Leigh Handal’s Book Lost Charleston Takes Readers On A Tour Of The City’s Streets As They Once Were

Three nearly identical single houses at the corner of Calhoun and East Bay streets known as the “Three Sisters” came to symbolize the essence of everyday 20th-century life in Charleston, inspiring artists and igniting the passion of preservationists. Despite this, the homes were condemned and demolished by the city in the 1960s.

“The fate of the Three Sisters embodies the tragedy of failing to appreciate something … until it’s gone,” preservationist Leigh Jones Handal says. Her debut book Lost Charleston (Pavilion, September 2019) features decades-old photographs and narratives of 59 institutions that were destroyed by war, natural disasters, or human impact during the past 250 years and poses a larger question: What can we learn from their existence and demise?