LITTLE MOUNTAIN, S.C. — For the past five months, locals in Little Mountain, Newberry County, have been enjoying a new community space, the Boland House, which has existed since the 1840s.
Co-owner Mark Watkins said it was a lengthy process to re-furbish the home, keeping lots of its historical parts, like the window glass, bricks, doors and water well. Now, folks in the community are loving seeing the space re-purposed.
"The idea was to kind of share it with the community, and bed and breakfast doesn't share it with the community so much," Watkins said. "So, it's more fun to do the wine bar and the event venue and let people come and go from it a bit. And so, we love it. There were thoughts about, from others advising us, maybe you needed to have a more modern wine bar, and we're like no, I mean, we wanted to restore the old house, and so whatever we do here is going to have to fit in what the old house looked like."
The Boland House has since hosted baby showers, weddings, fundraising events, trivia nights and craft nights. The new community hotspot is open Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays, but the owners explain they're available any day of the week for a scheduled event.
The new owners have even integrated local artist Dianna Page's paintings.
"Well it's just very special to come back to where I grew up, where my dad grew up, it's just, it's, my heart is still here very much so, and I'm just very honored, blessed to be able to display it again," Page said.
"People have said, 'Oh my gosh, this is wonderful. I love these kind of old structures,'" Watkins said. "It’s good to see this, and when I, many would say I used to drive by here or walk by here and wondered what would happen to it as it was deteriorating, and now it's so much fun to come in and see the house."
