This article is part of our special design section on retrofitting.
In mid-March, as the South Carolina sun set in the evening, tourists gathered in the shade outside Charleston’s old prison. Two teenagers teased each other: “Hey, did you see that? Wait, did you hear that?” They were there for a ghost tour, which included seeing the 1802 Romanesque building towering above them.
This National Historic Landmark, with an 1822 addition by Washington Monument architect Robert Mills, is said to be haunted by the ghost of Lavinia Fisher, the country’s first female serial killer, who was hanged for her crimes in 1820. Denmark Vesey, a black carpenter and community leader who was convicted of planning a slave revolt and executed in 1822, was another inmate whose memory is gathering dust. During the Civil War, it may have housed restless Union Army prisoners. Although these ghosts may not have been put to rest, the building serves its original purpose: the old prison was closed in 1939.
The tour guides who drive past in horse-drawn carriages dutifully repeat these stories, only now they have a new punch line. “Here we are on Magazine Street – fitting, since this old prison is now the offices of Garden & Gun magazine,” an operator announced.
The national bimonthly magazine devoted to Southern culture moved its headquarters to the Old Jail in March after a decade of being housed in the Cigar Factory, another historic Charleston building. There it occupied 30,000 square feet with exposed brick walls, executive offices clad in wood from barns at Churchill Downs race track, and shutters painted in the city’s signature dark green.
However, the pandemic has shifted needs. Since many of the 52 employees worked remotely at least part of the time, the magazine required less space. It has also become more mature, said Rebecca Wesson Darwin, co-founder and CEO of Garden & Gun. As the lease ended and its 20th anniversary approached (the magazine began publication in 2007), Darwin envisioned offices that were fresh and slightly more elegant, “yet still rooted in the South.”
She added, “I can’t imagine putting these talented people I care about so much in a white box. Especially not in Charleston, a cultural capital of the South that’s evolving like the magazine.” Garden & Gun magazine reports a print audience of 1.6 million and the brand now includes a store in Charleston and restaurant clubs in Atlanta and Louisville.
After falling into disrepair, the Old Jail served as a campus and laboratory for the American College of the Building Arts from 2005 to 2016. Students, learning traditional building trades, had carried out some stabilization, masonry, plastering and iron work and built the timber-framed farm shed. After they moved out, Landmark Enterprises, a commercial real estate developer, purchased the property in 2016 for $2 million and began redevelopment in earnest. When Darwin walked past the Old Jail in the spring of 2024 and saw a “For Rent” sign, Landmark had recently completed a seven-year, $15 million, award-winning historic preservation project.
Darwin made an appointment to view the building, with its octagonal rear wing, original prison doors, ironwork and rough plaster finishes. “Landmark did the heavy lifting,” she recalls. “We just put the icing on the cake.”
In a figurative sense, she commissioned Martha Mulholland, an interior designer with training in monument preservation, to create the rosettes. Los Angeles-based Mulholland has roots in Kentucky and brought her memories of summers spent on Pawleys Island, a coastal town in South Carolina, to the project. She recalled having to balance functional needs “with the demands of historical integrity in this large, octagonal space that’s not exactly suitable for an office,” where there were few electrical outlets and no right angles. The goal, she said, is to “subvert” the way people think about a haunted former prison and “turn it into something super cool.”
Mulholland described the historic building’s idiosyncrasies as both “unnerving and truly beautiful – the way the plaster glows and how the hard surfaces and cold materials, like the old iron and basalt stone stairs, could be warmed up with art, lighting and beautiful fabrics. It was beautiful to watch.”
Their first task was to define spaces. There would be a library, a kitchen as a break room and two open work rooms – one for collaborative meetings, the other as a “quiet” room with private conference corners. There would also be a lounge with a bourbon bar “because it’s Garden & Gun,” she said. (The magazine was named after a popular old bar in Charleston.)
Rich fall tones—ruby red, moss green, smoky blue—tone the furniture in these rooms, based on a color palette inspired by the kitchen’s Zak + Fox wallcovering. In the lounge is a painted panel that Mulholland found at an antique store and hung over a mantel, “all the colors I used,” she said.
To offset costs (“This is a print magazine, God bless them, not a tech company with a big budget,” Mulholland said), Garden & Gun negotiated advertising partnerships with design brands, including Urban Electric Company and Workstead for lighting, Elizabeth Eakins for carpets, and Lee Industries and Crypton for textiles. She also recovered vintage chairs collected from Darwin and commissioned a handmade conference table and two workstation tables from Nicholas Williams, husband of the magazine’s integrated marketing director Christine Williams.
David DiBenedetto, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of Garden & Gun, said he was initially skeptical about moving into the ominous building and imagined employees joking about being locked up. But other options “were boring,” he said. “Rebecca doesn’t rush.” Mulholland’s design dispelled his doubts: “To me, it feels like your favorite coffee shop meets a library and the coolest loft you’ve ever been in.”
He said he enjoyed watching his colleagues pick a spot depending on their mood. Previously, the various departments were siled, but now “editors can easily have conversations with the events and marketing teams,” he said. “There is a shared energy.”
DiBenedetto and his team of storytellers often imagine what might have happened behind the thick, scarred walls. “It is important to us that the history of the building remains visible and the patina remains noticeable,” he said. “It’s like the magazine: We celebrate the people, the heritage, the culture, the craftsmanship and the spirit of the modern South, but we don’t sugarcoat our past.”