Among the progress happening at the McCrory Timmerman Building this summer is bringing the historic 1948 freight elevator up to code. Thank you Central Texas Elevator

Hayley Blundell and Judy Blundell take the first trip in the restored elevator this summer.

Refinishing the orginal wood floors in the Titsworth building. Great detail is going into the project and the floors are no exception.

The McCrory Timmerman Restoration Project has  crossed into the new year and everything is just a little bit ahead of schedule!  Special thanks are due to our onsite teams who worked and worked and didn’t let up over the holidays.

As a result, the building is fully insulated with 8 inches of BioTex natural soybean base foam, the floorboards on the upper level have been reinforced and soundproofed, and our stunning arches have been restored to their original beauty.

Catherine Sckerl of Espero Studio has joined our team and will help us qualify for LEED certification.  The natural thermal envelope provided by 16” thick brick walls combined with the BioTex foam, the Uniflex “Cool Roof,”  and the double glazed operable Solexia windows have us hoping to obtain at least a LEED Silver rating.

From the very beginning we have promised local businesses that we would try our best to create additional parking as opposed to claiming existing spaces for the loft and retail tenants.  We even considered creating a drive through parking garage on the ground floor of building B.  But happily for us, the building next door became available and it has an existing parking area for 10 cars behind it.

The newly purchased building will be known as the Titsworth Building in honor of it’s original purpose,  Titsworth Furniture,  and will be the new home of the Taylor Artist Guild along with a few other Taylor locals who are committed to creative industries.

Yesterday morning we moved from the dark cold miserable shelf, that has been our onsite office, upstairs and into the light. Even though the space is far from finished it has the feel of a true loft-style creative studio – the sort of work place most can only ever dream of.

Thank you McCrory Timmerman Building for allowing us to tap into your original beauty!

We’d like to thank the onsite crew who invested their time, expertise and a whole bunch of courage on the day we dismantled and dropped the 1888 elevator. It was a messy, grotty task conducted in a small, dusty, grimy shaft.

Being an artist I asked that the equipment be treated as gently as possible because the word “sculpture” kept popping into my head. So many beautiful wheels and cogs and stunning pieces of steel! At the end of the day, the guys emerged safely from the wheel house on the roof and the beautiful old bits and pieces of the machinery were removed intact from the base of the shaft.

Thank you Justin, David, John and John!

In the mornings the old bricks of the McCrory Timmerman Building turn the color of gold. When this project began the rooms had not seen the light of day for many decades. In fact, the room shown with the three windows was so dark that we couldn’t enter it without halogen lamps for fear of hitting an unseen hole in the floor.

The arch in the photo is located on the west wall of the upper level of building A, and will be one of the passages from the foyer into the office spaces. There are five arches in total and they will feature original wrought iron gates as doors.

This is where we begin. An old building left standing on a corner in a small town in central Texas. But it’s a strong building, one that was built properly. It has a solid foundation and wings of steel, layers of sturdy brown brick and miles of hardwood floors.

It will be named for the entities who have come before us, those who have added to it’s history. McCrory – the department store that anchored the downtown intersection of Main and Second Streets, and Timmerman – the name of a gentleman who had a vision for this building but sadly did not live long enough to realize it.

Do you have fond memories of the McCrory Timmerman building? We’d love to hear about it. Leave a comment below.