This historic old house at 71 Pitt Street in Charleston, South Carolina, can be yours for just $3.5 million. If you don't have that kind of change in your pocket, just click to the right in the gallery above to see what's inside, or go to the home's real estate listing for even more pictures. But what really struck me about this design is the "front door" that leads to... the porch. What's up with that?
Oh yeah, this must be one of those sideways houses you hear about, where the front of the house doesn't face the street. The story goes that at the time of building, houses were taxed on the footage facing the street, so people built them sideways in order to lower the tax bill. But that's just a myth.
This is a Charleston single house, that was indeed built sideways when the city was young. It has a unique architecture, including the porch called a piazza. These were sometime two- or three-stories tall. The "front door" at the end of the piazza faces the street, and appears to have been designed for privacy (not tax avoidance). These tall sideways houses made the most of small plots in a growing city. You can see more examples at the above link.
You can read more about the history of the Richard Holloway House here.
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