Inside Charleston’s Craft Renaissance

Each weekday morning, just before the city wakes, a handful of fresh-faced students make their way down Meeting Street toward the last remaining trolley barn in Charleston, South Carolina. Dressed in Carhartt hoodies, carpenter pants, and beat-up leather workboots, they disappear into studios and workshops where they transform raw materials — cedar, limestone, and clay — into stunning architectural features. The nearly 130-year-old brick building, which once sat empty and crumbling, is now home to the American College of the Building Arts (ACBA) — the only accredited four-year college in the United States that combines a liberal arts curriculum with hands-on training in the traditional building trades.