The blacksmith Philip Simmons made most of his ornamental ironwork at his home workshop at 30½ Blake Street on Charleston's East Side, now kept by the Philip Simmons Foundation as a museum. Born on Daniel Island on 9 June 1912, he moved to Charleston at seven and at 13 apprenticed to Peter Simmons, no relation, a smith born enslaved in 1855 whose shop stood at the foot of Calhoun Street. He became a full blacksmith in 1930, and in the late 1930s turned from horseshoes and wagon wheels toward decorative wrought iron, while still calling himself a general blacksmith. He made hundreds of gates, balconies, window grilles and fences across Charleston, and in 1982 received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
His first decorative piece in the city is at 9 Stolls Alley. During the Second World War, with new iron scarce, he built a gate for Jack Krawcheck's King Street store from scrap. His work is known for single tight curls and Lowcountry motifs: palmettos, shorebirds, snakes and fish. He made a snake gate whose eyes were added to make it look alive, and in 1976 a star and fish gate for the Smithsonian. He was also given the Order of the Palmetto, the state's highest civilian honor.
Simmons died on 22 June 2009, aged 97. In November 2025 the city's Board of Architectural Review unanimously refused the family's request to demolish the deteriorating front house at 30 Blake Street and required a stabilization plan within 90 days.
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32.7982, -79.9367
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