Description

2018 Sugar Land Heritage Collection Ornament

Littleberry A. Ellis constructed this circa 1870s house on his Sartartia Plantation, acreage now part of the Telfair development.  Convict persons built the structure entirely of cypress wood fastened together with wooden pegs instead of nails.

In about 1906, Imperial Sugar Company’s managing partner W. T. Eldridge moved the house to a location immediately southwest of where University Boulevard crosses Oyster Creek today, near Constellation Field.  There he resided and managed Imperial Sugar’s interests in its newly-purchased Sartartia Plantation.

Eldridge lived in the house until 1927, until he moved to the mansion he built located near the southwest corner of Lakeview Drive and Eldridge Road.  The house by the Char House became known as the Imperial Coffee Shoppe.  Four years later in 1931, Mrs. Annie Allbritton moved in, sub-renting rooms to various Sugar Landers until 1963 when it was torn down to make room for refinery expansion.