The Lost Architecture: January 2021 Edition

Posted: February 5, 2021

204 Rutledge Avenue: This was the home of Peter Toglio, a Wadmalaw magistrate, a steamship pilot and caption, and an inventor. The Charleston single house had a double piazza on the back half of the house and a third-floor turret out over the front door. In Sanborn maps and the 1886 Earthquake Damage Assessment, the house was described as a frame house. In 1884, Mr. Toglio applied for a patent for a process of making a faux-brick surface to cover frame houses. Therefore, it is assumed that Mr. Toglio bought the frame house and then after the Earthquake, used his own technology to cover it in the faux-brick covering. Prior to the 1886 Earthquake, the house was numbered 66 Rutledge. (Eberle research, 2020; notices in the Charleston Courier/News & Courier accessed via “America’s News—Historical and Current” [CCPL]. See the patent application for the “Imitation Brick Weather Boarding for Frame Houses”