This SC home where Duke Ellington once stayed has a storied history. A fire just destroyed it

Ash and charred debris are what remain of the two-story, century-old house at the corner of Pine and Pendleton streets.

Once, Duke Ellington stayed here, maybe Dizzy Gillespie, too, along with dozens of other Black musicians, students and travelers passing through segregated Columbia in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

More recently, the home had fallen into disrepair, with plywood boards where windows should be. Code violations stacked up in recent years, and at least twice, city officials warned property owners that the house could be at risk of demolition.

On Easter Sunday, a fire tore through the home, destroying most of the structure and ending any dreams of rehabilitation.

Dubbed the “Mrs. S.H. Smith Tourist Home” in the “Negro Travelers’ Green Book” — which let Black travelers know it was a safe place to stay in the segregated South — the house was host and home to famous musicians and titans of Columbia’s Black community.

Sisters Simmie Hiller Smith and Bernice Hiller Fambro built the house between 1913 and 1918, on property bought for them by their Black mother, Mary Alice Leaphart Kessler, and their white father, John Henry Hiller.

Simmie Hiller Smith, a dressmaker, turned the home into a tourist house for Black musicians and Allen University students, a service the home offered for nearly 30 years between 1938 and 1967.

Smith’s niece and nephew-in-law, Delores and Benjamin Frazier, lived in the home next. The pair was vital in helping desegregate Columbia.

Benjamin was among the first Black men to integrate Columbia’s Harden Street Fire Station. Their children, Cheryl and Jablanski, were in the first integrated class at Hand Middle School.

“It was one of the places on that side of Columbia as a tourist home that was not only a haven within an African American community, but the people who lived there were also active in the African American community,” said Rebekah Turnmire, a graduate assistant with the University of South Carolina’s Center for Civil Rights History and Research. “(The house) is part of the fabric there.”

Turnmire has worked to compile a history on the house. In 2019, she tried to get it added to the National Register of Historic Places. The attempt was unsuccessful. During the process one of the home’s then-owners began tearing the siding off the home, making it no longer “historically intact.”

Turnmire wishes the home could have been listed and protected. While the fire destroyed the house, it was already in disrepair. Many of the homes surrounding the property are occupied by renters, not longtime residents of the Lower Waverly neighborhood. It’s not just one house in Lower Waverly, it’s the slow chipping away at a historic Black neighborhood, she said.

“It’s the continuation of forces that have been around for a long time but that have taken on new names,” she said. “Our city is driven by a real estate market that does not necessarily care about the fabric of neighborhoods as much as it cares about having (rental) housing.”

Today, the home is owned by the LLC Abraham Investments II. The State has not been able to reach the property owner.

David Hatcher, Columbia’s housing official, said permits had recently been issued for work to be done on the home, but prior to that the city was eyeing it for possible demolition.

In 2021, the building was labeled by code enforcement as a suspected vacant building and cited for being unregistered with the city. The next year, code enforcement warned owners the building could be slated for demolition if not improved.

Hatcher said because of the home’s history, he doubts the demolition would have gone forward. Still, the home has been vacant for years.

Columbia fire officials called the fire that destroyed the home suspicious, because the building was not connected to any power source. The fire is still under investigation.