Presqui'ile
Presqu'ile, or Presqui'ile,, the French term for "peninsula", was an appropriate name for the house built at 2 Amherst St., Charleston, South Carolina between 1802 and 1808 because, at the time, the house stood on a finger of high ground that projected into the marshes of the Cooper River. The builder, Jacob Belser, was a planter, attorney, and state senator. Subsequent owners included Theodore S. Marion, Joshua T. Ward, Maj. Samuel Porcher, Henry Grimke, Joseph Leary, and C.F. Klenke. Then, in 1951, it was bought by the Baptist Association.
It has been speculated that the house was designed by Gabriel Manigault. The interior has fine Adamesque decorations of carved wood and a spiral staircase. There is a single room on each of the first floors and two on the third, in the main, older portion of the house. The stair is set in a semicircular bay on the rear.
A square, three-story rear wing in the Greek Revival style was added by Henry Grimke, a planter who acquired the house in 1840.
In 1962, the Baptist Association announced that the house would be sold so that the operation of their operations could be relocated nearer their users. The house was bought by Arthur Ravenel, Jr. & Co. from the Historic Charleston Foundation in early 1973 for $25,000 and restored starting in 1973. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
