A wee South Carolina home offers an artist refuge—and endless inspiration
The little blue house with a metal roof and long porch had always captivated the artist Elizabeth Middour. Situated just around the corner from the three-story home where she and her husband, Steve, spent twenty-one years raising their two children in the Old Village neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the home sat in profile to the street, a petite, weathered cottage among stately early-to-mid-1800s manses. Middour had even gone inside a few times, when the retired schoolteacher who lived there in the early 2000s held Christmas gatherings—mini concerts of former students playing harps in the parlor. One day, Middour sketched the house for a painting.
“We always wanted to live in this cottage,” Middour says. “On morning walks, we’d say, ‘That’s the one.’” When the Middours’ son and daughter headed to college and the couple decided to downsize, they talked with the cottage’s then-owner, who had left the place mostly unused and empty for seven or eight years. By 2020, “Little Blue” was theirs.
After sitting vacant for so long, the property needed an overhaul, so they tapped Ross Ritchie of Loyal Architects in Charleston to carefully revamp the interior, removing vinyl flooring and rethinking the drop ceilings and galley kitchen. Room by room, they created natural light–filled spaces with arched doorways and wood-paneled walls, complements to Middour’s collected artworks and natural objects—and to her and Steve’s saltwater sensibilities (the couple met when Steve made a landside stop on Hilton Head Island during a sailing trip). One decision was easy: They’d keep the blue exterior, matching the color to a chip from the decades-worn paint.
During the demolition and renovation, Ritchie discovered that the residence originally comprised two structures, including a portion that dates to the 1820s or earlier. Handwritten Roman numerals found on beams in the great room hinted that one of the structures may have lived a past life as a shop or a school. Inspired, the team maintained and introduced as many historical accents as possible, including paneling, wainscoting, and the timeworn slant of the original wood floors…