Gracious Greenville

Every town has one. A boulevard made for strolling and shopping, or a street whose profusion of colorful indigenous flora makes even a drive by seem like the sensory feast offered by a botanical garden. There are those avenues that trot out local architectural styles with aplomb, and alleys that offer charming vignettes of walled gardens and bright terraces. Signature streets that define a place. Think Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Ocean Drive in South Beach, East Bay in Charleston. 

While Greenville has plenty of charming streets, Crescent Avenue is so densely studded with fine (and unique) homes it could very well top the list of our defining streets. And not because, like a row of Charleston singles, it squarely puts an era on display.  Rather, it is because Crescent has developed slowly over the last century, unrestricted by any one master plan or design.

Look for Crescent Avenue just a short distance from downtown. If you travel down Broad Street to McDaniel Avenue, Crescent extends from Church Street (near Augusta Road) and curves its way around to Cleveland Street. (Given the turn of the street, the name is somewhat apt.) 

But consider a little bit of history before you make the trip over to see it. In the years before the Civil War, Crescent Avenue was just a dirt road leading out from the McDaniels' farm. The war nearly put that little path on the map because it was the site of a skirmish (in which no one was injured or killed), now long forgotten by the history books. Decades later in 1895, entrepreneur Jacob Cagle came along and founded a mineral spring health resort called Crescent Ridge Spa. He had a mind to sell property around the spa, touting its healthful air "away" from the bustle of Main Street.

His idea never took off. In fact it wasn't until 1916 that plats were drawn and real estate development began in earnest, but it took another ten years and the influx of Greenville General Hospital's doctors to establish the area as Greenville's toniest "suburb." 

Many of these homes still stand, set back from the street with broad expanses of lawn spilling from stately entrances and passing under eighty-year-old water oaks to the sidewalk. You'll find a Colonial Revival in the 200 block that was one of Willie Ward's first designs. Ward was one of South Carolina's most noted architects of the 20th century and he was responsible for designing many of the grandest residences in this area.

You'll also see the Donaldson House at #412, listed on the National Historic Register. You'll see brick versions of Charleston singles, clapboard Colonials, a giant Tudor with massive gables, a low-slung 1950s contemporary snuggled right next to an imposing Federal-style façade with massive white columns. All different, all impressive, and all thoroughly Greenville.