An award-winning, three-year renovation reveals the historic home’s original brick, hand-hewn beams, and heart-pine floors
When a friend sent Rachel Dion the listing for the house on Thomas Street, it was mostly meant as a joke. Inside the circa-1830s Charleston single, nearly every room blazed a different color—salmon in the entry, psychedelic hues beyond—layered over two centuries of history. The previous residents, a rotating cast of twentysomethings, had parked a weaving loom in the parlor and a car in the yard. Husband Tom took one look and balked. “These colors are crazy,” he told his wife. But Rachel could see through it. “It’s just paint,” she kept telling him. “Just picture the walls white.”
It was more than paint. Removing layers of Technicolor hues, plaster, and paneling revealed stunning historical details—and serious structural problems. The restoration stretched to nearly three years, taking the Federal-style house down to its studs and back again. Led by architect Bill Marshall of Architrave, builder Renew Urban Charleston, and interior designer Patti Wilbourne of PWD Studio, the project earned a Carolopolis Award for Exterior Preservation from the Preservation Society of Charleston in February. More importantly, it became the livable family home the Dions had imagined in the heart of the peninsula.
A move downtown had always been in the cards. Rachel, a New Yorker, and Tom, from Cape Cod, relocated from Boston to Charleston in 2007 after Pfizer transferred them south. They built a Charleston single in Mount Pleasant’s Hibben neighborhood and raised two daughters, Ava, now 18, and Mia, 16. But with both girls then attending Mason Prep downtown, the daily commute stretched to an hour each way. And the couple missed urban living. “We like being able to walk everywhere,” says Rachel. “We like having the option of nearby restaurants and parks and not having to use a car on the weekends.”
After selling their vacation home on St. Simons Island, the Dions went hunting, not for a finished showpiece, but for a project. “My daughters and I had watched a lot of HGTV during the pandemic,” Rachel laughs. “I got it into my head that it would be really cool to do this.”
Built in 1832, the Thomas Street house stood apart for its rare double lot, with room for gardens, a future pool, and plenty of outdoor living space. “This had so much more of a grand feel to it,” Rachel says. “I just fell in love with this one and knew it could be beautiful.”
The house had undergone only two significant renovations during its almost 200 years—a late-19th-century conversion to apartments and a 1986 restoration to single-family use—and the demolition revealed extensive termite damage. Structural beams crumbled in workers’ hands, extending a projected 18-month renovation into two and a half years. The family moved in during the summer of 2024, with work wrapping up six months later. “We went way over budget and way over time,” Rachel admits. “But I said, ‘If we’re going to do this house, we have to do it right.’”
That meant replacing the electrical and plumbing systems and adopting a design philosophy that let the house lead. “It really unfolded as we would find things,” says Wilbourne. “We didn’t know we were going to leave the fireplaces exposed. As we uncovered things during the demo, it informed the rest of the decisions.”
The demolition revealed eight original brick fireplaces, now repointed; hand-hewn beams; and 200-year-old heart pine floors hidden beneath a dark stain. Original piazza doors were restored, and replacements were milled to match those that had been lost. A stained-glass window in the parlor, rumored to have come from a Catholic church, was donated to neighboring St. Mark’s Episcopal. Outside, the first-floor windows were rebuilt to align with those above, the Victorian gable trim restored, and deteriorated piazza columns and balusters recreated by hand. The termite-riddled 1980s addition was rebuilt larger and smarter, adding a family room, a mudroom side entrance, and an upstairs office for Tom, with a gym tucked beneath it.
Inside, Wilbourne and Rachel navigated between reverence and livability. “I knew it was a historical home, but I didn’t want it to be stuffy,” she says. Casual, but sophisticated was the goal. “We have teenagers. I didn’t want a house where it’s like, ‘Don’t sit there.’”
Wilbourne blended contemporary traditional furnishings with tailored millwork, layering soft neutrals and custom detailing throughout. From the color-drenched drawing room, Rachel’s favorite space, anchored by a blue velvet sofa, to the showpiece kitchen, Wilbourne calls the home’s design a study in “restraint and creativity, balancing preservation with modern functionality within the constraints of the home’s original footprint.”
The kitchen, which occupies the former sitting room, was designed around one object: a blue Lacanche range, handcrafted in Burgundy, France, and set into an original brick fireplace, with its entire chimney exposed. A marble-topped walnut island, unlacquered brass hardware, restored beams, and centuries-old pine floors give the room warmth without sacrificing function.
Just beyond, a sunny dining nook wraps around a custom banquette overlooking the pool, while a butler’s pantry hides a flower sink; a pull-out mixer drawer for Rachel, an avid baker; and one of the only two items on Tom’s wish list: a Miele coffee maker. The other, a kegerator, tucks into the bar area.
Farther back, the rebuilt rear wing contains spaces the original house lacked, including a comfortable den and Tom’s office, which connects back to the original house and the primary suite. Across the hallway is daughter Mia’s room. Both bedrooms feature original brick fireplaces and access to the second-floor piazza.
Upstairs, Ava claimed the attic level as her private retreat, while the home’s understory—once a separate apartment only accessible from outside—now connects to the main house as an in-law suite. The space centered on what may have been the property’s original kitchen, complete with its massive cooking fireplace.
Outside, the brick hardscape was replaced by brick-edged stone pathways, evoking a more formal garden space, all shaded by mature magnolias and maples. A new pool is the perfect spot to weather the summers, and a covered patio and outdoor kitchen tucked beneath the piazza give Tom space to perfect his pizza.
Two years in, the Dions have no regrets. They walk to dinner on Upper King, whether it’s Indaco, O-Ku, or a burger at Halls’ bar. Stella, the family’s beloved German shepherd, enjoys the Cannon Street dog park, and the girls are thrilled to be three blocks from Playa Bowls. “Every weekend, we’re so happy we live downtown,” Rachel says.
Would she tackle a 200-year-old fixer-upper again, knowing everything she knows now? “One hundred percent—the transformation is just mind-blowing. We’re very lucky, happy, and grateful that we get to live here. I kept telling myself, it’s just paint.”
