Isaac Wolfe Banov | Joseph A. Volaski
King Street was Charleston’s traditional shopping district, lined with two- and three-story buildings whose upper-floor residences were entered separately from the retail stores at ground level. This corner building—formerly the Barrett family home, where Esther G. Barrett and her husband, Rev. Gustavus Poznanski, KKBE’s first Reform hazan, or prayer leader, lived from 1838 until 1842—was a prime location for a bustling business.
In 1891, Isaac Wolfe Banov bought the property and relocated his dry goods store to this vacant building from his earlier shop a few doors to the north. He and his wife, Hannah Volaski Banov, moved into the spacious residence upstairs. I. Wolfe Banov soon went into partnership with Hannah’s kinsman, Joseph A. Volaski (1864–1927), formerly of Savannah.
By 1898, Banov & Volaski was a “well-known and popular house” with a branch store at the corner of King and Spring streets and employed forty-two people, thirty of them tailors, making it the largest tailoring department in South Carolina. The business offered men’s clothing, ready-to-wear as well as custom fit; hats, shoes, and accessories; and a mail order department for their loyal out-of-town patrons.
During the early 1920s, Charleston’s leading merchants enthusiastically supported the city administration in its development of a modern hotel on this site. Banov and Volaski sold their corner property for construction of the Francis Marion Hotel in 1920, and moved the business south across Calhoun Street to the newly-renovated building at 381 King Street.
Banov & Volaski advertisement, 1898 Charleston city directory
Joseph Volaski (1864–1927)
Courtesy of Valerie L. Volaski.