Sims-Stackhouse Mansion
1511 Laurel Street

Constructed sometime before 1853, this Greek Revival style mansion was one of the few Laurel Street homes to escape the fire of 1865. Built in a style popular from 1820-1850, and again in the early twentieth century, the house blends in with both the neighborhood's antebellum and early twentieth-century homes. The façade's two-story Corinthian columns support a projecting pediment featuring an oculus window in its tympanum. A hand-carved, railed balcony and a wide piazza wrap around the building's west elevation, which offers a carport appointed with smaller columns. A central door, surrounded by side lights and a transom, opens into a grand central hallway, with flanking parlors. A dark wood-paneled staircase and the rich mahogany wainscoting of the dining room add further to the mansion's stately elegance.

Bequeathed to Eliza R. Sims in 1865 by her husband, the property has changed little in appearance since that time. It has, however, changed locations. In 1872, the house stood alone on the north side of Laurel Street's 1500 block, but the popular neighborhood continued to grow at the turn of the century. Sims's children sold the house to Columbia banker T.B. Stackhouse in 1909, at which time he relocated the home next door to its present location and lived there for the next twenty-five years. In 1934, Stackhouse bequeathed the home to the City of Columbia for specific use as the headquarters for the General Federation of Women's Clubs of South Carolina, which grants aid to women and children in need. In November 2000, the City of Columbia officially transferred ownership to the Federation.

Much of the mansion's second story was converted into apartments in the 1970s and remains so today. In 1990, the property served as a designer show house, which blended updated interior design with the antebellum style of the building. In the spring of 2004, the house's original cypress porch column bases and banisters were restored and the home received a new coat of paint. The mansion is available for rent for special occasions with proceeds benefiting the Federation and the building.

Staci Richey and John Sherrer

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