History
The Aiken-Rhett House Museum, 48 Elizabeth Street, allows modern-day visitors to experience life in antebellum Charleston. The property is a remarkable record of the activities of Charleston's elite as well as the enslaved African Americans who lived and worked at this site. Much of the original nineteenth century material, including wallpapers, painted surfaces, and furnishings, still survive in this dwelling. Although Aiken family members continued to reside in the house until the 1970s, there were minimal twentieth- century alterations. The Foundation has elected to conserve, rather than restore, the rich interior finishes, and so the Aiken-Rhett House remains much as it was during the nineteenth-century.
Specialties
Built in 1820 and greatly expanded by Governor William Aiken Jr., the house survives in a condition that depicts the way it has changed over time.