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FAYETTEVILLE — Houston “Wheat” Wendell’s
maternal grandfather was known to be a great carpenter. He worked on several homes of note in Fayette County. He was also known to be a perfectionist.
Wendell recalls a story about Thomas Light, his grandfather, returning
one morning to his job remodeling a Fayetteville store, only to find his carpentry tools sitting outside. Light came in and asked Florenzo Janutolo
why his tools were outside.
“This store is opening. You’re finished,” Wendell
said his grandfather was told. Apparently Janutolo had become impatient with Light’s perfectionism.
Perhaps history is repeating itself now in the very building where
Light toiled away.
Glenn Carlson and his crew are restoring the building, which has lived
through several incarnations. The 1907 building is listed on the National Historic Trust, and Carlson is taking care to restore
it correctly.
The building is near the Fayette County Bank and Fayette County Courthouse.
Both of those buildings are also on the historic register. But acceptable methods of restoration have changed, even since
the bank was refurbished.
“Gone are the days when you could sandblast,” Carlson
said. “Historic officials will not let you use anything so abrasive anymore. So we are cleaning the outside of the building
by hand. But we are protecting the patina.”
When the time comes to hang awnings out front again, Carlson said,
he has learned that he has four fabric choices that are the same as merchants could have chosen when the building was new.
Inside, he has also taken care to treat the tin ceiling with special
care. But the primer for the ceiling costs $50 a gallon, the finish coat costs $110 a gallon, plus 100 hours of labor.
“You can see why some people just let these historic buildings
fall in on themselves,” Carlson said. “It’s so expensive. You can snap your fingers in here and drop $100,000.”
“I’m caught between what was done to the building
before I started and the correct restoration. I believe in setting the bar high and getting in touch with the experts.”
He said he has gotten help from the state office for historic
preservation.
Carlson is finishing the main area of the building without a
definite tenant in mind. “We’re going to renovate and see if they come,” he said.
The real estate company that Carlson works with to sell his homes
in The Ledges, a housing development Carlson is building near the New River Gorge, will occupy the back section of the bottom
floor of the building. That room has a large window that will face the Historic Fayette Theatre, built in 1935.
He envisions bringing people interested in buying houses at The
Ledges to the real estate office and also taking them out to lunch in Fayetteville restaurants. “That way you plug them
into the community right away,” he said.
Upstairs, he is making small apartments. He envisions people
who work in Fayetteville who cannot afford a home finding the apartments attractive. He said he talked with the architect who built Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and learned that the project was not successful until people
started to move into the downtown area. Carlson believes building affordable apartments in the middle of Fayetteville can be a big benefit
to the town.
“I think this will be a good economic model.”
Carlson has a copy of a photograph of the building when it belonged
to the Wendell Brothers. Houston “Wheat” Wendell
has many memories and quite a few pictures of the building. His grandfather and great uncle were the Wendell Brothers, who
had the grocery store in the building until 1927. That is when the Janutolos bought the building and overhauled it, he said.
Florenzo and his cousin, Cleanta, had a jewelry store and soda shop in the building.
Interestingly, Wendell’s paternal relatives owned the store,
and his maternal grandfather did the renovations. When the Janutolos started the renovations, it was Thomas Light, Wendell’s
maternal grandfather, who did the work.
Wendell has pictures of the building in all its past lives: as
The Wendell Brothers grocery store, as Hess Supply and
as the Christian Pharmacy. Some of the pictures show the town before it had paved streets.
When the Janutolos bought the building in 1927, they opened the
upstairs to lawyers for their offices and an office for the state Road Commission. In recent years, the Fayette County Public
Defenders had their offices upstairs.
All the stone on the exterior of the building was brought from
local quarries, he said.
“It’s a sturdy old building,” Wendell said.
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