Old Town Bluffton buildings incorporating reclaimed materials

At Tom Banach’s warehouse in Hardeeville, parts from Ohio barns, New York refineries, cotton mills and the Savannah River lay on the ground.

Banach has been tearing down centuries-old barns, mills and other structures across the county for the past 15 years and incorporating the roofs, siding, beams and interiors into new homes and businesses in the Lowcountry — in developments including Palmetto Bluff, Spring Island and Bray’s Island.

“We’re taking the material from the grassroots of a barn, and we’re re-utilizing every portion of that barn,” Banach said.

His company, TimberStone Antique Building Products, has seen an uptick in business as more people seek materials with a story in new construction.

Two of Banach’s current projects are in Old Town Bluffton. He is sourcing pieces for six Stock Farm cottages, owned by Bluffton real-estate investor Eugene Marks of Mayberry Holdings, and FARM, a restaurant under construction on May River Road.

“The goal here (is) to do (projects) that can’t be replicated, that look authentic to the area, the space and to downtown Bluffton,” Banach said.

AN INVESTMENT

When Marks bought a 3-acre parcel of land in the Stock Farm development, it didn’t occur to him at first to use reclaimed materials in the design.

But the development has a long history.

Stock Farm, which was an actual farm in the mid-1800s, was originally owned by the Baynard family, who also owned Braddock’s Point on Hilton Head Island.

On July 31, 1844, a crowd gathered under a 75-foot oak tree on the property to hear U.S. Rep. Robert Barnwell Rhett’s address calling for the South to consider separating from the Union.

That tree came to be known as the Secession Oak, the birthplace of the Bluffton Movement, which initiated South Carolina to be the first state to secede in 1860.

For Marks — who bought his parcel from the previous Stock Farm owners, the McCracken family — it began to make sense to use centuries-old materials instead of new ones to reflect the development’s history.

He met with Banach, architect Pearce Scott and builder David Abney to consider ideas. He knew Banach from his work in Palmetto Bluff and Scott from previous projects in the Promenade. Abney’s portfolio includes a lot of Old Town development.

“We asked ourselves, ‘Could we do something that had a little bit more of a soul?’” Marks said. “Something that has a personality. Something that when you’re in the structure, when you’re on the street, you say, ‘This feels like it’s been here awhile.’

“And as a matter of fact, it has,” he continued.

Each of the six cottages to be built in his portion of Stock Farm will use different amounts of reclaimed materials, with light, modern touches.

Marks hopes to break ground on two of the cottages once he receives final approval by the Historic Preservation Commission in early February, although he added the recently announced delay in the May River Road streetscape project might push construction back a few months.

The cost for Marks to use reclaimed materials is about 20 to 30 percent more than if he used new materials.

But it’s an investment he think will ultimately pay off.

“Older wood has a story,” Marks said. “The person who buys this house is going to know that (the materials) came from a barn in Ohio that was 150 years old.”

And modern homebuyers often seek the distressed look that naturally comes with old materials.

“You notice the difference because there’s a richness and a character that you don’t get when you take a new oak, sand it, beat it up with chains and finish it,” Banach said.

Weather conditions and aging over 150 years create natural patterns and textures on siding and roofs.

Many of Banach’s materials come from Ohio, where he has a facility, and are shipped to Hardeeville to be milled locally. The cottages in Stock Farm will have materials that come from different structures, including Amish barns, and even one that features locally reclaimed wood.

“We’ll do one cottage that’s all Savannah River-reclaimed,” Banach said. “All the old dock timbers will be cut up and used as siding, roofing, cabinets, interior doors.”

Banach tries to use as much of an old structure as possible in new buildings, and estimates he and his team can salvage between 50 and 60 percent of an old building.

That cutdown on waste is another key consideration for many homebuyers, especially millennials.

