Conde Charlotte House
Conde-Charlotte House
The Conde-Charlotte House, also known as the Kirkbride House, is a historic house museum in Mobile, Alabama, United States. 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 hand-made brick with a smooth stucco plaster over the exterior.
The house had its beginnings in 1822 as Mobile's first courthouse and city jail,
and was built between the southern bastions of Fort Condé.The fort itself was in
the process of being demolished at the time. In 1849 the site was purchased by
Jonathan Kirkbride from Mount Holly in New Jersey and the old courthouse and
jail were converted into a kitchen wing, attached to the newly built main house.
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 house was originally built in the Federal style and was later altered to reflect the Greek Revival 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 45 feet (13.7 m) wide at the front southern elevation, 72 feet
(21.9 m) long at the eastern elevation, and 90 feet (27.4 m) long at the western
elevation, including the carriage house. The ground floor is 10 feet (3.0 m)
high from floor to ceiling and the upper story is 9 feet (2.7 m) high. The
overall structure is brick with stucco, with the front upper portico, rear
galleries, and trim in wood.
The Conde-Charlotte house and its surroundings became isolated
from the rest of the city with the construction of Interstate 10 and urban
renewal. 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 was finished. The fort is now a
backdrop to the Conde-Charlotte house. In recent years the city has made
attempts to develop 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.
Text from Wikipedia
Interior
prison floor showing under carpet
Kitchen Wing
