The Conde–Charlotte House, also known as the Kirkbride House, is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that is preserved as a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a variety of ...

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. After a successful vote to annex areas west of the city limits in July 2023, Mobil ...

. The earliest section of the building, the rear kitchen wing, was built in 1822. The main section of the house was added a few decades later and is two and a half floors. The entire structure is constructed of handmade brick with a smooth

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

plaster over the exterior.

History

The house had its beginnings in 1822 as Mobile's first courthouse and city jail, and was built between the southern

bastion A bastion is a structure projecting outward from the curtain wall of a fortification, most commonly angular in shape and positioned at the corners of the fort. The fully developed bastion consists of two faces and two flanks, with fire from the ...

s of Fort Condé. The fort itself was in the process of being

demolished Demolition (also known as razing and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apa ...

at the time. In 1849 the site was purchased by Jonathan Kirkbride from Mount Holly in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

and the old courthouse and jail were converted into a kitchen wing, attached to the newly built main house.Hammond, Ralph. ''Ante-Bellum Mansions of Alabama.'', page 172. New York: Architectural Book Publishers, 1951. The residence would remain in the Kirkbride family until 1905, when it was purchased by B. J. Bishop. The site was purchased by the Historic Mobile Preservation Society in 1940 and a partial restoration was undertaken. It was during this time that the outlines of four of the old jail cells were discovered in the kitchen wing. The restoration would later be completed by

The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America (often abbreviated as NSCDA) is an American lineage society composed of women who are descended from an ancestor "who came to reside in an American Colony before 1776, and whose services wer ...

Description

The house was originally built in the Federal style and was later altered to reflect the

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

style. It has a two-story portico on the front elevation featuring brick Doric columns on the lower level and wooden Corinthian columns on the upper level. The house is wide at the front southern elevation, long at the eastern elevation, and long at the western elevation, including the carriage house. The ground floor is high from floor to ceiling and the upper story is high. The overall structure is brick with stucco, with the front upper portico, rear galleries, and trim in wood.

Historical Neighborhood Restoration

The Conde–Charlotte house and its surroundings became isolated from the rest of the city with the construction of

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

and

urban renewal Urban renewal (sometimes called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address real or perceived urban decay. Urban renewal involves the clearing ...

. Most of the surrounding neighborhood, one of the oldest in Mobile, was demolished to make way for the interstate project. The most notable section of the neighborhood that was destroyed was the early multi-storied townhouses of Bloodgood's Row along Monroe Street. The new construction left only a small one block section of Theatre, Monroe, and Saint Emanuel streets intact afterward, surrounded by a circle of interstate and its associated entrance and exit ramps. With the foundations of Fort Condé being discovered during tunnel construction, a replica fort was rebuilt on the old site after the

George Wallace Tunnel The George Wallace Tunnel is a pair of road tunnels that carry Interstate 10 through Mobile, Alabama from the city's downtown, going beneath the Mobile River, and emerging on Blakeley Island where they join the Jubilee Parkway over Mobile Bay. ...

was finished. The fort is now a backdrop to the Conde–Charlotte house. In recent years the city has sponsored private redevelopment projects to restore this area into "Fort Condé Village", which has seen the relocation and restoration of period appropriate buildings and the addition of brick streets and gas street lamps.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conde-Charlotte House National Register of Historic Places in Mobile, Alabama Museums in Mobile, Alabama Historic house museums in Alabama Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Greek Revival houses in Alabama Houses in Mobile, Alabama National Society of the Colonial Dames of America