Title: 1639-1645 Main Street
Location of Proejct: Columbia, SC
Project Completion Date: November 2021
Firm Name: Garvin Design Group

Short Description: Adaptive reuse of 1639-1645 Main Street in Columbia’s Main Street Commercial Historic District found creative ways to give new life to three of the city’s oldest buildings. Careful preservation of surviving historic elements and deft removal of late 20th century additions retained and restored the buildings’ historic appearance. Selective interior openings in party walls joined three previously separate buildings for a single, cosmopolitan new use.

Architect's Statement: Some of the oldest surviving buildings in Columbia’s Main Street Commercial Historic District (listed in the National Register of Historic Places), 1639 – 1645 Main Street housed various grocers and commercial tenants throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A local family of developers and preservationists purchased the set of contiguous buildings in 2019 and set out to adapt the buildings for a new, singular use while preserving the historic elements unique to each building.

Adaptive reuse at 1639-1645 Main Street carefully adhered to the National Park Service’s standards for rehabilitation to create a distinctive new destination on Columbia’s Main Street while protecting historic fabric in the city’s core. Following the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards ensured the project was able to use federal, state, and local historic tax credits. Adapting 1639-1645 Main Street for mixed commercial and residential use continued the revitalization in the urban core.

Restoration work included removal of mid-20th century stucco facades, smooth pilasters, and large plate glass display windows to reveal the buildings’ original cast iron columns and brick facades. Historic images of the building provided a reference for the restored storefront, which now features repeating groups of glass display windows and recessed double doors with transoms above, encased in wood bulkheads and framing system. Previously infilled second-floor window openings were re-opened and fitted with new aluminum-clad wood windows to match surviving historic examples.

Ground floor and basement spaces were adapted to accommodate a new restaurant known as Smoked, while second floor apartments were rehabilitated for renewed residential use. Adapting three separate buildings for joint use required careful programming: interior layouts needed to honor the buildings’ historic relationship to each other and their appearance from Main Street. Selective demolition of sections of interior walls enabled interior access between buildings on the ground floor. Cased openings were strategically placed at the rear of each dining room to minimize their visibility from Main Street. Placing Smoked’s microbrewery at the rear of the center building and behind an interior storefront wall maximized square footage for dining rooms, minimized visibility from Main Street, but supplied views of brewing operations from the buildings’ interior. Reopening and restoring the 19th century skylight in the center building created a natural spotlight for a new oyster bar.

The buildings’ surviving historic fabric was carefully preserved throughout. Beadboard, pressed tin, and plaster ceilings were kept throughout the ground level spaces. Pressed tin ceilings in the dining areas were painted dark to minimize the visual impact of new mechanical and plumbing systems and enhance the sense of height. Historic hardwood floors in the oyster bar, dining room, and vestibules were kept, with new mosaic ceramic tile installed around the foot of the oyster bar and in the recessed entryways. Placing the main bar along the northernmost wall of 1645 Main Street (the northernmost of the three buildings) enabled creative reuse of recessed space between structural columns: bronze inlay accents the notched openings framing the downlit bar back.

The new patio at the rear of the site features a prefabricated aluminum pergola that mimics the gable roof of the adjacent rear addition. Operable roof fins allow covered seating in inclement weather and allow the sun in during cooler months. A brick knee wall and welded wire trellis fencing enclose the brick-paved patio and turf garden area, creating an inviting outdoor space accessible via a Nana wall in the rear lounge space and shielded from activity on surrounding streets.

Awards at the local and state levels recognize the impact this adaptive reuse project has had on the local community. The project earned Historic Columbia’s 2022 Historic Preservation Award for Rehabilitation and the South Carolina Governor’s 2022 Preservation Honor Award. These honors highlight the project’s contribution to the ongoing revitalization of Columbia’s urban core and South Carolina’s built environment more broadly.