18/24
614 Blanding Street
614 Blanding StreetEllington House
The home of Page and Sallie Ellington for the first decade of the twentieth century, this building was listed for some of those years as 612-614 Blanding, indicating it may have been used as a duplex. Brick mason and architect Page Ellington, a prominent member of Columbia's elite Reconstruction-era African-American community, once owned this Federal Style residence. Ellington is remembered as having "the respect and confidence of everyone who knew him" and was responsible for major improvements to the State Hospital's Babcock Building and for installing a 185-foot steeple spire on the First Presbyterian Church in 1884. Originally a member of Bethel Methodist Church, he later served as the Sunday school superintendent at Ladson Presbyterian Church for 33 years. In 1935, after fifteen years of occupancy by two different African American pastors and their families, the property was bought by long-time owner Clarence Richardson and his wife Addie.
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Ellington House, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
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Ellington House, 2018. Historic Columbia collection
Page Ellington is a Negro, a brick mason by trade but he made a beautiful piece of work by the spire. He has assisted Dr. Babcock with all of the new buildings at the State Hospital and it will be observed that the towers all differ in appearance. Page Ellington has through postal cards and encyclopedias informed himself upon the detail of the most renowned turrets and steeples and spires and towers in all parts of the world, and has exhibited not a little taste in fitting designs to new buildings. - The State, February 28, 1910