Historic foundation takes ex-Beaufort mayor to court over Smalls house tours. Here’s why
The historic house where congressman and Civil War hero Robert Smalls once lived in Beaufort is at the center of a new court dispute between the city’s leading historic preservation group and a former mayor who now owns the property.
Two points are at issue: Is too much public traffic being allowed at the historic house, which is located in a residential neighborhood? And has the house become — or will it — something other than a private residence, which it has been since it was constructed some 180 years ago?
Historic Beaufort Foundation has filed a complaint Monday asking a judge to enforce an easement it says bars daily public tours at the historic house.
Former Mayor Billy Keyserling and his brother Paul own the property at 511 Prince St., which is in the city’s Point neighborhood. They bought it for $1.7 million in August with the intent of improving the interpretation of the site and making it more publicly accessible.
The brothers have an agreement with the National Park Service, in which guided tours are allowed on the property and sometimes inside the home. Plans for additional interpretation are in the works.
HBF has a 20-year-old legal easement on the property to protect it. It requires the house be used as a private residence. That easement, the groups says, stipulates the house can only be accessed by the public four half-days a year by educational organizations, architectural associations and historical societies to study the property.
“Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendants have allowed and encouraged public access to the Property by regular, even daily, tours led by National Park Service Rangers,” the HBF complaint states.
The complaint also says it suspects the Keyserlings have plans to expand public access, possibly converting it into a museum.
By opening the residence to daily tour groups, HBF contends, the Keyserlings are seeking to change the house’s status as a private residence. HBF is asking for an expedited non-jury trial and a ruling by the court that the easement is binding.
“We don’t agree with the Keyserlings, and they don’t agree with us,” Cynthia Jenkins, executive director of HBF, told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet. “We have a responsibility to protect our easements and protect what they state.”
A tenant is renting and living in the basement, so it’s still a private residence, Billy Keyserling said.
Out of deference to the neighborhood, Keyserling said, only walking tours of small groups led by the Park Service are allowed. Larger groups are not allowed inside.
“We think we have every right as the owners of a private property to invite people into our house,” Keyserling said, “or even have small events that are non-disturbing to the neighborhood.”
The house, Keyserling added, is not a museum or commercial venture. “Nobody makes any money on it,” he said.
Plans by the Keyserlings for the property have drawn opposition from many neighbors who argue it already is well-protected. Concerns about increased tourism traffic in the quiet neighborhood with narrow streets, and the loss of local control of the city’s important historic sites, are other concerns. The Keyserlings have argued they can improve access to the property, better telling Smalls’ remarkable rise from slave to spokesman for Black rights, without a major disruption, and say their plan has support in the community, too.
The National Historic Trust for Historic Preservation is raising money to repay the Keyserlings for their $1.7 million purchase of the home. The Keyserlings, in turn, plan to turn the property over to that organization. The end goal, Billy Keyserling said, is to have the Trust transfer the house to the National Park Service, which runs Beaufort-based Reconstruction Era National Historical Park. The park administers a collection of 67 public and private sites and programs related to the American Reconstruction era from 1861 to 1900.
Some residents of the Point neighborhood who are opposed to how the Keyserlings are proceeding have formed a nonprofit called Friends of the Point, which has hired legal counsel, but HBF is the first to take legal action.
“Nobody knows the relationship between Keyserlings and the Park Service,” HBF’s Jenkins said. “And what is the long-rage plan of the Park Service?”
Remain a private residence
David and Marilyn Atwell donated the easement to HBF in 2002 to “assist in preserving and maintaining the premises and its architectural, historical and cultural features,” according to the legal document, and to ensure that the home would be used only as a residence.
The intent, Jenkins said, was to allow the historic house to be shared with the public, but also that it remain a private residence. Since it was constructed, Jenkins noted, it has undergone extensive remodeling and bears little resemblance to the house and grounds of the mid-1800s.
The purchase of the house, and making it more accessible to the public, is part of a larger effort by the nonprofit Second Founding of America: Reconstruction Beaufort to tell the missing stories of the Reconstruction Era, or to correct them, said Keyserling.
In Beaufort, the group has purchased or raised money for historic properties to help tell those stories. That includes a freedom’s cottage on Congress Street; the First African Baptist Church; the deacon’s study house at Brick Church on St. Helena Island, and the Grand Army Hall on Prince and New Castle streets. In each of those projects, agreements are in place with the Park Service that allow for access and interpretation.
The McKee-Smalls house is already well protected by the easement — a legally binding contract — but also by city of Beaufort zoning codes, said Jenkins, noting easements protect properties forever, even after they are sold.
The McKee family built the house. The exact year isn’t known. Historians believe it was about 1835 or 1840. In 1864, Smalls purchased the house at 511 Prince Street, where he had lived earlier in his life when he was still a slave.
During the Civil War, Smalls became a hero when he stole a Confederate boat called the Planter that transported military cargo, and escaped, handing over the boat to the Union fleet. Later, Smalls served in the South Carolina legislature and was elected to Congress.
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 3:32 PM.
