The narrowest house in Charleston

Pitt oil base pencil, watercolor and color pencil on CP watercolor sketchbook 10 in x 7 in

On the corner of America and Reid streets, in what it was Hampstead Village now known as Eastside neighborhood, there’s a structure that caught my attention. It looked like a traditional house in Charleston, short front side and long side decks, but it’s not a habitable house, not with one door wide, I thought. So it turns out this is a house/sculpture made by an artist who with the input of the local community wanted to build an attraction. During my sketching time, several people liked my sketch, I noticed how diverse this neighborhood is (there’s a link at the end of this post for more info). One of them stopped by and claimed he built the house. He identified himself as Albert Alston. I didn’t know what to think about it. First, the house/sculpture has several signs warning people not to publish images of this structure without permission of the owner, so when he identified himself as the owner I went into a caution mode and told him I was practicing my drawing, a move it’s always in the back of my mind as a preventive measure to ease potential awkward situations.

 I told him I was visiting Charleston and I showed him also my sketches of Savannah and Jacksonville, immediately after this he seemed more at ease and asked me to send him a copy, he wrote his name and address in my sketchbook, I blurred his address.

 Then he immediately called someone and had a conversation I overheard, about how another person (me) was interested in the sculpture and how he was the creator of the trendy tiny houses, he left without saying good bye.

When I finished my pencil sketch, I crossed the street and read the plaque of information on the house/sculpture, then I understood what just had happened.  

This is the other piece of art mentioned in the plaque located in the counter corner of the house.

Google my name, he told me, so out of curiosity I did and found an image of him with his  family, it was him, the man I just talked to, Albert Alston.

For more information about this Charleston neighborhood’s history, click here. It’s very interesting.