News

What's new (and old) on Main Street

By Bill Moss, Published: June 28, 2022

The new owners of the historic building at 314 N. Main St. have taken the storefront back to its original appearance of the early 1900s.
Contractor Dennis Dunlap won permission from Hendersonville’s Historic Preservation Commission in February to strip off the corrugated aluminum façade and expose the original brick storefront below the brick cornice. He told the commission the original façade can be restored as Mast General Store was and that the brick was in good shape. Dunlap, who has restored and remodeled some 25 buildings on Main Street, said the second floor has a 12-foot ceiling and the building also has a basement. The retail space was most recently occupied by Scottie’s Jewelers, which moved to 236 N. Main St.
Crest Investment Properties of Mills River bought the 4,064-square-foot building in December for $175,000. The owners are seeking a tenant for the building. Dunlap has gutted the street-level space. “They’ve had a couple people look at it but nobody’s offered anything,” he said. “He was hoping for maybe a restaurant on the Main Street level and he talked about maybe some apartments upstairs.” Dunlap said the owners may seek a facade grant to complete the restoration.
The building is part of a row of commercial buildings built in the early 1900s by Capt. M. C. Toms that came to be known as the Toms block, according to the Historic Preservation Commission’s inventory of Main Street Historic District properties. “It will make a very handsome row of stores when finished and a credit to the city,” the French Broad Hustler reported when construction was under way in 1906.