a number of low-wage jobs early in life.

He was a significant early figure in the renaissance of Southern literature in the 1910s, helping found the Poetry Society of South Carolina in 1920.

In 1925 he moved to North Carolina, where he wrote Porgy, his most significant claim to fame.

It was unique at the time in present a southern African-American in a well-rounded and human light, and not as either a comic foil or propaganda piece.