Structural repair company giving new life to Old Hester Store

A structural repair business is using their move into Pickens County as an opportunity to bring new life to a building that had fallen into disrepair.

In December 2011, Falcone Crawl Space & Structural Repair purchased the Old Hester Store, a former country store located in Dacusville, from the Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Old Hester Store also served as voting place and post office for the area.

On Sunday, Melissa Falcone gave the Pickens County Historical Society an update on efforts to restore the building and create a Pickens County office for her family's business.

“Our goal is to reopen the building by the end of the year,” Falcone said.

Falcone and her family were looking for an opportunity to create another location for their Charlotte-based business.

“We serve the Carolinas and Georgia, any area within those three states,” she said.

Rather than just rent a space in an industrial park, Melissa suggested to her husband that they should go in another direction.

“I said, 'Honey, why don't we find an old building that needs some repair, fix that up and make that our office?” Falcone said. “And I won.”

Business owners can relate to some of the qualities the Falcones were looking for in their new building. They wanted to be close to Greenville and they wanted a location that would give them room to grow.

But the third qualification is something that most business and home owners would avoid: They wanted a building with termite damage.

“If we found a building with termite damage, not only would it let us showcase our work, but we'd get a good deal,” Falcone said.

Working with the Palmetto Trust, which keeps a list of endangered buildings in the state, the Falcones began to consider the old Hester Store.

Mike Bedenbaugh, Executive Director for the Palmetto Trust, said the trust had been working with the owners of the building for a several years, trying to find “a solution so the building can be reused and utilized.”

Palmetto Trust for Historic Preservation’s mission is to protect South Carolina’s historic places and the organization receives its funding through the financial support of its members and partners.

The building's owners donated the building to the trust, which placed protective covenants on the building, “so it can never be torn down and its historic fabric can always be protected,” Bedenbaugh said.

The trust then set out to find a buyer for the building, one that who put the Hester Store “to a use that brings value to the community,” he said.

The trust's mission is to protect historic buildings like the Hester Store and “make them economically viable again,” Bedenbaugh said.

“These buildings were built because of their economic viability,” he said. “Uses can be found for them so they can contribute to the economy of their communities again.”

Though the Hester Store has been in disrepair for a long time, “it looks so much worse than it is,” Falcone said.

“All old buildings are not just money pits,” she said. “This is a very strong building.”

The company has just completed the structural repairs.

“This is a really fun project for our crews,” Falcone said.

The company plans to keep many of the building's original features, she said.

“We're keeping all of the wood walls,” Falcone said.

The crew did make one scary discovery in the building – the building's chimney on the second floor

was being held in place by an old Coca-Cola sign.

“There's a Coca-Cola sign holding up a brick chimney,” Falcone said. “Most of the building is so solid, so strong, so I don't really know what happened there. We had to remove that. It just wasn't safe.”

Now that the structural work is done, further repairs include repairing the building's siding, facade work and landscaping.

“You're going to see the building come to life,” Falcone said.

She said the goal is to have “some type of store downstairs,” perhaps one selling candy, soda and ice cream, with the Falcone Crawlspace office upstairs.

They'll also add a separate shop on the lot.

On July 27, the Hester Store will go up for approval to be placed on the State Registry of Historic Places, Falcone said.

She said the building will then go for approval to be placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

Falcone said a documentary about the Hester Store restoration is currently being filmed. She hopes that the Upcountry History Museum will host the premiere of the film.

“It'll be nice to have a movie that can show what we can do,” Falcone said.

“We really want it to be an enjoyable film,” Falcone said. “We're going to talk about the area, talk about country stores in general, talk about people's memories of the building and whether they thought it could be saved.”