This Building Has History ™
Name: Guardian Building / A. Jackson Hotel
Architect: Charles Coker Wilson
Builder: Hockenburg System, Inc.
Constructed: 1925-27
This lot was purchased in 1853 by S.S. Elam for $55. Elam built a house on the site, and in 1855, sold both the house and land to David C. Roddey, the most prosperous merchant in Rock Hill. Roddey’s widow, Mary E. Roddey, sold a portion of the plot to her brother-in-law, Captain W.L. Roddey. The rest belonged to Mary Roddey’s son, J. Edwin Roddey. Both gentlemen built homes on the site. Captain Roddey’s house was for many year the largest and finest in Rock Hill.
In 1926, a group of community developers purchased the land from the Roddey family. Their intention was to build the Andrew Jackson Hotel, meant to attract business and raise the profile of the already growing city of Rock Hill. Charles Coker Wilson, a noted architect throughout the South, was hired to design the building. His European training, at L’Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, was seen in the detail of the building, which opened on January 1, 1926.
The Andrew Jackson Hotel became a center for business and social life in Rock Hill. It hosted many prominent guests, and the restaurant was a popular place for dining and civic meetings. The hotel was sold to a private company in 1946, and a decline in business in the 1960’s led to more hotels being built on the city’s outskirts. The Andrew Jackson Hotel closed, and the building was bought by the Guardian Fidelity Corporation. The building was extensively remodelled between 1984 and 1988, and today it is operated as an office building.
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Sponsored
by
Roots and Recall LLC, The City of Rock Hill, The York County Arts Council, & The S.C. Arts Commission which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts and by a generous award from the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of The Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.
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