Of the boundless treasures with origins in Folly Beach, none has radiated around the world with quite the universal appeal of Porgy and Bess. But the world may not know that the 1935 opera by George Gerswhin, which is based on the novel Porgy by Charleston author DuBose Heyward, took shape in a seaside cottage on “The Edge of America.”
Now, the Folly Beach Historical Society has opened The Porgy House: A Cottage on an Island in a Culture, a compact, temporary exhibition at the Folly Beach History Museum that sheds light on Gershwin’s transformative time on the island. There, he drew inspiration from local culture for tours-de-force compositions like the aria Summertime, recognized by Guinness World Records as the most covered song in music history.
The Porgy House
The Porgy House: A Cottage on an Island in a Culture delves into the creative confab emerging from the Folly Beach summer home of DuBose and Dorothy Heyward. The couple collaborated there with Gershwin, who had taken up quarters at a nearby, now long-gone cottage, while also working on the libretto and music for the opera in the Heyward Folly retreat.
Regina Anderson, chair of Folly Beach Historical Society, who co-curated the exhibition with board member Anne Hughes, explained the subject was on mission for the new organization, which opened in 2025. Its debut exhibition, Surfing on the Edge, is also on view in the 200-square-foot museum through Labor Day. The smaller-scale Porgy House exhibit involves six display cases running through September.
“It just fits in perfectly with our mission, which is to really collect and preserve and provide access to Folly’s rich history, and this is certainly a rich part of that history,” Anderson told the Charleston City Paper.
For The Porgy House, which was conceived over the past several months, the team worked with numerous local stakeholders, including the South Carolina Historical Society, the Charleston Museum, the Gibbes Museum of Art, photographer Charles McKenzie and filmmaker Lauren Waring Douglas. She is currently at work on When Porgy Came Home, a documentary that tells the untold story of the opera.
The exhibit illuminates Gershwin’s time on Folly, where he was known to have immersed himself in the island’s culture. At the same time, the composer ventured elsewhere in the area, visiting local African American churches and gathering places to more deeply glean the rhythms and resonance of the Gullah Geechee culture of the Lowcountry.
Follywood days
“From what I understand, he actually spent two parts of two summers here… sort of soaking up the laid-back beach culture,” Anderson said, meeting locals on the beach including college-aged Abe Dumas, known locally for his role at M. Dumas and Sons clothing store on King St.
Among the artifacts in the exhibition are drawings of the house at 712 West Ashley Ave., now private property, that were executed by the American College of the Building Arts.
On loan from the S.C. Historical Society are letters between the Heywards and Gershwin in which the composer dubs his beach locale to be “Follywood.”
A 1920s photo of DuBose Heyward, on loan from Charleston Museum, captures him on the ferry out to Folly when that was the sole mode of travel there. Photographs by Charles McKenzie chronicle the opera’s 1970 Charleston production, in which his sister Annette McKenzie Anderson performed the role of Bess.
The perennial pull of Porgy
The exhibit is another local contribution to the ongoing archiving of the opera and its ties to Charleston. The opera did not make it to a Charleston stage until 1970 due to Gershwin’s express condition that it be performed by an integrated cast to integrated audiences.
It was then presented at the Charleston Municipal Auditorium (now Charleston Gaillard Center), funded by the S.C. Tricentennial Commission, the first-ever integrated production in Charleston. Last month, it was the focus of a 2026 Spoleto Festival USA program featuring performers and other stakeholders, past and present.
IF YOU GO: The Folly Beach History Museum is located within the Folly Beach Community Center at 55 Center St. More: follybeachhistory.org
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