Old Taylors Mill Growing Into Arts Destination

In a nearly hidden corner of Taylors, old smokestacks rise into the sky, high above the modest houses of the former mill town. The seemingly paper thin windows of the old bleachery let generous torrents of sunlight pour into the massive building, which in another life bustled with the efforts of 1,000 employees. 

The Taylors Southern Bleachery, colloquially known as the "old mill," is now but a ghost of what was once a thriving community center.

The mill, which treated and dyed cotton, was the catalyst for growth in the area, as dozens of homes were constructed at the behest of the plant owner, Harry Roberts Stephenson. The bleachery opened in 1922, and was a critical part of the fabric of the Taylors culture for decades before it closed in 1965. 

Nearly 50 years have passed since the fabric operations shut down there, and other businesses, like an automotive textile manufacturing company, have since come and gone. But Kenneth Walker, a child of the old Taylors, looks at the great hulking structure of the ancient bleachery and looks past what it once was, and sees something else - potential. 

Walker, an electrical contractor, ran his business out of Greer for years until 2006, when he sold the property he owned and spotted the old mill. 

"I saw potential for small businesses and entrepeneurs," Walker said. "And I saw it as a chance to lease out space to them at an affordable rate." 

Walker, who as a child attended Taylors School in downtown Taylors, is now trying to resurrect what was once the heartbeat of the community. 

He owns Taylors Mill Properties, and is trying to transform Taylors from a former mill town into a future arts destination. It hasn't been easy. When Walker first purchased the property - which boasts some 800,000 square feet of interior space and 72 total acres - he first had to get the property rezoned by the county from industrial to mixed use, so he could have both commercial and residential tenants there. His second task was getting the property on both the state and national register of historic places. 

He accomplished both shortly after buying the property, but still, when he acquired the mill, he had a total of three tenants. 

Fast forward to the present, and Walker now has 43 tenants, and more are on the way. 

"My biggest challenge now is trying to keep up with the pace of people wanting to rent space here," Walker said. 

Now, Walker's passion has shifted from simply electrical contracting to making Taylors an arts destination. 

"I decided to treat this as another project, a lot like my electrical business," Walker said. "Since then, it's developed into my main project." 

The old mill is bustling with activity, mostly from those in the arts industry. From Daniel Marinelli's sculpture and custom architectural work, to Mobilla Farm Tables, to the photography if Bryan Hiott, more than a dozen art operations now call the mill their home, and just hop, skip and a jump down the road from the main building is sculptor Doug Young's studio at 100 Mill Street. 

"We really wanted to move to the Greenville area," Marinelli said as he worked on a custom table in his studio. 

Marinelli originally aimed for setting up shop near the West End in Greenville, but limited availability and prohibitively high rental rates shifted his attention elsewhere. 

"We kind of heard about the mill by word of mouth," Marinelli said. "And the price was right." 

Now, Walker continues to plan for the future. The old boiler room of the mill will be transformed in coming years into an events venues for balls, parties and weddings and other events. 

He's also devoted tens of thousands of feet of space on the second and third floors of the mill for a major arts center - Upstate Visual Arts, which is a 500-member thriving non-profit arts group. 

And as Walker continues to plan for further development at the old mill, his tenants continue to forge their own identity as a growing arts community. The artists there have banded together to form the Taylors Arts Group, an informal organization providing resource sharing, encouragement and networking for those in the growing Taylors arts community. 

From a plastic recycling company to a book-binding business, the old mill is now home to an eclectic group of professionals - who, by honing their craft in the old brick confines of the bleachery, are now inextricably linked to Taylors' heritage, regardless of their respective trades. 

Walker's repurposing and reinvention of the Taylors Southern Bleachery may very well lead to its resurrection.