Farmland building gets egg-centric rehab

By BILL RICHMOND

City editor

The owner of a Farmland industrial block will celebrate the building's centennial and his ongoing rehabilitation of the facility with an open house. The Watson Block, at 112 W. Henry St., was originally built as a buggy sales facility. Many local residents know it as the egg processing plant and hatchery which it was for about 50 years.

The ground floor of the building is currently home to the Farmland Art Co-op, office space for Sulek and Associates and Mario's - a wine wholesale business. The upstairs loft living space is as individual as its occupant and owner, Kevin Cox - president and co-owner of Farmland Auto Parts.

The open house is Saturday, Sept. 20 and Sunday, Sept. 21 from noon to 6 p.m., with a centennial celebration Sept. 20 from 6 p.m. until midnight.

Cox has owned the building for 11 years, steadily working to make it a more useful space and adding his own deft touches since 1997.

"Information from the abstract says it was built in 1908," Cox said. "I knew this was the 100th year, so I thought I'd have an open house. A lot of local people are curious about it and not everybody's been in."

The second story living area includes two bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, a kitchen/dining room, office space, a living room and a recreation room. Each of the two stories contain just over 4,000 square feet of space.

A unique feature of the building is a working freight elevator which Cox still uses on occasion.

The eclectic space includes a diverse collection of art and antiques, a collection of trophies won by his grandfather Roe Miller in the early 1950s for a 1929 Packard he restored, and personal touches he calls "goofy stuff" - such as a door that opens to reveal a brick wall and a large fragment of an old billboard with a photo of his daughter, Lindsey Cox. The loft is also home to a smattering of chalk boards and furnishings from the old Winchester High School, an elevated stage he built to cover a bad sub-floor and a number of indoor hanging swings.

"Basically, I've just been left unsupervised," he kids when asked about the decoration scheme.

"I run into so many people who say how can you live in some place that's not a house. I've not had any problem adapting to it."

He said the members of the community are welcome to tour the building, enjoy the unique touches and share any memories they may have of the building's past.