805 S Center Street
ADDRESS: 805 S. Center Street
BUILT: 1890
ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Eastlake
Charles G. Blakey and his wife Laura Virginia Rice built this house in 1890 beside her widowed mother, Louisa Rice. The house has Eastlake or Stick style elements including the beaded weatherboard siding, a horizontal strip of siding at the gable end, and a pressed tin roof. In addition, the one-story porch with jigsaw frieze and brackets supported by turned columns is painted to bring out the detail as it would have been when the house was built. There’s an asymmetrical bay window that some historians call “Folk Victorian.”
Charles Blakey was the conductor on the Ashland Accommodation Train from 1885 until 1925. The Blakeys raised their two children, William and Ruth, here. After graduating from Randolph- Macon College in 1907, William’s career moved him around the country. Ruth remained in Ashland. In January 1918, she and Walter Sydnor Jr. were married in the house. Because of Captain Blakey’s long affiliation with the RF&P, the evening train stopped in front of the house to pick up the newly-weds for their honeymoon in Washington, DC. Following Walter’s return from service in World War I, the couple lived here briefly before moving into the Rice house next door.
When Captain Blakey died in 1939, the house passed to his son-in-law and granddaughter. They rented out the house until selling it in 1953. About 1950, the house was converted into two apartments. In recent years, new owners have converted the house back to a single-family house. During the renovation, one of Blakey’s fare books from 1897-1898 was discovered nailed behind a wall.