Karesh Family

Built for Charles and Sarah Karesh in 1899, at a time when King Street was reaching new heights as a regional retail shopping district. Sarah Karesh bought the lot for $2,500; once the three-story frame building was erected, her husband, Charles, sold boots and shoes on the first level, and the family lived on the upper floors.

Charles Karesh had immigrated to South Carolina from Trestina (or Trzcianne), near Bialystok, in April 1880, following family relations who had come more than two decades before. He married Sarah Orlins, or Orlinsky, from Bialystok, around 1878, and the couple traveled together to America; the first of their ten children was born in Charleston in October 1880. While living and keeping stores at various locations downtown, Charles and Sarah also had business interests in Greeleyville.

Descendants remembered an unusual feature of the three-tiered piazza at 545 King Street. The lower steps were hinged so they could be raised with a pulley to provide egress for the family cow. In the back yard the Kareshes also kept chickens, grew vegetables, and drew water from a large cistern.

Charles Karesh retired about 1920. He turned the shoe store over to his son Louis, and, when Louis relocated to California, Louis’s brother Alex Karesh took over and renamed the business the Uptown Sample Shoe Store. After the older generation died, the residence on the upper floors was rented to relatives, while Alex Karesh and family lived at 497 Huger Street. In 1940, the Kareshes sold the property to Sam Brickman, a King Street clothier. Alex continued to operate the shoe store, however, until his retirement in the early ’50s, when he sold the business to Donald Cohen.

Uptown Sample Shoe Store

545 King Street, 1972

545 King Street, 2016