Slippery Rock Gazette

Joel Davis

Photos by Joel Davis and Emco-Williams

Original and new interior surfaces were given new granite tops, in the rehabilitation of the Historic Alexander Guest House.

Above: Emco-Williams installed New Venetian Gold granite tops in common areas, of the Alexander Guest House, like this bar in the former lobby, reception desks, and the patron dining area.

The granite countertop experts at Emco-Williams Inc. partnered with a development company to save a historical treasure of the “Secret City.” 

Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was established in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project, the top-secret operation that developed the atomic bomb. 

What is now known as the Alexander Guest House was part of the city’s history from the start. “When Oak Ridge was created as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II, the Guest House, as it was called then, was the place where visitors of the community stayed,” said Parker Hardy, President and CEO of the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. “You had notable scientists and military leaders with ultra-top secret classifications staying at the Guest House, many under assumed names for purposes of preventing espionage. It’s a fascinating story.”

The Guest House was built in 1943 in Oak Ridge to serve as guest quarters during the top-secret Manhattan Project. The name changed to the Alexander Inn in 1950. It was sold to a private owner in 1958, according to the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance.

The Alexander Inn remained in private ownership for years and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.  The condition of the property deteriorated. In 2013, the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance had placed the structure on its list of endangered historic buildings.

Enter Dover Development and Emco-Williams. Dover Development is well-known for taking on neglected historical properties. Most are granted a second life as affordable senior housing. Some of the revamped properties cater to Alzheimer’s patients.  The run-down Alexander Inn became the Alexander Guest House.

“It was exciting that we were able to participate in Rick Dover’s endeavor to take a broken down old hotel and guest house and reconstruct it and make a living area out of it for older people and save the building,” said Bill Grove Sr., owner of Emco-Williams Inc.

The restoration was masterful, Hardy said. “It really is an amazing job. The stone that was put in there by Emco-Williams, it is just extraordinary the work they’ve done. It is gorgeous. It’s absolutely a showplace.”

The restoration brought some old Manhattan Project workers full circle, Hardy said. “There are people who have moved into the Guest House as an assisted living facility who actually stayed there when they first came to this community as part of the Manhattan Project, or during the Cold War.”

Above: Dignitaries at the Alexander Guest House ribbon-cutting ceremony are: front, from left: David Bradshaw, Joseph Lee, Ray Evans, Mark Watson (City Manager), David Wilson, Rick Dover (middle), Teresa Scott, Mayor Warren Gooch (with scissors),  Rick Meredith, Parker Hardy (President of the Oak Ridge Chamber).

Above: The former Alexander Inn, on the National Register of Historic Places, was a Cold War era fixture in Oak Ridge. The deteriorating structure was rehabilitated by Dover Development, and granted a second life as affordable senior housing.

Above: Equipment in the over 17,600 square foot Emco-Williams Sevierville, Tennessee production facility includes an Elettromechannica Bridge Saw, two Bavelloni CNCs with automatic tool changers, and a Sasso inline polisher.

Above: The Emco-Williams Sasso “Flying Flat” Inline Edge Polisher has become a workhorse for the company.

Above: Emco-Williams employees Jon Burns (seated) and Chris Maples check settings on one of the company’s two Bavelloni CNC machines.  “Our CNC machines are the backbone of our production,” said Grove.

For the kitchenettes and vanity tops in the guest rooms throughout the building, Emco-Williams installed a warm Bainbrook Brown granite.

“There are pictures of Robert Oppenheimer at the Guest House,” Hardy said. 

“We think Enrico Fermi was (also) there. This was in a time when the city of Oak Ridge was a top secret community. You couldn’t enter the city without a badge identification. Maj. Gen. Leslie Groves (the military head of the Manhattan Project) had a two-room suite at the Guest House.”

Emco-Williams served as the stone expert for the project. “We put in all the bar tops for the kitchenettes and also the vanity tops,” Grove said. “We did all the tops in the reception area, the lobby area, and various other places. It was a considerable amount of granite. (We put stone in) all the common areas, which would include the restrooms and the lobby and the reception desks and the dining area for the patrons.”

