Is Beaufort’s famous historic district healthy? It’s about to undergo a check-up
The National Park Service is coming to South Carolina’s second-oldest city in December to launch a $74,000 study of the integrity and condition of the national treasures contained in the Beaufort National Historic Landmark District.
NPS announced the start of the investigation into the health of the antebellum homes and businesses Wednesday, when it said the study would continue throughout 2022 and involve research, a field survey, photographic documentation, Geographic Information Systems analysis and public meetings.
It is likely to lead to recommendations to improve the district, NPS officials told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, but it won’t result in the historic designation being stripped from the city.
The federally funded study comes as residents, developers and city officials debate the size and style of modern buildings proposed within that historic district, a dispute that has spilled over into the courtroom.
The NPS is charged with monitoring national historic landmarks to ensure they retain the qualities for which they were designated.
Concerns about about development in the city’s historic district were raised to the NPS in May, prompting it to investigate, said Cynthia Walton, acting regional chief of Cultural Resources division, which is based in Atlanta. But, Walton added, her office has been studying a few larger historic districts like Beaufort throughout the Southeast each year for the past several years.
The study will document the district’s current integrity and condition and examine projects and trends that could threaten it ongoing preservation, Walton said.
“What changes have happened in the district, both positive and possibly detrimental?” Walton said. “We definitely expect to see both.”
In 1973, a 300-acre area in Beaufort, with the downtown at its core, was named a national historic district.
Alesha Cerny, a historian in the NPS’ Historic Preservation Partnerships office in Atlanta, said the study “is kind of like a health check of the district.”
A collection of buildings and landscapes in Beaufort’s historic district make it special, not one building, so the entire district will be studied, Cerny noted.
Information from the Beaufort NHL study will enable the NPS, policy makers and the public to better understand the district and take appropriate action, where necessary, if there is damage or threats, Walton said.
NPS has hired Savannah-based LG2 Environmental Solutions, Inc. for $74,000 to conduct the study.
An initial round of public meetings is planned for January, and a draft study is expected to be made available for review next summer.
The Beaufort district reflects three centuries of history including Civil War and Reconstruction following its conclusion, said Cerny, the NPS historian. Its architecture is different from Savannah and Charleston, and Beaufort has preserved a number of distinctive “low-country” houses from the 18th and early 19th centuries, she said. Several buildings, foundations, and other character-defining elements of the district are built of tabby, an important regional building material, Cerny added.
If a historic district is so badly compromised, the NPS could initiate a study to withdraw the historic landmark designation, Walton said. “That’s not on the table for Beaufort,” she said. Everybody can agree, she said, that the city still has plenty of historic character. And the study will not recommend changes to city ordinances, she added.
“This is more of an effort to provide useful data for the management of those resources,” Walton said.
This story was originally published November 17, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
