New owner of general store on Anna and Church taking restoration slow
Story and Photos By David Blanchette
Whenever Erik Hack works on the old commercial brick building at the corner of Anna and Church streets in Jacksonville, people stop and ask what he’s doing.
“I tell them, ‘At the moment I’m just going to keep it and love it.’ That’s my standard answer,” Hack said. “People in the neighborhood are just happy we’re not tearing it down, but they’re still curious.”
The structure in question is the Burge Building, constructed around 1910 and used for decades as a neighborhood general store. Before Hack purchased the historic building, it was a part-time antiques restoration center with a cryptic, handwritten “hours by chance on evenings and weekends” sign in the front window. But it wasn’t the mystery, it was the history that caught Hack’s attention.
“It’s a time capsule. We had not seen plaster in such good condition, the original light fixtures, the store display units, the floors and windows,” Hack said. “It’s got great bones, and our goal is to listen to the building, keep it a living antique, keep all of our work as minimally invasive as possible.”
Unlike the four downtown historic buildings that Hack purchased and renovated, the Burge Building will not be initially rented out once restoration work is complete. That gives Hack and his renovation partners the luxury of working on the building over time without having to be concerned with meeting the demands and concessions of income-producing properties.
That’s a good thing, because the Burge Building truly is a diamond in the rough.
“It hasn’t had the standard layers of drywall, two-by-fours and paint. The hardwood floors, store shelving, bins and wood trim are all original and will only need careful scraping, washing and oiling,” Hack said. “We’re not going to polyurethane things, we’re going to do it the old way and bring it back to life.”
The wood floors and a concrete step leading into the building have concave indentations from decades of store customers’ and workers’ footsteps, something that Hack will keep during the restoration because that speaks to the structure’s history. He will also carefully reveal, piece by tantalizing piece, the original Gold Medal Flour and Coca-Cola murals adorning the outside of the brick building. The original, hybrid light fixtures will also be kept.
“The fixtures are both electric and gas,” Hack said. “I guess in the era when this was built, electricity was not that reliable. So if the electricity petered out, they could simply light the gas and use that for illumination.”
Hack has learned much about the Burge Building’s history from neighbors who stop by to talk while he is working.
“This general store was in a predominantly Black section of town at the time, and a wonderful 82-year-old lady came in and told us how she used to run down from the nearby church, buy a nickel’s worth of candy here, and run back to church,” Hack said. “People have been giving us a lot of stories about their history with this building.”
Hack believes he is just the third owner of the Burge Building. He purchased it from the Flynn family, who acquired it from the original owners. An auction was held prior to its most recent sale during which most of the antiques inside were sold.
“I fell in love with the building the moment I came in,” Hack said. “The neighbors are thrilled that we are doing something with it, and it has sparked some motivation on their part to work on their own properties.”
Hack is using leftover pieces from other historic building projects to fill in gaps where needed in the Burge Building, such as the installation of antique metal floor vents and replacing the odd piece of damaged or missing hardware that he encounters. He worked with City of Jacksonville crews to get the dilapidated sidewalk replaced in front of the building, “an example of tax dollars well spent” because kids use the sidewalk to go to and from nearby Washington Elementary School.
One of the people who helps Hack work on historic building restorations will occupy an apartment they are developing on the top floor, which will provide a measure of security while the work progresses. But Hack is in no rush to get the work done, and thinks he will be working for at least another year on the building.
“We will take our time, listen to the building, and really put the love into it to bring it back to the treasure it is,” Hack said.
Hack naturally came by his affinity for historic rehabilitation work. He grew up in Europe and helped his father, who was a builder, work on homes on that continent before the family moved to Jacksonville in 1975. His first job as a child was straightening bent nails so they could be re-used.
Hack and his wife, Jennifer, have carried that tradition forward by purchasing historic structures in need of a little TLC and returning them to their former glory. They are often assisted in their work by local radio newscaster and friend, Jeremy Coumbes, and another friend named Josh.
“I guess restoration is an infection that took hold of me,” Hack said. “And it’s one that I don’t want to cure just yet.”
