Carriage Properties, LLC, this month celebrates ten years representing buyers and sellers in Charleston’s luxury real estate market, where the locally owned firm has established itself as the leader in high-end and historic property listings and sales.

Since founding in 2002, Carriage Properties, LLC, has recorded 1,286 transactions (as listing agent, selling agent, or both), for a total of $1,292,439,641 in sales, averaging slightly over $1 million per transaction.

These transactions involved some of the city’s most significant properties, magnificently preserved early-American and antebellum homes embodying authentic Charleston stories that reveal the multi-layered and complex history of the United States. (Read the decade’s top-ten Carriage Properties deals below.)

Carriage Properties, LLC, was founded in March 2002, by local real estate professionals Thomas Bennett, Olin Chamberlain, Lynn Hanlin, Melinda Laurens, Charles Sullivan, and Judy Tarleton, all of whom are still actively involved with the firm. The decision to join forces in a partnership was a natural one because, as Lynn Hanlin explains, “we all had worked together and found that we worked well as a team. We decided to combine our experience, knowledge, and connections to provide the best service possible to our clients.”

The fledgling firm set up shop at 19 Exchange Street in downtown Charleston where, over the years and as the firm’s success grew, the agency expanded to 22 agents and 3 staff members, chosen “based on fit with the team concept, experience, and new market areas,” according to Hanlin.

Since its founding, the firm’s distinctive signs—featuring a horse-drawn carriage against a bright red background—have become part of the downtown architectural landscape, gracing some of the area’s most notable homes.

Carriage Properties, LLC, has held the top notch in luxury properties since 2008, with 18% market share in transactions of $2 million or more compared with the nearest competitor’s 11%. Continuing the trend, in 2011, Carriage Properties, LLC, reported the area’s strongest results in luxury home sales: The firm sold a total of $64,266,868 in metro-Charleston luxury homes priced at $1.5 million and above—11.68% above the firm’s closest competitor. And, looking specifically at properties South of Broad, the firm’s market dominance was even more pronounced: Carriage Properties, LLC, 2011 sales of $55,000,843 were more than double that of its nearest competitor.

Carriage Properties, LLC, currently offers 130 exclusive listings, 56 of which are priced at over $1 million, and 24 over $2 million. For more information, contact Carriage Properties, LLC, at 843-266-8000 or toll-free at 877-266-8005.

Top-Ten Notable Carriage Properties, LLC, Transactions

1) The very first Carriage Properties sale took place on March 8, 2002, when 21 Elliott Streetsold for $569,000. At the time, it was a great deal of money.

2) Later in 2002, the first in-house sale of over $1 million was rung in: 7 Ladson Street was listed and sold by Carriage Properties, LLC, for $1,700,000.

3) One of the city’s best-known homes, the Calhoun Mansion at 16 Meeting Street was an early high-profile Carriage Properties transaction. Constructed circa 1876 and restored in the late-20th century, upon its completion the home was described in an article in the News and Courier as “the handsomest and most complete private residence in the South.” Built by wealthy businessman George Walton Williams, the dwelling boasts 24,000 square feet of living space and 25 rooms, making it the largest single-family residence in the city. Called the Calhoun Mansion in honor of one of its former owners, Patrick Calhoun, a grandson of John C. Calhoun, who married one of George Walton William’s daughters, the home was sold in 2004 by Carriage Properties for $3,750,000.

4) In one of the city’s all-time most notable transactions, Carriage Properties in 2007 listed 21 King Street, which sold for $7,200,000—at the time the highest-priced residential sale in Charleston history. The Patrick O’Donnell House, constructed 1852–70 and restored in the late 1980s, was built by an Irish fortune holder of modest origins, who erected this monumental three-story masonry building on several lots to create the city’s largest Italianate style house.

5) White House Plantation at 5877 Clover Hill Road was part of the original royal land grant to Landgrave Edmund Bellinger as his Ashepoo Barony in 1702, and was one of several rice plantations he and his family subsequently developed along the Ashepoo River. The Bellinger family owned, planted and managed White House Plantation through tumultuous times, provisioning armies and witnessing havoc and destruction, maintaining ownership through the turn of the 20th century. White House was listed in 2008 by Carriage Properties, selling for $6,225,000.

6) The Governor’s House Inn, also known as the Laurens-Rutledge House, at 117 Broad Street was constructed circa 1760 in the Georgian style for James Laurens, brother of Henry Laurens. The home was purchased in 1788 by Edward Rutledge, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Listed in 2006 by Carriage Properties, the home sold in 2007 for $5,125,000.

7) In 2002 Carriage Properties listed 60 Montagu Street, built by rice planter and merchant Theodore Gaillard in 1801. Later the home was owned by James Shoolbread, a Santee River rice planter who was Charleston’s first British consul, and after the Civil War, General Robert E. Lee addressed well-wishers from the second level portico as a guest of the owner, Washington Jefferson Bennett. In 2004 it sold for $3,500,000 (and is currently on the market for $12,950,000).

8) 94 Rutledge Avenue, the Isaac Jenkins Mikell House, is one of the most visually imposing homes in Charleston. Constructed before the Civil War, the house dates to 1853 and is named after its original owner, a Sea Island cotton planter from Edisto Island who built the structure for his third wife, Mary Martha Pope. Listed in 2004 by Carriage Properties, the home sold for $4,300,000 in 2005. Carriage Properties listed the home again in 2007 and sold it in 2008 for $4,800,000.

9) 39 Church Street, the 1743 George Eveleigh House, was listed (in 2008) and sold (in 2009) by Carriage Properties for $4,200,000. Eveleigh, a prosperous deerskin trader in Charles Towne, bought the lot that lay across Vanderhorst Creek just outside the city wall line. The creek was later filled and is now known as Water Street.

10) Carriage Properties claims the highest-priced residential sale so far in 2012: 52 Murray Boulevard for $5,975,000. The first residence built on Murray Boulevard, the C. Bissell Jenkins House is the most imposing of the Colonial Revival style homes built on the peninsula in the early 20th-century. Jenkins originated the reclamation project that led to the completion of Murray Boulevard, and later developed the first residential subdivision on James Island: Riverland Terrace.

Historic information taken from Jonathan Poston’s The Buildings of Charleston, University of South Carolina Press, 1987.

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