By Valerie Sliker, Courtesy Wagener Monthly
The Claridge House Bed and Breakfast at 162 Lee St. N. has recently reopened for overnight accommodations and plans to open the special occasion restaurant and everyday luncheonette, Virginia’s Back Porch, soon. You can make overnight reservations at their website, ClaridgeHouseBB.com or directly through AirBnB.com.
The Claridge House kick-off opening event is “Christmas In Wagener,” a vendor fair to be held on December 2, 2017 at noon, during Wagener’s annual Hometown Holiday weekend. Vendors from across the county will display booths on the Claridge House grounds, expanding into the Clock Tower Park, while the local Christian band, Crossover plays bluegrass. Smokin’ Guns, also located in the park, will have their famous hand-crafted foods and smoked meat sandwiches available for purchase. A former WSHS graduate, Nancy Garner is heading up this event with a vision of something along the lines of a mini Aiken’s Makin’ type of event. If you’d like to present your business at a booth, contact Garner at [email protected] or 660-358-4289.
The Claridge House remains under the ownership of Gloria and Stan Collum. Kelly Patterson, co-owner of Smokin’ Guns, will be managing the kitchen and the inn at the Claridge House.
The Claridge House was built in 1897 by Pickens Gunter for J. W. Lybrand. The first floor was for his family and the second floor was for the employees of his store. During the 1950s when the Savannah River Site was being constructed, the house was converted into four apartments. In the mid 70s, C. D. (Claridge) and Virginia Tillison restored the house to its present state. They lived there for the next thirty years. In 2004, the Collums purchased the house from the Tillisons and turned it into The Claridge House, a bed and breakfast inn.
C.D. Tillison was a country boy from east Texas who married a city girl from Florida. Soon after Tillison retired from Shaw Air Force Base, he moved his family to Wagener, a town that reminded him of his hometown in Texas. He wasn’t sure his wife Virginia could handle living in the country, so he rented a place for a while. Then the Atkins Farm in nearby Salley was divided into tracts and sold separately. The Tillisons purchased the 144-year old house with 40 acres of land.
Sadly, this house soon burned to the ground. The Tillisons survived the fire and soon purchased this historic house in Wagener that is now called the Claridge House. C.D. Tillison began renovating the house, tearing down the walls that separated the apartments. He cleaned some bricks from the old house that burned to build a wall in the Claridge House kitchen which can be seen in the kitchen today. The Davenport family did the masonry work on that project. Tillison also rescued some beams from the farm property which are still in use in today’s kitchen. The big butcher block table in the kitchen today was made by hand by Tillison as well.
When Britta (Tillison) Carver, who currently lives just blocks from the house she grew up in, was a senior at WSHS, her family once again experienced a house fire. This new home in Wagener caught fire from a problem with the clothes dryer and once again, the family was fleeing a burning house.
Britta recalls the story with her famously positive attitude, “Daddy came in and woke us up because he smelled the smoke. We grabbed just a few things. Mr. Glen Casey came over and tried to help us while we were waiting for the fire department to get there. Mr. Casey and I got trapped upstairs. We ran out on the balcony and I shimmied down the pole to get away from the fire. He said ‘If she can do it, I can do it!’ and he came down that pole right behind me.”
With a smile, Britta tells me more. “There was a lot of water damage. Daddy went in and gutted it all out and renovated once again. Mama struggled a lot over having had two houses burn. They lived in an apartment in Columbia while daddy renovated the house again and it was very hard on her. They moved back in the house sometime in the 1980s. When I finished college at Anderson, I moved back home during my engagement (to former WSHS quarterback and former town mayor Steve Carver) and stayed with them until my wedding in 1984.”
The Tillisons remained in the house for many more years hosting family holiday meals and spending time with the grandchildren. “The grandkids would sit on that swing on the upper balcony with mama and sing. We have a lot of good memories, fun things that happened in that house. Mom enjoyed entertaining and having extended family there. Due to health issues they decided to move closer to Augusta, Georgia to be near their doctors.”
C.D. Tillison was happy to provide the city life once again for Virginia, the love of his life. They enjoyed quick access to the dinner theatres and concerts in the Augusta area.
Stan and Gloria Collum purchased the house for their daughter Heather to run as a bed and breakfast, a life-long dream of hers. Heather as a child was often in the house while her mother met in the dining room and prayed for hours with Virginia and several other ladies of the community. Heather has since married and moved away.
“When I go over,” Britta continues, “I always call out, ‘I’m home!’ Gloria gets a laugh out of that. We did mama and daddy’s 60th wedding anniversary dinner over there in July of 2012. At the end of August Mom suffered a major stroke that left her paralyzed on her left side.”
C.D. Tillison is caring for her as he always has. She still recognizes her visitors and loves seeing her grandchildren. Britta concluded our walk down memory lane with one of her hearty laughs, “When I leave mama, she often says ‘Next time you see Gloria, tell her I want my house back!’
