Lowcountry Single Style Architecture

The Kaminski House was built as a Georgetown single house, the dominant architectural style of Georgetown houses built between ca. 1730 and 1830. Although the house was enlarged in the 1880s to 1890s, the single house style remains apparent today in the front portion of the house.  

A relatively simple style, the single house is a long, narrow rectangle, typically two or two-and-one-half-stories high, set on a raised foundation, with a hipped roof and dormers. The narrow end of the single house faces toward the street, while the long side of the house, the entrance and porches, face towards the lot or lawn. The street entrance leads to a porch (piazza in the lowcountry vernacular), so designed to provide privacy. The piazza typically faces south or west to intercept a cool summer breeze. The actual entrance into the house is in the center of the porch, which leads to a central stair hall that separates the interior into two rooms on each floor. In the single house tradition, two chimneys set to the rear serve as fireplaces in the two principal rooms on each floor. There are usually long piazzas off each floor of the single house, which was the case originally for two floors of the Kaminski House. The long, narrow design of the single house, a single room wide, allows for air to flow through the house. The central stair hall allows air to flow upward to the upper floors. In essence, the single house is an acclimation to climate.

The lowcountry single house originated in Charleston, where it was adapted to a subtropical climate. However, historians point to evidence that Barbados likely influenced the architectural style. The word “single house” is first found in a book published in 1657 in London that describes houses in Barbados. Richard Ligon’s  A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados refers to the advantages of the “single house” in a tropical climate, as opposed to the “double house” with two parallel gables. Ligon describes the single house as cooler and outlines how to position the house for minimum exposure to the tropical sun. Ligon’s account of a tropical house design led historians Warren Alleyne and Charles Fraser, authors of The Barbados-Carolina Connection, to conclude that this pattern for seventeenth century building in Barbados likely influenced the single house design in early Carolina.

Although the Georgetown single house is similar in style to the Charleston single house, they are different in setting. While high walls were used to articulate private space in Charleston and houses were built abutting the street, in Georgetown lawns characteristically extend from the front of the house to the street, as is the case for the Kaminski House.