The common story told about this grand side-hall single house on King Street in historic #Charleston, is that its builder, Patrick O’Donnell, got so obsessed with adding details to the house that the fiance’ he was creating it for got tired of waiting and married someone else. There’s no way to prove that, but there is something O’Donnell did in 1861 that makes him much more worthy of admiration. During the great fire of December 1861, which struck at night with fire companies unprepared and winds pushing flames across the city, the Catholic orphanage and convent, as well as Roper Hospital, where in the path of the oncoming blaze coign down Queen Street with seemingly no chance of stopping it. O’Donnell, being a builder who understood stress points in structures, volunteered to carry black powder into houses in the path of the fire and blew them up, creating a fire break that altered the course of the flames, and saved the orphanage, hospital and convent. I often take my walking tour past this grand house, which is a construction type known as a side-hall single house. That should be Patrick O’Donnell’s lasting legacy.