Philip Simmons’s Heart Gate stands at 91 Anson Street

Philip Simmons began his blacksmithing career at thirteen, apprenticing under Peter Simmons, a man born into slavery who died in 1952 at the age of 98. In the 1920s, the trade meant shoeing horses, repairing wagons, and forging tools. Simmons shifted his focus to ornamental ironwork in 1938 when he opened his own shop, a deliberate choice that turned a dying utilitarian trade into an art form. Over a career that lasted nearly eight decades, he created more than a thousand pieces of decorative iron, including gates, fences, balconies, and window grilles.

The gate in front of you is known as the Heart Gate. It leads to a garden designed by Pearl Fryar of Bishopville, South Carolina. Simmons wanted his ironwork to look alive, relying on the pose of his subjects rather than fine detail. He fashioned coiled snakes set to strike, egrets caught just before takeoff, and swimming fish made from several separate pieces of metal. His signature on these works was a tight curl, a design he copied from centuries-old Charleston ironwork.

More than 600 pieces of his work are scattered across Charleston, from private residences to the airport, Waterfront Park, and the visitor centre. Recognition of his craft eventually reached beyond the city. In 1982, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History acquired his Star and Fish Gate, and the National Endowment for the Arts awarded him the National Heritage Fellowship.

Simmons was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame in 1994, received the Order of the Palmetto in 1998, and was awarded the state's lifetime achievement award in the arts in 2001. At age 93, he completed his largest commission: the entrance gates for the Matthew J. Perry Federal Court House in Columbia. Today, his Blake Street home and workshop operate as a museum, where his nephew Carlton Simmons continues to work the shop.