From the outside, Heather and Thaddeus Wilson’s 1850 home strikes a rather serious pose among the otherwise pretty clapboard houses surrounding it on the streets of downtown Charleston. With its neat, flat chocolate-brown brick and white pointed façade, with chimney pots and sash windows aligned in perfect symmetry, its external austerity belies the charm that awaits inside.

“When my daughter first saw it, she cried because she said it was the ugliest house she’d ever seen,” laughs Heather Wilson. “Because it has no real front and it has no porch—and porches are a big deal around here—you have to go through the side. But then, all of a sudden, you see the porches and the magic of the place. It’s like a secret.”

Bought in late 2018, the property consisted of a main house as well as carriage house, connected by a large internal courtyard and garden, much of it paved to provide parking for tenants who were renting each house separately. “We quickly renovated the carriage house and lived in that while we took time to fix up the primary house,” recalls Wilson of her family of five—including three children, Pierce, Street, and Willy, as well as two dogs—camping out for six months in the open-plan space, now used as a place for the kids to congregate or friends to stay.

Wilson was immediately drawn to the main house’s intimate scale and its downtown locale. “My husband grew up in Charleston, so when the kids were little, we moved to a neighborhood called the Old Village that’s a little bit more suburban,” she says. “But we both missed downtown, and when I saw the property, I immediately saw its potential. I love how small and straightforward it is. There’s no wasted space, there are no hallways,” she enthuses. Best of all, “nothing structural had been done to the property, so it was still basically in its pure original form.”

Wilson has left old beams visible and painted the exposed brick walls soothing shades of white; the old beaten-up floors have been stained dark brown “to hide a hundred years of wear and tear,” and the showers were finished in waterproof plaster in lieu of tiles. In the garden, a pool has replaced the asphalt, overlooked by an old shed transformed into an office and gym. The laundry room, now in the carriage house (which also has one bedroom and bathroom), is reached via the garden. “People think that’s odd, but I think it’s great,” Wilson beams.

For every project, Wilson likes to set “house rules,” she says. “My last house had a more contrasting light and black palette, so I was militant about there being no black anywhere in this house,” explains the architect, whose residential design practice focuses largely on clean-lined modernity while staying in step with the local vernacular. So here, a mix of cloudy and oyster whites, dark browns, a touch of mocha, and a pop of peach imbues every room. “I like a very strict palette where less is better and a room feels interesting via texture, not contrast,” says Wilson, who is as influenced by her New England roots (she was born in Boston) as she is by her love for Southern architecture, gleaned from studying at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Beautifully crafted pieces bring the touch of the human hand, from the watery-effect mirror in the living room by Charleston artist Bob Hines and the dining table by Hudson Valley makers Sawkille Co. (where the family spends much of its time eating, entertaining, and working) to lighting by Apparatus and Workstead. “I want to see the imperfections in things made by people, not machines,” says Wilson.

As a result, when you “tumble” through the front door, Wilson says, you feel instantly relaxed. “That’s the goal, anyway,” she adds. “I am constantly making sure we don’t have extra things we don’t need. It’s true that you are able to think and exist in a much more peaceful way when there’s less chaos and clutter, visually and otherwise. I wanted the house to feel like a vacation.”

THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 13 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!