Neighbors ask Beaufort to end public tours of historic Smalls house. Here’s why it won’t
Residents of the Point neighborhood are asking Beaufort to stop National Park Service-led public tours of the historic McKee-Smalls House, which they argue violate zoning rules, but the city has no plans to act at this time.
The property is owned by Billy and Paul Keyserling.
“The Owners are overtly authorizing and facilitating regular tours of the Property in clear violation of the residential limitations of the Zoning Ordinance,” attorney Austen Gowder, Jr. said in a letter to Beaufort City Attorney Bill Harvey. “The tours are so frequent and persistent as to be inconsistent with the residential use required by the Zoning Ordinance.”
The letter, written on behalf of Friends of the Point Neighborhood, Inc., includes photographs of visitors on the property, a tour bus on the street and a video showing NPS guides leading tours.
The group is made up of residents who want the historic McKee-Smalls House to remain a private residence with limited public use to minimize the impact on the neighborhood.
A minimum number of visits are occurring at the property, Billy Keyserling said, and the house is being rented out and remains a private residence.
Keyserling has said previously he has no involvement with or control over commercial tour buses that visit the area.
The zoning ordinance limits properties in the area to residential use, according to the residents’ letter to the city, which requests that “the City cause the Owner of the Property to immediately cease and desist violating the Zoning Ordinance.”
It’s the second move this month to end the tours of the property. The Historic Beaufort Foundation has asked a judge to force the Keyserlings to honor an easement it holds on the McKee-Smalls house that limits what groups can visit the property and when. The easement also requires that the house remain a private residence.
But Harvey, the city attorney, said Thursday the city “will leave the resolution to the courts” in light of HBF’s pending litigation, and won’t get involved.
Neighbors are worried the house will cease to be a home and become more of a museum or public attraction, disrupting the neighborhood’s quality of life.
The Keyserlings say that isn’t their plan, although they hope one day to see the property under the NPS management. The Keyserlings already have an agreement with NPS in which rangers give guided tours of the property, which has sparked the legal action.
The McKee family built the house. The exact year isn’t known. Historians believe it was about 1835 but it may have been earlier. Smalls, a former Congressman, Civil War hero and slave, bought it in 1864.
This story was originally published May 12, 2022 at 2:04 PM.
