In the 1920s, Greenville decided they were going to demolish the city’s records building, and a local utilities executive, William B. Ellis, supposedly sent employees with a caravan of trucks to gather the stone from the building to build his new home atop a hill overlooking downtown Greenville.
The Ellis family lived in the home until the early 1990s.
The home is currently for sale. The listing can be found here.
Located on Haynie Street, Jesse Jackson grew up in this house in Greenville, South Carolina. Born on October 8, 1941, Jackson graduated from Sterling High School. Known as a leader in high school, Jackson became known as one of the members of the “Greenville 8,” eight men and women who entered the Greenville public libraries to desegregate them.
Jackson’s mother, Helen Burns Jackson, lived in Greenville until she died in 2015.
The J. D. and Millicent Massey House was built in the 1930s from a Leila Ross Wilburn plan. It stayed in the Massey family for several decades. It is now a law office.
The Lanneau-Norwood-Funderburk House was built in 1877 for Charles H. Lanneau by Charleston architect Jacob Cagle. Lanneau was involved in several local textile mills. He even founded the Lanneau Manufacturing Company on adjacent land to the home. Like many homes during this time period, the home was destroyed by fire twice and rebuilt both times.
After becoming bankrupt in 1907, Lanneau sold the Second Empire home to local banker John Wilkins Norwood. When he passed away in 1945, his daughter Frances Norwood Funderburk inherited the home. She then passed it to her son, George Norwood.
To view photos of the inside, the house can be seen in a 2021 listing.
White Oaks was designed by noted architect Philip Trammell Shutze in 1957 for Charles and Homozel Daniel. Charles Daniel was a contractor and co-owner of Daniel International Construction Corporation. He was a trustee of Clemson University and a generous donor to the College of Architecture at Clemson. He also briefly served as a United States Senator in 1954.
The 9,750-square-foot home is a copy of the rebuilt Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1992, Homozel Daniel donated White Oaks to Furman University. It now serves as the President’s house.
Along the Reedy River in Greenville County, South Carolina, is the mill town of Conestee, founded in the 1830s. The McBee United Methodist Church, designed by John Adams and built in 1841, is located there. Adams utilized the octagonal design to allow for more seating space. At one point, a slave gallery was built above the floor seating. It was removed after the Civil War.
The church was named after Vardy McBee and his son Alexander, who donated money and land for its construction. In 1815, Vardry McBee purchased 11,000 acres in the area now known as Greenville and built a sawmill, brickyard, and ironworks.
