"L" is for Lafaye and Lafaye

"L" is for Lafaye and Lafaye. Founded by George Eugene Lafaye, the firm of Lafaye and Lafaye was one of the state’s most respected and successful architectural practices from the 1910s until the 1970s. Lafaye moved to Columbia in 1900 as chief draftsman for W.B. Smith Whaley & Company. In 1907 Lafaye established his own company and in 1913 hired his younger brother Robert. After World War I, the firm became Lafaye and Lafaye. Over the next twenty years it designed a number of important structures: Township Auditorium, James L. Tapp Department Store, St. John’s Episcopal Church, and the Wade Hampton State Office Building. With the addition of new partners, the firm’s name changed in the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout its existence, Lafaye and Lafaye did much of its most important work for state institutions.