The planters and traders of pre Civil War in Charleston spent fortunes on their homes. We had only been a country for thirty years yet international trade was enormous.
Most all of the towns manors and homes had one thing in common, grandiose staircases and entrances. The first thing a visitor saw.
The photographs below are of stairs, three stories high, circular, and they float free from the walls. An impressive creation in 1808.
Nathaniel Russell House, Charleston, South Carolina.
Very nice – the craftsmen (likely abroad) of that era were incredible.
Pre civil war architects usually studied in England. Labor was local and enslaved.