When they moved in, Dianne and Randy Fix’s Hampton Lake home was technically new — even if their favorite parts came from other homes, a textile mill, a barn and a factory.
The couple bought their 3,300-square-foot home at 14 Anchor Cove Court in 2008 after it was built as a spec by Bluffton’s Reclamation By Design, a builder that specializes in constructing new homes and commercial buildings with flooring, beams, siding, wainscoting, trim, brick, stairs and cabinetry from demolished or unused structures.It’s not often that someone says the favorite part of their house is the front door, but Dianne does so proudly. “Our front door was taken from a Sears Roebuck house,” she says, referring to an old turn-ofthe- century kit. “You know, those old houses you could order from a catalog?”
Dianne says she’s also partial to the home’s back and upstairs views of Hampton Lake, a man-made wonder in Bluffton. “Our views of the lake are spectacular,” she says.
Yet when talking about her home — which has four bedrooms and four bathrooms and features a library loft, gas fireplace, a claw foot bathtub in the master bath, and closed cell foam insulation — she always returns to its diverse origins.
“Our floors, trim, the brick on the front, the paneling — that all came from other houses. The beams came from a factory,” she says. “The house has a cozy, charming feel. It’s special because it’s different. It’s old meets new.”
According to Reclamation By Design’s Jim Johnson, he and partners Ron and Patricia Strimpfel strive to build homes and commercial buildings that are “environmentally conscious and maintain and return to the techniques of craftsmen that are treasured but, more often than not, lost. Everything we build ... uses materials that we find from former homes and buildings. It’s a unique grace of old and new.”
