World-traveling Algiers Point Family Finds their Most Interesting Collectibles in Own Backyard
Digging up the old privy reveals a trove of 1800s artifacts
BY JYL BENSON | Preservation Resource Center | Mar 28, 2025
Enthusiastic world travelers Garrick and Darcie Braai have collections of artwork and mementos from their travels with their young sons to such far-off places as Thailand, New Zealand and Iceland. Of all of their collectibles, however, the most attention is garnered by artifacts unearthed in their own yard, behind their 1896 four-bay Victorian shotgun double in Algiers Point.
“When I took the plaster off the fireplace, I exposed the brick,” Garrick Braai said. “A few bricks were broken, but I couldn’t just go out and buy hard tan bricks at Home Depot, so I called this guy I had heard about who goes around digging up privies and selling off what he finds. I thought he might have some bricks.”
A friendship with Shane Mears ensued. Soon, Mears, aided by a Robinson Atlas detailing the area before the Great Fire of 1895 wiped out 200 buildings, was in the yard digging up the privy (outhouse) that had served the home that had burned on the site where the Braais' house now stands.
“He explained that they would throw in the privy anything they couldn’t burn,” Braai said. “The hole in the ground would have been lined with cypress, which would have kept many things intact.”
Mears excavated old medicine and liquor bottles, pickle jars, bricks, marbles, china plates, toys, inkwells and a toothbrush carved from bone.
The two men then divided up the treasures. The Braais’ collection of over 100 glass and pottery pieces is artfully displayed against the walls that Darcie Braai, a Realtor, painted in slate-colored gloss to highlight the shimmering colors of the old glassware. The Braais struggle to figure out what to call the room.
“Is it the Privy, the Library or the Family Room?” Darcie Braai mused. “We just can’t decide.