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The Hamilton JournalNews is committed to coverage of the local community — from schools and our local history to business and news. Each Sunday, reporter Richard O Jones tells the story of the people, history, places and events that make Greater Hamilton unique. Have an idea for Richard? Email him at Richard.Jones@coxinc.com.
While high-profile downtown Hamilton projects like Artspace try to revitalize the urban landscape, Seldon and Nancy Brown are busily creating their own art space on the other side of the river.
For eight years, Seldon has operated the Little Woodshop on Main in a storefront that over-looks the busy intersection of Main Street, Millville Avenue and Eaton Avenue.
Three years ago, Nancy walked into the shop to get her grandmother’s rocking chair fixed, “and never left,” they are fond of saying.
Eventually, they took over the shop next door, rehabbed it and turned it into an art studio they call Aesthetics on the first floor and an apartment for the couple above.
At the suggestion of landlord Louis Barich, a physician with an office just down the block, they dubbed their conclave “Brown’s Way” and even hung a banner in the breezeway between the shops to let people know.
“Dr. Barich is our patriarch,” Seldon said. “He allows me to exist.”
For their efforts, the Browns have been awarded the Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce’s first Community Appearance Award of 2013.
“They’ve done great things to spruce up the area,” said Carrie Mancuso, chair of the Accent Hamilton subcommittee that hands out the award.
Seldon said he’s been waiting eight years for the award, and he’s proud of the fact that their work on Aesthetics was the effort that made it possible.
Seldon has a colorful, some might even say checkered, history. His newspaper clipping collection begins with a story of him and a painting he did of rock star Peter Frampton when he was in high school and a story about him giving up a football scholarship to take a ballet scholarship. But he also talks freely about his drug abuse history and the time he spent “in Sheriff Jones’ house.”
Eight years ago, he was running an East Side business remodeling kitchens and baths, but his professional career also includes 23 years as a design engineer and two years as an over-the-road truck driver.
He began renting space from the previous owner of the building, who used it as a wood shop without a retail element.
“We call this ‘the Lower West Side’,” he said. “I have lived my whole life within one mile of this place.”
In June, 2005, with a loan from his then-father-in-law Don Garrett, he purchased the building, then promptly went to Mississippi and rebuilt seven homes in 13 months in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“When I got back, I got divorced and moved into ‘the beaver den above the woodpile in the back of the shop’,” he said. “I put my ‘Open’ sign out and my trust in the Lord and then just leaned into it.”
Now, he says he has so much business in the woodshop that it could take six or eight months to catch up.
Nancy was a stay-at-home mom with a degree in art — and also recently divorced — when she walked into his shop.
“We just collided,” Seldon said. “We decided we wanted to make this place our SoHo,” referring to the New York City neighborhood noted for its artist lofts and galleries.
They were married two years ago on July 4, and held their reception in the Little Wood Shop, decorated with brown craft paper and greenery.
Seldon noted that the Lower West Side is not a part of the Historic Main Street District, which ends at F Street, so they call it “the Fifth Block.”
The intersection, however, is also a targeted location for improvement as part of the city’s Strategic Plan because it is considered a gateway, in the planning stages of a $3.7 million improvement that would re-align the Millville/Eaton avenues approach to the intersection in 2016.
He eventually hopes to own the entire block and has plans in his head already for the buildings to the west, but the short-term plan is to boost the business and visibility of Aesthetics, which already boasts 6,000 ceramic molds, 4,000 pieces of bisque ready for sale, four working kilns and two potter’s wheels.
Nancy said the place was “a flophouse inhabited by wild cats” when they took over.
To get it into Community Appearance Award-winning condition, and to create a nice living space for the newlyweds above, they basically gutted and reconfigured the whole building, knocking out walls and creating windows, taking out toilets to create a drying room for their clay products. They turned two small apartments upstairs into one large one.
A photo on the wall shows an early image of the building as the West Side Bakery, Aug. F.W. Ott, proprietor.
The Browns “repurposed” as much of the material as they could, and have claimed spiritual ownership of the block, evidenced by a banner hanging from the railing above the Aesthetics storefront with their mission of “Making It Beautiful and Developing Tomorrow’s Artists.”
“This is what Hamilton really is,” Seldon said. “This is the future of Hamilton.”
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