NC town fears loss of Civil War-era building with old country store closing
The fate of a Civil War-era wood building is uncertain after a North Carolina couple announced this month their old-time country store is closing and they fear the historic structure may be demolished.
“That broke my heart,” Jo Ireland, co-owner of Terrell Country Store in Catawba County at Lake Norman, told The Charlotte Observer.
In an Aug. 16 Facebook post, Ireland announced to hundreds of store customers and local fans the store would close. The property’s owner, she wrote, gave her and her husband notice they must move out by October. She also wrote that the owner told her the the building would be razed, leading dozens to say they want to save the beloved property.
“Today has been one of the saddest days of my life,” Ireland posted. “...History Doesn’t Seem to Matter Anymore.”
The Observer left a voicemail for Jean Connor, the owner of the building, but Connor did not respond. In response to Ireland’s announcement, dozens of people have said they’ll try to stop demolition if attempts are made to tear down the building.
Located at the intersection of N.C. 150 and Sherrills Ford Road, the Terrell Country Store building is inside the Terrell Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Ireland says the building was constructed in 1863 and has been on the same piece of land since 1883.
But in recent years, rapid development has sprung up in this corner of Catawba County.
To the west and south of the store, land was cleared for a major mixed-use community, the Villages at Sherrills Ford. Also, a Publix grocery store opened as part of the new community just to the west of Terrell Country Store.
Ireland and her husband Bob Sysol have operated the store since Dec. 31, 2012. Visitors worldwide have come to the store to peruse its floor-to-ceiling assortment of antiques, folk art, hand-made quilts, collectables and vintage furniture decor, the couple said.
“It’s a landmark,” Jo Ireland told the Observer.
The building and property have been owned by members of the local Connor family since 1891, the Observer reported in 2011. Over the decades, the building has also housed a general grocery and hardware store, as well as a realty office. For years, the Sherrills Ford/Terrell post office operated there but the post office recently moved into a new building across the road.
As news has spread of Terrell Country Store’s closure, so have rumors of what will happen to the historic building and the land.
Sysol said developers have eyed the store property for years.
One local developer, told the Observer that some people in town think he’s responsible for the Terrell Country Store closing but he’s not. That developer, longtime Lake Norman businessman Dale Morrow, said he and another original Villages at Sherrills Ford investor have received death threats because people mistakenly think they’re trying to buy the property.
Morrow said he sold his financial stake in the the mixed-use community a couple of years ago. Previously, he said, he and other development partners had offered to move the store about 100 feet from its current location, and offered to pay a mover $43,000. That offer was turned down, Morrow said.
“We would love to save it,” Morrow said, even though he said many other local residents see the store as an eyesore that hurts their property values. The building is so old it looks like “it’s about to fall down,” he said.
Sysol says he is unaware of previous attempts to move and save the building. Since announcing the store would close soon, he said, support from the public has been tremendous.
One woman posted on the store’s Facebook page that her children took piano lessons upstairs in the building. “So sad to hear this,” she said. “Many happy memories of this store.”
“This is truly heartbreaking,” wrote another woman.
Said a third: “I’m passionate enough to lay down in front of wrecking balls .... And I’m not usually that type of a woman.”
On Tuesday, Sysol and Ireland posted on Facebook their hope that people will join them at an upcoming Catawba County commissioners meeting to urge the board to save the building.
Ireland and Sysol say they believe there may be a way for county officials to delay demolition of a historic property.
If there are plans to remove the old store, Ireland and Sysol say there’s a historic buildings state law that might permit the county board to delay demolition for up to a year.
But Jacky Eubanks, Catawba County planning and parks director, told the Observer that he knows of no such statute. He said the building is in a “voluntary district” on the National Register of Historic Places, meaning the owner would be free to raze or move such a building.
Eubanks also said he is unaware of any plan to tear down the building and that the county has not yet received any development plan or proposal for the land.