BLYTHEWOOD – After long, stressful shifts at the hospital, Dr. Bill Moore says he would head toward home and feel his blood pressure and stress level drop the moment he turned onto Muller Road for the last mile of his drive.
His house, just a mile from the main road through Blythewood, a historic farmhouse known as the Muller Place with trees on both sides of the approach, is the place he’s lived since 1998 and one that he admired for more than two decades before that, during his medical training at the University of South Carolina.
Officially retired this month after more than 30 years in medicine, the pioneering vascular surgeon says he plans to enjoy his peaceful spot in Blythewood, hunt, fish, and find time to get more involved in the community, town meetings and events.
“My life in Blythewood has been phenomenal, and my career has exceeded my expectations,” Moore says. “[Now I’m] ending a career but starting a new life here at my home…. It’s going to be nice to kind of take a breath and roll it back a little bit and enjoy life.”
Moore, a Texas native, says he first came to Columbia in the 1970s as a student, attending college on the GI Bill after his service in the U.S. Navy.
Recalling that time – when he and his wife were both in school and had two young children, and he worked three jobs to provide – he says they were perpetually broke. It was his effort to seek out free experiences for his children that led him to discover Blythewood.
“On the weekends I would ride the kids out here into this Blythewood area to see all the horses and feed them carrots and apples,” he says. “We fell in love with this home back in 1975.”
After 14 years at the University of South Carolina – a track that took him all the way through medical school and surgery residency – the family moved to New Orleans for his two-year surgery fellowship before they returned to the area and moved to the Wildwood subdivision.
According to a news release from Lexington Medical Center, Moore joined the staff there in 1991 as the first board-certified vascular surgeon in the Midlands. It was under his leadership that the hospital’s Vascular Lab gained national certification and grew to include in-office diagnostics and screening.
In the years that followed, Moore pioneered a list of firsts for performing new surgical procedures in the state and nation, and he collaborated to lead the development of a comprehensive venous disease treatment program, which has grown to provide 24-hour care in Lexington and Richland County.
He also led the effort to educate and develop staff in this area of medicine, served on several advisory boards in a professional capacity, and published more than 80 scientific articles and 20 book chapters.
Moore gives much of the credit for his accomplishments to those who he says have backed him throughout his career.
“I really owe my success to the financial, emotional, and otherwise support of the board and administration at Lexington Medical Center,” he says. “They were on board with the program from day one, and they never let me down.”
He says it wasn’t until after his kids were grown and in college – and he was well down the road of his career – when he and his wife moved to his current home in Blythewood. He says it reminds him of the Texas farmhouse where he grew up, and the property is reminiscent of the rolling hills of his youth.
“Living in a subdivision…I felt like a trapped animal,” he says, “but out here you can feel free. Wide open spaces and the beauty of this place – it really did, it changed my life…. It has been what I always dreamed of it being.”
“These folks are fantastic people, salt of the earth, second to none.
— Dr. Bill Moore, Blythewood Resident
He says he’d always wanted a home where he could keep his horses on the property – and besides that, the 1788 farmhouse just spoke to him. Built on one of the highest points in Richland County by a man named Buckner Hagood, it’s one of the oldest houses in the county, with a history documented in old photos and local lore.
He says he couldn’t have asked for a better community than the people in Blythewood and his equestrian neighbors on Persimmon Fork Road.
“The people here are fantastic people. Salt of the earth, second to none, warm and loving people,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed my interaction with every single one of them.”
Now 67, Moore remarried last summer – 12 years after his first wife’s death in 2008. He and his new bride are active members of Sandy Level Baptist Church.
Among the hobbies he says he’s looking forward to in retirement: spending time with family (including his children and grandchildren), working with horses, traveling, enjoying his boat, fishing, hunting, and perhaps renewing old hobbies like woodworking.
