Isaqueena

Isaqueena (Gassaway Mansion)

Isaqueena (Gassaway Mansion), 2013
Location 106 Dupont Drive, Greenville, South Carolina
Coordinates 34°51′44″N 82°22′24″W / 34.86222°N 82.37333°W / 34.86222; -82.37333Coordinates: 34°51′44″N 82°22′24″W / 34.86222°N 82.37333°W / 34.86222; -82.37333
Area 2 acres (0.81 ha)
Built 1919-24
Architect Minnie Quinn Gassaway
Architectural style Neo-Gothic and neoclassical
NRHP Reference # 82003859[1]
Added to NRHP July 1, 1982

Isaqueena, also known as the Gassaway Mansion, is a historic house in Greenville, South Carolina, and the largest private residence in the Upstate.[2] In 1982 it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The 40-room house was built between 1919 and 1924 by Walter L. Gassaway, a banker and textile mill owner; his wife, Minnie Quinn Gassaway, designed the structure after taking a correspondence course in architecture. Mrs. Gassaway used the mansion itself for entertaining, including card parties and "entertainments in the music room and ballroom", but she also supervised the 110-acre estate that included a working farm and dairy.[3]

As the National Register nomination notes, the three-story house is "an unusual example of eclecticism", blending neo-Gothic and neoclassical elements that include six Doric columns, a Palladian window, a castellated tower, two rooftop patios, and a massive porte-cochère.[4] Stone for the random bond masonry was in part taken from a mid-nineteenth-century grist mill on the Reedy River owned by Greenville founder Vardry McBee.[5]

Walter Gassaway died of a heart attack on June 4, 1930. The following year his widow abandoned Isaqueena for a smaller home (which she also designed) closer to downtown Greenville.[6] Most of the estate was sold for house lots, and the mansion was converted into rental apartments. In 1959, the building was purchased by the fledgling Greenville Art Museum, which occupied it and built an art school building on the property. After the art museum moved to a purpose-built gallery on Greenville's Heritage Green in 1974, the mansion sat vacant until purchased in 1977 for use as a church and school.[7] The building once again became a private residence in the 1990s and is also used as a wedding venue.[8]

References

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. ↑ Gassaway Mansion website.
  3. ↑ "Special Woman, Special House," Greenville News, October 2, 1994; Bob Dill, "The Mansion on the Hill," Greenville Times Examiner, March 17, 1999, 1. The house cost $750,000 to build—at least $10 million eighty years later. Judith Bainbridge, "A century later, Falls Place endures with dignity, beauty," Greenville News, August 13, 2014, City People, 2.
  4. ↑ National Register Nomination Form. At one point Walter Gassaway owned Issaqueena Mills in Central, South Carolina, but it is unclear if the Gassaways dropped an "s" from the name of their estate or whether the omission was a later typographical error.
  5. ↑ "Historic Mill to Museum," Greenville News, June 26, 1962.
  6. ↑ "Walter Gassaway Victim of Short Illness at Home," Greenville News, June 5, 1930; "Special Woman, Special House," "Mansion on the Hill."
  7. ↑ Sharon Todd, "Gassaway Mansion Still Empty," Greenville News, July 6, 1976, 6-B; "Yesteryear," Greenville Piedmont, October 6, 1977, 8.
  8. ↑ Alyce Atkinson, "Gassaway Mansion: 'Something Magnificent,'" Greenville News, October 2, 1994, E1; Gassaway Mansion website.
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