While Mr. Brantley spent most of his professional life in the laundry business, it was his first career for which he is most famous. Mr. Brantley was living in Georgia when he saw his first motion picture. After visiting several sites, Mr. and Mrs. Brantley settled on Charleston. On February 2, 1907, the first movie theater in Charleston opened as the Theatorium. 

Mr. Brantley thought the movie business was a fad and sold his theatre before moving to North Carolina. He soon returned, opened a vaudeville theater, and reentered the movie theater business. By 1908, there were about half a dozen theaters in Charleston, and the three companies which ran them merged to form the Pasttime Amusement Co. Mr. Brantley received 40% of the stock in the new company, worth about $14,000, and was made the general manager. Still, Mr. Brantley apparently never fully believed in the future of movies and eventually left Pasttime Amusement Co. to start the White Swan Laundry business, the business which he owned at the time he moved to Hampton Park Terrace in 1917.

The first occupants of 39 Parkwood Ave. did not stay long. In January 1920, the Brantleys sold their house to Walter Wilbur. In May 1921, Mr. Wilbur sold off a 10’ strip along the western side of back yard to expand the neighboring lot. 

Following graduating from Harvard Law, Mr. Wilbur had returned to Charleston and started his law practice. By the time he bought 39 Parkwood Ave., he was a well-known civic leader in addition to being a leading lawyer. He was heavily involved in children’s welfare issues and charitable work.

In July 1930, James G. Sherrer bought the house. According to Sherrer family history, Mr. Wilbur had experienced financial trouble following the Stock Market Crash and sold the house for $5000. Mr. Sherrer operated the Ashley Ice Cream Co. During the 1930s and 1940s, Mrs. Sherrer and members of the Citadel Square Baptist Church would sit in the garage and clean and cut fruit for Mr. Sherrer’s ice cream business. Although he is most strongly connected to the ice cream business, he owned other businesses and was involved in civic affairs too; he served on the rationing board during World War II and served on Charleston City Council under Mayor Morrison. 

The Sherrer family must have liked the house very much because the family retained it for more than fifty years. In December 1961, Mr. Sherrer, who was “desirous of providing a home for [his] daughter, Sarah Sherrer Smith, and her children,” conveyed the house, in trust, to his daughter and his grandchildren. Still, Mr. Sherrer lived in the house until his death in 1976.

During the Sherrers’ ownership, the interior of the house was painted because Mrs. Sherrer did not care for the paneling. They also enclosed the second-floor porch. The southern veranda was enclosed in the 1970s as a bedroom for Mr. Sherrer when he could no longer climb the stairs. Another interior alteration was the removal of a short set of steps off the main stairs into the kitchen; the stairs were removed to accommodate Mrs. Sherrer’s china collection. Originally, there was a bathroom between the laundry room and garage which was used by Eliza Ellerbe, the family’s servant.

Eventually, in October 1983, the Sherrers sold their house to Jarvis Ray Embry and his wife, Joanne W. Embry, for $80,000. The Embrys, who owned a sign company, also owned the house for several years. Eventually, they sold the house to Susan B. Causby in November 2001 for $355, 000. Ms. Causby undertook a renovation of the house which included refurbishing the kitchen and joining two bedrooms on the northern end of the house. More recent owners  included Larry J. Spelts, who bought the house in 2003, and professional recruiter Jennifer A. Kemp, who paid $750,000 for it in 2006. 

On October 28, 2019, Ms. Kemp sold the house to Julien Edward Labaire.

The house at 39 Parkwood Ave. is notable for its distinct form and quality of construction. Hampton Park Terrace was largely built out around 1920 and was heavily influenced by national building trends, rather than local building traditions. Therefore, most of the houses are variations on American foursquares. The Brantley House follows national tastes, but is a unique example of Tudor Revival architecture, especially with its steeply pitched roof, its multiple gables, and the entrance covered by a heavily framed “roof.” Adjacent to the house is a detached garage which shares the same design details of the house.

In the 1910s, national companies sold pre-packaged materials for building very similar houses. The different companies’ models were almost indistinguishable from one another such as the Sterling Co.’s Milan model, the Standard Home Co.’s Buckingham model, and the Lewis Housing Co.’s Dorchester model. There are no marking at 39 Parkwood Ave. on the attic framing to indicate that it was a catalog house, but markings were not always used. Although site-specific tweaks might have been made during construction, it seems highly unlikely that the Brantleys would have bought a catalog house but upgraded the roof to include very detailed and highly unusual colored, fish scale slate shingles. Given the very high quality of construction, 39 Parkwood Ave. is more likely a custom house built by a local contractor that was inspired by ideas in catalogs.