The rustic blacksmith shop and cottage where legendary artisan Philip Simmons worked and lived until his death in 2009 will become a classroom for historic preservation students at a local college he inspired.
Students in a preservation research methods class at the American College of the Building Arts (ACBA) took on a new history assignment Jan. 13 to write a report on the Simmons property at 30½ Blake St., said the college’s provost Christina Rae Butler.
Each spring during the semester-long course that Butler has taught for nearly a decade, students have done a deep dive into the history and condition of some of Charleston’s historic structures owned by churches, individuals and small nonprofit groups. At the end of the semester, they’ve recommended what’s needed to repair, preserve and interpret the buildings, Butler said.
This spring semester, another section of the class is studying the interior of Hibernian Hall on Meeting Street, she said. The course is required for the 150 students at the nonprofit, four-year college that opened in the Old City Jail two decades ago.
The Simmons legacy
For the Simmons property, students will prepare a report for the two-bedroom cottage Simmons purchased in 1959 and an adjacent blacksmith shop, Butler said.
During his 77-year career over a hot forge, the nationally-recognized Simmons crafted more than 500 pieces of ornamental wrought-iron gates, fences and window grills that adorn the city’s historic homes and some that are not so well known.
He made his first gate in 1944 for Charleston clothier Jack Krawcheck. He even made ice picks and hooks that longshoremen once used to grab cotton bales.
The ACBA students are expected to present the report in May to the Philip Simmons Foundation, which owns the property tucked away on Charleston’s east side.
Before his death two weeks shy of his 97th birthday, tourists visited Simmons’ shop to watch him hammer glowing hot metal on a heavy anvil that rang with each blow.
A year after Simmons died, the foundation turned the cottage into a gift shop and museum that drew tourists who filed past Simmons memorabilia and his inspired hand-crafted items large and small.
Preserving a working museum
Meanwhile, his nephew, Carlton Simmons, continued to work in the shop for commercial clients and demonstrate the craft for tourists. Studying under his uncle, Carlton also became a master blacksmith.
But the blacksmith shop fell silent when Carlton Simmons, 65, died unexpectedly in September. His passing raised concern as to who would continue the blacksmithing legacy at the Simmons property. The idea emerged to use it as a place to train students for the historic preservation profession and the blacksmithing trade.
Rossie Colter, the Simmons Foundation’s long-time project administrator, calls the collaboration with the college a “wonderful opportunity to preserve the property as a working museum to show students the old fashioned blacksmith techniques” and to sustain the Simmons legacy.
The students’ interaction with the “Simmons campus” will continue after the report is submitted, Butler said. There’s a hope that students in the college’s blacksmith class can intern in the shop where Simmons worked with his nephew and cousin, the late Joseph Pringle.
During the decades of a family collaboration, Simmons produced the entrance gate to the federal courthouse in Columbia, and Carlton Simmons made the decorative ironwork at the entrance to the International African American Museum in Charleston.
Matt Garton, the chair of blacksmithing at the college, said he also hopes the college can supervise a summer internship program at the Simmons campus and finish some of Carlton Simmons’ uncompleted commercial work.
One example includes a Carlton Simmons-designed gate for the Anson African Burial Memorial at the Charleston Gaillard Center.
Inspirational founder
Philip Simmons is best known for his gates that include images of birds, fish, trees and stars, all elements of his boyhood surroundings on Daniel Island. The works are accented with whimsical touches and graceful scrolls.
When Simmons left Daniel Island at age 8, he lived with his mother, Rosa Simmons, in Charleston, and she enrolled him in Buist Elementary School. As he walked to school, young Philip was drawn to the sights and sounds of Peter Simmons’ (no relation) blacksmith shop at Calhoun and Concord streets, one of about 15 shops in the city at that time.
When young Philip reached 13, Peter Simmons, a formerly enslaved man, began to teach his mentee the trade. Peter gave Philip the business when he retired, Colter said.
When the horse and buggy era faded, flames in blacksmith shops cooled. But Simmons made decorative iron pieces to conform with the changing times.
Butler said blacksmithing still has a place in the 21th century.
“Even though you can get a machine to cut steel, it is not hand craftsmanship,” she said. “It does not have the same human spirit put into it. A machine can’t do repair work. You still need preservation trades people, for example, to take a Simmons gate apart to fix corroded joints.”
Simmons used modern welders, power hammers and hand forge work, she said. “It is important to keep those blacksmithing traditions alive from a cultural standpoint,” she stressed.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo’s devastation in 1989, Charleston was faced with a severe shortage of trained craftsmen to repair damaged historic structures. Philip Simmons is credited with inspiring a group led by Charleston resident John Paul Huguley to fix the problem.
“I am the founder of the college, but I often call [Philip Simmons] the inspirational founder of the college,” said Huguley, who studied architecture and engineering preservation at the University of Virginia.
“I didn’t have a vision to start a college, but the day Philip Simmons and I met [for breakfast in the late 1990s], he said to me. ‘Before I die, I want to make sure my trade is carried on.’ ”
With those words, Huguley said he realized “this was not about just setting up a school, but this was about saving a legacy and teaching a new generation of people the old techniques.”
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