By Scott Grooms
This week’s personal spotlight is on Maryann Blake. Blake has been a resident of Walterboro for 20 years after growing up in Eastern Tennessee, and later Florida where she went to law school and worked before moving to South Carolina. After working an internship for Lawyer Brantley Harvey Beaufort, she was offered a job at Bogoslow, Jones, Stephens and Duffy, here in Walterboro.
Blake did not really have any ties to Colleton County originally but really liked the area, stayed, and built her law practice. As an attorney, she has served 10 years come October as part time for prosecutor for the City of Walterboro and as the attorney for the town of Edisto Beach. She explains her practice, “Mainly what my focus on is estate planning, probate wills, trusts, that’s about 85% of what I do. I do property law, some real estate closings, deeds, property transfers, and a little personal injury wrongful death claims.”
Blake’s office is located at 228 Hampton Street in a beautifully restored Historic House within site of the Court House. The home dates back to 1849 with the rear of the structure being built in 1935. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and received the Paul and Jacob Walter Award from the Colleton County Historical and Preservation Society for adaptive use of a historic building. Blake explains how she found the building, “It was owned by the same family for four generations. The owners contacted me about two years ago after hearing that I was in the market for a building. I love old buildings, and it had been fabulously well-kept for as old as it is. We have renovated and hung period chandeliers. I’ve collected antiques for many, many years, and just finally was able to get everything in here and get it decorated. It’s a law firm, but clients say that it feels like home, and that’s what I want. They say it’s peaceful.”
When not practicing law she likes to take care of cats. She says, “they have always been my passion, and I am a big proponent of spaying and neutering. I spend quite a bit of my own funds, on feeding, trapping, spay and neutering, and releasing cats.” She also likes to hand quilt, oil paint, and loves to hike and spend time with her husband Steve.
In addition to her law firm, she has a Small Antiques Business and does real estate investment. Blake tells about one of her other hobbies, “At one time, I started this collection of Barbies. In 1998 and I just was walking through a mall one day, and happened to see a Barbie. I thought that doll is kind of pretty, she was on clearance, and I bought her. I thought, one day, these things are probably going to be collectible. I started buying the Christmas holiday dolls, that’s what they called them, and then the dolls of the world. The collection just kept growing and growing and growing, all original in the box. It got to be around 800 dolls that I owned. I went through and the ones that really spoke to me that I wanted to keep, the high-end designer dolls with Bob Mackie and Christian Dior. I kept those. The rest of them I have taken over and have had them for sale at a Barbie booth over at Downtown Envy.”
When asked if time and money were no object, what are some things you would like to do, Blake says, “I’ve done pretty much everything that I have set out to do, but I love restoring old houses, so that’s what I would do.
Blake says, “I just really care for this community, and I had ran for public office back a couple of years passed, and that was my first foray into politics, but I intend on doing that again in the future. I can see both sides of the of the spectrum and want to make the very best for Colleton County and for our local citizens.”