“It seems like recycled and reclaimed (has) become the cool thing in the past few years,” Banach said. “All of my clients when I first came down here were retirees building their dream home and they wanted the 12-inch wide antique oak. Now it’s the first-time homebuyers who are coming out and saying, ‘Hey, what can you do for us at this price point?’”

It extends beyond residential design, too. Banach said businesses including retail cabinet companies and furniture makers are investing in the trend.

Banach and Abney are also working on FARM, which is on track to open this spring in the Promenade.

Ryan Williamson, one of FARM’s managing partners, estimated about 85 to 90 percent of the interior will use reclaimed materials, including the wall coverings, doors, tabletops and stooltops.

“It fits what we’re doing with the restaurant,” Williamson said. “We want to have a beautiful restaurant, highlighting stories. The staff will be able to tell those stories.”

Williamson has also commissioned a potter to make the bowls and plates in the restaurant instead of using mass-produced products.

“We want to get back to where we were 40 or 50 years ago, when everyone had a story,” Williamson said.

‘IT HAS A HEART AND A SOUL’

The process of deconstructing an old building to finishing a new home with reclaimed materials is substanial.

Most of the barns Banach deconstructs were built between 1820 and 1910 around Mount Vernon, Ohio.

He has also used materials from former cotton mills in South Carolina and timber from the old Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Typically, Banach gets a call from someone in his network, visits the site — which can be down the street or hours way — and decides whether an old building can be deconstructed and, if so, what materials can be reclaimed.

“You don’t really know what you’re going to get when you show up,” Banach said.

Once a barn or a mill is deconstructed, it’s imperative for Banach and his team to keep the materials as intact as possible.

“We keep our inventory in raw form,” Banach said. “We can cut the material to fit the house.”

The price to use reclaimed material varies, but for Banach, it starts with clients getting in on the ground floor and having flexibility in their design plan to accommodate what materials are available.

“If I can use every part of that building, it’s across the board going to be more economical,” Banach said.

From a builder’s perspective, the cost to work with reclaimed materials is significantly higher than new materials.

“Estimating is tough,” Abney said. “You have more overage. It’s tougher to work with, so it’s hard on tools. It’s hard on the blades. It’s heavy, (so) it’s hard on the guys.

“But it has a heart and a soul, and it has a story to it,” he continued.

The recent development boom in Old Town has kept Abney’s company, D.H. Abney, busy with projects, so there is more flexiblity in deciding which additional projects he takes on.

The wood “served as a life,” Abney said. “It’s this continuum of stuff being repurposed and a continuation of its life rather than just going to a dump and taking up space.”

Marks said he did not employ research that indicated local homebuyers seek reclaimed materials in their home.

But as a real estate investor, he believes there is a market, particularly in Old Town Bluffton, for reclaimed materials moving forward.

“This is common sense that says, ‘People are investing in Bluffton,’” Marks said.

The homes in the Guilford Place Cottages — the name Marks has given the six-home development — aren’t geared toward buyers who seek the most square footage for the lowest price.

Rather, he said, he’s catering to a buyer who seeks a more unique aesthetic.

“It’s going to be one-of-a-kind when it’s done,” Banach said. “And that’s where it gets difficult sometimes, because people say they want it to look just like the house next door.”

That’s not possible, he added, because the materials are unique to the structure it came from. Even timber from different rivers look completely different from each other because of the wood colorations.

“People tell me not to do this,” Marks said. “They say, ‘You’re crazy as an investor to do this,’ because most people will not pay for the soul and the history.

“(But) I want to do something a little different here,” he continued. “I want to have a story.”

Follow reporter Ashley Fahey on Twitter at twitter.com/IPBG_Ashley.

Related content:

• Catching up with Bluffton's May River Road streetscape project, January 20, 2016
• Cottages, mixed-use development proposed for Stock Farm in Old Town Bluffton, October 6, 2015
• FARM restaurant to open in Old Town Bluffton in 2016, July 2, 2015

This story was originally published January 24, 2016 at 2:31 PM with the headline "Old Town Bluffton buildings incorporating reclaimed materials."