by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
40,000 square feet of century-old heart pine is being removed from the Churchwell Building at Bay and Market Streets to make way for the building’s conversion into condominiums.
The building was constructed in 1904 and work tables and shipping bins were built and installed with hand tools and block-and-tackle, according to owner and developer Robert Pavelka.
“They built tables and bins for stocking and sorting merchandise. After the order was pulled, they would put all the items into a bin and then send it down the elevator to the shipping department,” said Pavelka. “All that wood has to come out. We could have paid a demolition company to come in and tear it out and take it to the dump, but we came up with a better plan.”
All of the old fixtures are being carefully dismantled and will be refinished by a local flooring designer and contractor.
H.K. Usher and his wife, Annabelle, own Florida Heartwood Pine Flooring, LLC. They buy antique heart pine and transform it at a mill near St. Augustine into inlaid flooring, paneling and stairways.
He said he is excited about his latest find.
“This wood has been seasoning in this building for a century,” said Usher. “It’s been sitting here waiting for me since before I was born.”
Usher believes that much of the wood he is recovering from the Churchwell Building will eventually end up just across the river.
“Just look around you at what’s going on Downtown,” he said. “I’m going to put it in million-dollar condos and custom homes.”
Usher got started in the business when he recycled the old wood from several hundred homes that were scheduled for demolition in LaVilla. Since then, he said, his designs and installations have appeared in several lifestyle magazines including Southern Living.
“I’m glad all this great old wood is going to be reused,” said Pavelka. “It will end up in luxurious homes all over the country – maybe all over the world. I hope it has another hundred years of life.”