RIDGEWAY – Larry Sharpe’s late wife Eileen had long envisioned a charming wedding chapel as a necessary addition to the family’s popular Farm at Ridgeway wedding venue located on Highway 21 between Blythewood and Ridgeway.
Now, almost three years after his wife’s death, Sharpe is bringing Eileen’s vision to life. He says he plans for the chapel to be finished in time for one of their granddaughters to be married there in October.
To that end, Sharpe, a man of many talents – including engineering and building – is on site every day overseeing the project’s progress.
“But I only work half a day – 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” he joked, with a wink.
The 3,500-square foot chapel sits on the edge of the woods beyond the main building on the property and within the 150 developed acres of the entire 600-acre parcel.
Sharpe recently took The Voice on a tour of the developing chapel site.
The sprawling wedding venue has been a work in progress for the last 14 years. There are numerous settings for weddings and other events inside and outside the main building. That’s one thing that makes it such a popular venue, Sharpe says, especially as brides moved away from “church” weddings toward venues that offer more romantic and picturesque settings, both indoors and outdoors …like at The Farm.
“But some brides are now looking for a chapel-in-the-woods type of church building to be married in,” Sharpe said. “That’s what this will be. It’s going to be special.”
The simple sanctuary, which will seat 200, will feature giant wrought iron chandeliers and elegant 14-foot tall cathedral windows custom made and shipped from North Carolina.
The chapel, like other buildings on the property, reflects Sharpe’s penchant for detail. For instance, the chapel is situated so that the outside surroundings are part of the building’s ambience.
Forty-four feet of glass accordion Nana doors – imported from Germany – will span each of the side walls of the chapel, giving full visual access to the bucolic views beyond the building – a landscaped pond on one side and an orchard and flowering trees and shrubs on the other side.
The 12’ x 12’ heart pine beams that brace the 40-or-so-foot high ceiling were cut from the centers of select giant pines from a property in Forest Acres. The trees were milled into beams near Camden.
Sharpe purchased antique pews from a church in the upstate that was being turned into a home. The pews have been refinished and are stored in a building Sharpe owns in Blythewood waiting for the move-in date.
The chapel is topped off with an old fashioned cupola that will house a traditional church bell.
Sharpe traveled to Tennessee to find field stone that he had shipped back to Blythewood and laid into a walking path along one side of the quarter-acre pond adjacent to the chapel. The field stone walkway is lined with Christmas ferns, tractor-seat plants, strawberry begonias and other specially selected blooming plants, all of which, Sharpe says, attract butterflies.
While he hired a landscape architect to design the gardens around the pond, he depended on the expertise of local Blythewood Garden Club member and award winning rose grower, Delores Snellgrove, to select and oversee the plantings.
To see all these details perfected, Sharpe says he depends on custom builder Robbie Smith of Southern Reflections home builders in Blythewood. Smith is well known in the midlands for building quality, high end homes as well as some commercial work.
Sharpe says he waited in line for almost two years before Smith could get to the chapel. He says the wait was worth it.
“Who else would I choose to do work like this?” Sharpe says. “Robbie takes pride in his work, he’s particular, and he does it right. That’s important to me.”
Smith says he’s done work for Sharpe for more than 20 years, and that they have a good understanding of what each other wants and brings to the project. Sharpe, Smith says, is hands-on and involved in the project from day one.
“I appreciate Mr. Larry’s trust in our work and his love of doing things the right way,” Smith says. “He doesn’t cut corners. Sometimes we have to do it over, but we get it right.”
But that’s not to say everything went smoothly as the chapel went up.
There was a scare on May 10, the day that most of the giant trusses were finally up. Severe weather was forecast that night with high winds and possibly a tornado.
“Because installation of the trusses, which weigh about three tons each, wasn’t finished, we were afraid what the wind might do. We spent the rest of the day triple bracing the trusses and prayed that the trusses would hold,” Smith says. “That night a tornado did hit the property. When we came out the next morning, there were trees down all around the chapel, but the braces held and the trusses were untouched. We were thankful.”
Smith says he’s always had a passion for The Farm since he first came out to help renovate the main building.
“The chapel is the sixth project we’ve built at The Farm, including the extension on the back of the main venue and wings on the sides, a catering kitchen, the groom’s building, the covered bridge, renovations and expansion of the bride’s room, and now the chapel,” Smith says.
“When I work out here, like on the chapel, it ain’t no kit,” he says with a smile. “Mr. Larry likes to start from scratch – taking down the trees, taking them to the saw mill, and then putting the wood together, just like they did it in the old days.”
Right now, Sharpe says he’s anxious for the chapel to be finished sometime in late September so he can move on to his next project – a cottage he plans to build further back in the trees in memory of Eileen.
“It will be for people like the bride’s or groom’s family to stay in before and after the wedding,” Sharpe says.
He has already started clearing the lot and says he’s in line with Smith to build it when the time comes.
And like the other projects Smith has built on the property, the cottage, Sharpe says, will be built from scratch.
For information about The Farm at Ridgeway, call (803) 508-6680 or email [email protected].
