Rainbow Row

Rainbow Row is the name for a series of thirteen colorful historic houses in Charleston, South Carolina.

[citation needed] Rainbow Row originally fronted directly on the riverfront of the Cooper River, but that land was subsequently filled in.

In 1931, Dorothy Haskell Porcher Legge purchased a section of these, house numbering 99 through 101 East Bay, and began to renovate them.

[citation needed] Rainbow Row is composed of thirteen different buildings, most of which share party walls with their neighboring houses.

The two-part structure at the northwest corner of Tradd St. and East Bay St. anchors the southern end of Rainbow Row.

[2] The William Stone House was built in about 1784 by a Tory merchant who left Charleston for England during the Revolutionary War.

Susan Pringle Frost bought 83 East Bay Street and restored it as a dwelling in 1941, adding a neoclassical balcony to the front and replacing a storefront with a Colonial Revival style door.

[4] In 1778, a former building was destroyed in a fire and was replaced by Scottish merchant James Gordon after he bought the land in 1792.

[6] Merchants Peter Leger and William Greenwood bought a building at 91 East Bay Street in 1774, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1778.

After a series of owners and uses, Susan Pringle Frost bought the house in 1920; she sold it to New York playwright John McGowan in 1941.

Othniel Beale bought the lot upon which 97 East Bay St. is built in March 1741 for a price not indicating the presence of a building.

When he added a small piece of land to his lot in 1748, the deed referred to his "new Brick Store" as one of the landmarks.

Beale also built the adjoining 99-101 East Bay St., a building which shares a roof, party wall, and decorative elements.

Mrs. Dorothy Haskell Porcher Legge was recognized for her groundbreaking restoration work on the house with an award from the Preservation Society of Charleston in 1992.

Indeed, when the house was bought by Irving Solomon in the 1970s, the new owner was unable to determine the original configuration for restoration.