The Breeze Magazine of the Lowcountry, MARCH 2019

and then split in half at the paper, then mounted on
the panel. The entire entablature is multi-colored,
each piece meticulously hand painted with multiple
coats. I would like to point out that Lucy did most
all of the intricate and complex turning and a good
bit of the fine delicate painting.
Entering the building is like entering another world.
The walls are clad with six foot wainscoting that is
picture framed with a chamfered frame, perfectly
jointed together, and each panel has a turned
rosette in the center. The wainscot is cherry in the
main room and ash in the conference room.
The most amazing part of the building is the floor.
Through the years Hank had saved scrap wood of a
variety of species, thinking he would use them one
day. Well, the floor is made of over 15,000 pieces of
20 different species of wood. Walnut, cherry, white
oak, ash, maple, mahogany, magnolia, pecan,
water chestnut – to mention a few varieties. When
you look at the pictures each piece was scribed
together and fitted like a jigsaw puzzle. There is no
pattern. Each man and woman would take a corner
of the room and work for that day, the next day
they would move to another corner that had been
started by someone else. This is to make sure that
it is totally spontaneous and irregular. You will find
the burl of tree stumps and limbs, all milled to the
same thickness. A compass rose, an embedded
silver dollar. They also used larger slabs of boards
that had been felled by hurricane Matthew. Once
together it was all filed with epoxy and then multiple
coats of varnish. There will never be another floor
exactly like this one….never. The entire building is
truly a masterpiece.
Another master in his own right, which can be
seen in his body of work and more recently in his
restaurant, Andes Rotisserie, is Andy Fishkind, the
General Contractor that guided the trio through
the necessary complexities of the structure and
mechanicals. We must also add that the tile work in
the bath was completed, again masterfully, by D.J.
and Matt Gies, of Gies Tile and Marble.
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