By Ashley Fletcher Frampton
aframpton@scbiznews.com
Published May 25, 2009
Kevin Meek sees stories of the past in the projects his historic renovation company takes on.
Sometimes, he smells the past, too.
While renovating five slave cabins at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens last year, Meek’s company, Rock Creek Craftsmen, discovered cooking grease while taking apart a chimney. The grease, which covered the chimney and the crew, smelled of meat cooked long ago, Meek said.
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(Photo/Leslie Halpern) |
Kevin MeekTitle: Owner, Rock Creek Craftsmen
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The slave cabin restoration was one of the first major historic projects for Meek and his company. The project helped steer his work from general repairs to complex historic renovations.
And that was the direction Meek, 41, had in mind three years ago when he came to Charleston and bought a small contracting company. He moved here after winding down his career designing lighting for theaters and museums.
Rock Creek Craftsmen’s recent work includes such projects as welding copper window frames for a downtown church and remaking columns for the porch of a downtown home. Meek is fascinated by the details — using dovetail joints instead of nails to secure wood, for example — that he says make a 2009 renovation look like work from the 1800s.
“I do work that other contractors might be afraid to do,” Meek said.
His interest in historic renovation grew out of his background in art and lighting design, which took him to some of the nation’s most high-profile museums. It also grew out of his side hobby of flipping historic homes in the nation’s capital.
“I really fell in love with old homes and how they’re built, and (with) history,” Meek said.
Meek’s first career began after he graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts. He began doing lighting for theaters in Washington, D.C., including more than 300 shows at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Theater work was mostly seasonal, and Meek said he got bored in the summers. To fill his time, he began buying and restoring old homes in the area.
Meek’s theater work morphed into museum work after someone saw his name in a theater program. The person asked him to fly to Washington state the next day to discuss lighting design for an Audubon Society museum in Florida.
He took the job, which led to others at some of the nation’s most famous museums: the National Holocaust Museum and Memorial, the National Civil War Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
“I kind of topped out in the museum world,” Meek said.
So Meek sold his real estate in Washington, D.C., and spent the next year touring national parks. Then he moved to Charleston, a city he had visited for the annual Spoleto Festival USA.
“Charleston is a natural place to go if you enjoy history,” Meek said.
When he purchased a contracting business with a vision of narrowing the work to historic renovations, he figured it would take five years. But, like his past ventures, things have moved quickly.
The niche has turned out to be a niche that keeps Rock Creek Craftsmen busy, even in a slow economy.
Owners of historic properties aren’t shelving repairs as other homeowners are, Meek said, because they know a little wood rot can lead to a major problem. Also, few other local companies are doing such specialized work.
Meek said the Magnolia Plantation slave cabin restoration remains his most interesting project so far. Each of the five cabins was restored to a different time period to tell the history of black residents in the Lowcountry.
“The specifications for that job were about the size of a telephone book,” he said.
In addition to the meat-scented grease, Meek and his crew have uncovered more than 10,000 artifacts, such as clay pipes and British uniform buttons from the Napoleonic Wars.
The cabins, which were occupied until late in the 20th century, are now the centerpiece of Magnolia Plantation and Gardens’ From Slavery to Freedom exhibit.
Reach Ashley Fletcher Frampton at 843-849-3129.
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