THE THOMAS RHODES HOUSE
If These Walls Could Talk
story by NATHAN LIVESAY photos by RICHARD LEO JOHNSON/ATLANTIC ARCHIVES, INC.
Nestled into Beaufort’s historic district sits the quintessential coastal South Carolina home. Built on high ground to protect it from flooding, the home has weathered hundreds of hurricanes since it was constructed. A raised, two-story frame, double verandaed planters home faces south to protect the interior from direct sunlight and to position it to capture the coastal breezes. Just one glance at its wide covered porch and balcony, and it takes little imagination to conjure images from the past that likely played out on this property. Built around 1790 by Thomas Rhodes of England, it is one of the oldest homes in the city of Beaufort. Rhodes was a merchant who split time between Charleston and Beaufort. He built the home and several others in the area as he settled his family and managed his affairs in Beaufort. The property consists of a home, a guest house, and a detached garage, sitting on a parcel between King and Laurens Street. The guest house is a recreation of a 19th-century planter home in Georgia, built with reclaimed heart of pine and decorated with a painting that shows a view of the original house and property that was found between the walls during the renovation of the main house.
Over the centuries, the home has housed numerous people and families, including some historical figures. One of the most interesting occupants of the house was Clara Barton, who led one of the greatest hurricane relief efforts in the history of the United States during 1893 and 1894. Beaufort and the Sea Islands were devastated by a hurricane on August 27, 1893. With no warning and no means of escape, by the time the category three storm had passed, several thousand people were killed by injuries, starvation, malaria, and other illnesses, and nearly 100,000 residents were left destitute in coastal South Carolina and Georgia. Historians have calculated that the total economic impact of the storm was over 1 million dollars worth of damage. Adjusted to today’s dollars, this amount would skyrocket to an amount between 25-50 million dollars worth of damage. To this day, this storm remains the deadliest hurricane in South Carolina history and one of the most dangerous storms ever to hit the United States. Even in the face of tough economic times, private citizens from South Carolina donated over 30,000 dollars to the relief efforts. Still, despite reports of destruction on an unprecedented scale, neither Governor Ben Tillman, the South Carolina legislature, or the United States government allocated monies to the relief effort. That is where 72-year-old Clara Barton and her fledgling organization, the American Red Cross, come into the story.
Barton, who earned the nickname “The Angel of the Battlefield” for her service to injured men during the Civil War, founded the American Red Cross in 1881 at the age of 59 and served as its leader for the next 23 years. She spent time battling smallpox in Beaufort County during the Civil War, and on her return trip, she ended up spending nearly a year in Beaufort overseeing the relief efforts with the Rhodes House as her base of operations. She had to recruit volunteers, solicit, and organize aid and then find an effective means of distributing aid to the devastated residents. She marveled at the resilience and efforts of the residents to rebuild their homes. In her autobiography, Barton says this: “The submerged lands were drained, 300 miles of ditches made, a million feet of lumber purchased and homes built, fields and gardens planted with the best seed in the United States, and the work all done by the people themselves.”
Rick and Gloria Kurz, natives of Rhode Island, bought the house in 2015. The Kurzs have been in Beaufort for many years, but the story of how they got here is classic. He and his wife were in the process of purchasing a home in Charleston when the sale fell through right before closing. Their realtor suggested they check out Beaufort and not wanting to go home empty-handed they made the drive to visit Beaufort. They arrived and, like many others, fell in love and decided this was the place for them. Rick has not left since, while Gloria still commutes to Rhode Island, where she has a business. After living on Cat Island for years, they decided to purchase the Rhodes house. Wanting to increase the livability and flow of the house as well as open it up for entertaining, they began what would be a nearly two-year project to design, renovate, and restore the home. Rick spent most of that time in the adjacent guest house watching step by step as the work was done.
The plans for the renovation were created by Frederick and Frederick architects, a family firm that has done architectural work in Beaufort for the past three decades. The Fredericks visited Beaufort on vacation, and three months later, they decided that this is where they wanted to live and have been here since 1989. Michael and Jane Frederick were commissioned to create a plan to update the home and make it more livable, but to do it in a historically appropriate way. The goal was to modernize the interior so that a 21st century family could function there without making any noticeable changes to the exterior of the home. Their plan for this involved moving a staircase and opening the front room to the kitchen. They created additional space by enclosing a north-facing porch to create a powder room, pantry, and bar. Finally, they also incorporated a garage into the historical footprint of an old outbuilding. They were able to connect the new garage to the main home with a polycarbonate trellis, a feature that the new homeowners appreciated significantly during one of Beaufort’s thunderstorms. They were successful on all fronts as the plan was approved by the historic review board, and the homeowners are pleased with the result. In addition, Frederick and Frederick won an Honor Award for Preservation from the South Carolina chapter of the American Institute for Architects in 2019 for their work on the renovation. This is not the first time Frederick and Frederick have been recognized for their work. They’ve won a long list of local, state, and national awards along with being featured in publications from The Beaufort Gazette to Southern Living and The Wall Street Journal.
Rick and his wife are enjoying life in their new home and are making plans to continue to make the historic property even more attractive and inviting. Rick is a wealth of information about the history of the home and enjoys telling others about it, sometimes also taking questions from the tourists making their way around the historic district. Rick said even with all that information, he is still learning the history of the house and the property. His landscaping efforts often turn into archaeological digs as nearly every time a project requires any digging, he is likely to find artifacts from the history of the home. He has run across old irons, bottles, dishes, and even a saber as he tends to the yard.
You are never far from the past in Beaufort as a critical component of its charm is in the easy access to and constant reminders of its long history. The expression “if these walls could talk” is never more true than when you consider the stories a house that has stood through parts of four centuries can tell.
