Thanks for helping the city of Pickens celebrate our 150th anniversary! Have fun learning about our history!
The Griffin-Christopher House, built in 1887, is significant as an example of Folk Victorian architecture from the 1880’s. The site, and traditionally the house, is most closely associated with the family of Elihu Holby Griffin, Sr. (1801-1874) and his son John Calhoun Griffin (1851-1890). Elihu H. Griffin, Sr. is notable for the sale of 94 acres of his considerable land holdings in Pickens District to the State in 1868. He received $270 for the land. The acreage was used to create a portion of the county seat for the newly created Pickens County. Upon the death of his father, John C. Griffin, a successful merchant and mill owner in Pickens County, lived in the house with his widowed mother and under whose ownership the Folk Victorian features of the house were added. It is a two-story, three-bay, side-gabled, frame, Folk Victorian house with a two-story rear wing creating an L-shaped plan. The two-tiered full height front and side porches with generous amounts of jigsaw cut wood trim are its defining features, and most clearly characterize this house as Folk Victorian.
The house was purchased by Newton A. Christopher in 1920 and has remained in his family for three generations. Listed in the National Register October 21, 2001.
