Charleston Gardens and the Landscape Legacy of Loutrel Briggs

by James R. Cothran

University of South Carolina Press, 2010, hardcover; list price $39.95; ISBN: 978-1-57003-891-4

Reviewed by Susan L. Hitchcock

Award-winning landscape architect and garden historian Jim Cothran's new book, Charleston Gardens and the Landscape Legacy of Loutrel Briggs, is a fascinating study of the individual most associated with the so-called "Charleston Style" of garden design. Building on his earlier work, Gardens of Historic Charleston, Cothran's new book provides a comprehensive account of the life and career of renowned landscape architect Loutrel Briggs and analyzes the highly successful conventions of his design philosophy. Cothran's research uncovered details of Briggs' early career and training, as well as his life in Charleston over his many years of residency, that have not been published before. In addition, the book contains valuable information about easements as an effective means of preserving historic gardens.

The book opens with an overview of Charleston's garden history, beginning with plantations such as Crowfield, Middleton Place, Drayton Hall, and Magnolia on the Ashley and Mulberry, Medway, and Middleburg on the Cooper. The text quickly shifts to a discussion of gardens in the city, the focus of the book. The design of the Charleston "single house" determined the spatial layout of the town garden. Cothran concludes the opening chapter with a discussion of the footprint of Charleston gardens, whose shifting patterns reflected changes in use. In the twentieth century, new pleasure gardens were expanded to the rear of the house into areas that had originally accommodated a variety of outbuildings and a work yard.

Cothran's biographical profile begins with Loutrel Briggs' birth in New York City on December 12, 1893. He briefly attended the Art Students League of New York before enrolling at Cornell University to study landscape architecture in 1914. After graduation in 1917, Briggs is thought to have apprenticed in the office of a landscape architect; he set up an independent practice in New York City in 1921. Briggs added teaching to his resume in 1924, when he began as an instructor at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, while maintaining a private practice. Briggs and his students traveled to Europe in 1924 to study the gardens of Italy, France, and England, an experience he said gave him "a clearer understanding of what could be achieved in American gardens."

A visit to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1927 was a pivotal point in Loutrel Briggs' career, leading him to open a seasonal office in 1929. From this point forward, Briggs maintained a winter residence in Charleston, where he met and married Emily Crompton Barker of Philadelphia, who had an antiques and interior design shop on Church Street. By 1933, Briggs' design practice had expanded to the point of taking on a partner, Carl Stelling of New York. The partnership lasted six years, during which time the firm completed many commercial, municipal, and residential projects in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. An important design commission in Charleston during this period was that for Mrs. Washington (Cornelia) Roebling for the William Gibbes House. Briggs' design respected the historic integrity of the site and reflected the design tradition of old Charleston gardens. Thus began a design style discussed in more detail in later chapters. Loutrel Briggs lost his wife, Emily, on September 18, 1950. He dedicated his forthcoming book, Charleston Gardens (1951), to her memory, describing here as the person "who first showed me the gardens of Charleston."

In the 1950s, Briggs began the transition to becoming a full-time resident of Charleston. On June 7, 1953, he married Mrs. Virginia Crowe Burks of Philadelphia, who resided on Wadmalaw Island outside Charleston. They built a permanent residence on Ladson Street and converted a carriage house into an office, where he worked until his death in 1977. During his career, Briggs designed over 100 small gardens in the historic district alone, and ownership of a Briggs garden eventually became a status symbol.

Before describing the Briggs design style in detail, Cothran discusses the landscape architect's role in the Charleston Renaissance, early historic preservation efforts, and community and civic projects. These chapters provide a context for Briggs design style and remind us that artists like Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Elizabeth O'Neill Verner, Anna Taylor Heyward, and Alfred Hutty rekindled a new appreciation of the unique physical and visual environment of Charleston's cultural and historic past, as tourists sought Charleston as a new destination. Briggs began writing articles about Charleston gardens for national magazines, including Country Life (1932), Town and Country (1933), and House and Garden (1933). These lavishly illustrated articles promoted Charleston's historic houses, lovely gardens, and picturesque beauty.

Loutrel Briggs was personally involved in Charleston's historic preservation movement. He carried out one of the first independently executed preservation projects in Charleston when he bought Catfish Row on Church Street and developed a restoration plan, which featured retail shops on the first floor and residential units that faced an interior courtyard. Briggs was a founding trustee of the Historic Charleston Foundation and was an advocate for many early landscape preservation projects, including the protection and preservation of the historic tree canopy along Highway 17 between Charleston and Summerville and the preservation of the gardens of the Hampton-Preston House in Columbia. His community and civic projects remain some of Charleston's most visited sites and include Gateway Walk and improvements to the Heyward-Washington House garden. A lesser known project was his design for the South Carolina Memorial Garden in Columbia.

Given the number of garden designed by Loutrel Briggs in Charleston over the years, Mr. Cothran chose representative examples for in depth discussion, including the plantation gardens at Mepkin and Mulberry, Mrs. Emily Whaley's garden, the William Gibbes House garden, the Hagood garden, the Wilcox garden, and a garden for the Mills House Hotel. These descriptions include fascinating accounts of how the gardens came to be designed. Following are chapters devoted to the Briggs design style, including site details and his plant palette. The book concludes with information on garden easements and a landscape documentation project for Briggs gardens undertaken by the Historic Charleston Foundation. Lastly, Cothran includes a comprehensive list of gardens designed by Loutrel Briggs. Charleston Gardens and the Landscape Legacy of Loutrel Briggs is a significant contribution to southern garden history in a beautifully illustrated book of 208 pages.