The company used Bainbrook Brown for the vanity tops and the kitchenettes. It was supplied by a distributor in Nashville. The granite used in the commons areas was New Venetian Gold.

Emco-Williams has a more than 53-year history. It was founded in Sevier County, Tennessee, in March 1962. It is one of the oldest continuously operated cultured marble companies in the country.

In November 1999, Emco-Williams Inc. moved into its 20,000-square-foot plant and showroom located at 1030 Old Knoxville Highway in Sevierville, Tenn. In 2003, the company added natural stone and quartz to its product line. The inventory includes more than 40 colors of granite slabs.

Emco-Williams employs 15 people. It fields two to three installation crews. Two are dedicated to installation. One crew floats between fabrication and installation as needed. 

The company has two showrooms. One is in Knoxville.  It is 11,000 square feet. The other is in Sevierville. It is about 900 square feet. The fabrication facility in Sevierville is about 17,600 square feet. 

Emco-Williams does both residential and commercial work. It completes four to five jobs per day. It offers cultured marble and cultured granite. It also offers natural stones like marble, slate, and granite. It offers stone from four distributors. Two are in Atlanta. One is in Nashville. One is in Knoxville.

In the company’s shop, its equipment includes a bridge saw, two Bavelloni CNCs with automatic tool changers, and a Sasso inline polisher.

Emco-Williams is now known for its stone expertise. This wasn’t always the case. “I had no background in stone,” Grove said. “First of all, Emco-Williams wasn’t a stone company. It was and still is a cultured marble manufacturing company, but we added stone about 13 years ago.”

The company came into the stone industry through glass. It used to manufacture glass shower enclosures. 

“After we did it a while, we saw a company that came up for sale,” Grove said. “My son and I went down to look at it. They gave us a list of the equipment we would buy. One of the machines on there was a glass machine made by a granite machine company called Bavelloni.

“I called to find out a little bit about the glass machines. We talked to a salesman, and he said, ‘You don’t want to buy that machine. You want to buy a granite machine.’ So the next day, he came up here from Greensboro, N.C., and it’s all history from there. We bought a granite machine instead of a beveling machine. We bought a second one, and then a third one.”

Grove never planned to enter the granite business. It turned out to be a successful investment. “That’s how we got in the granite business,” he said. “By accident. Best move we ever made. The best thing… is to know nothing when you buy a company. A lot of companies have bad habits. At least when you buy a company, you don’t pick up their bad habits. You go from your common interest and knowledge about manufacturing in general and what is right and what is wrong.”

Emco-Williams has had a lot of years to learn the right way. “What sets us apart is we have many years of experience in fabricating products for the bath and the kitchen,” Grove said. “We do a good job. We have a good record of quality, and we have a lifetime warranty on all our products. We stand behind them. Having been in business 53 years, it is a little bit to stand on.”

Emco-Williams was founded in 1962 by Hubert Williams. “I came along 27 years ago,” Grove said. “I had just retired.  I came home and my wife said, ‘Go get a job,’ so I bought the company. Simultaneously, my son was graduating from Middle Tennessee State University, so he joined us.”

The company is a Braxton-Bragg customer. It uses many items offered by the distributor, Grove said. “We like all of them. We buy a lot of things from Braxton-Bragg such as dollies and racks and things of that nature, and we buy silicones and polishing wheels and so forth.”

Emco-Williams has a long history. The recent years that have been especially challenging. The economic downturn of the last decade hurt. 

“We about died,” Grove said. “We were doing many, many jobs in 2008, new construction and so forth. 

“The next thing we know, we turned around, and we didn’t have any customers. We struggled. We cut hours. We didn’t lay anybody off. We went to the local bank, which was me, for capital.”

Plugging away paid off, though. “Everything for the last year-and-a-half to two years has just been super,” Grove said. “A matter of the fact, 2015 was the best year we’ve had ever in 53 years.”

Grove gave his employees the credit for the success. “They are totally responsible for our company’s success,” he said. “I’m just a pretty face.”

The local market that Emco-Williams serves is a resort area. It includes three different cities: Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg. “All of them have hotels, motels, restaurants, timeshares, condos, etc., and, of course, people who work there have homes,” Grove said. “We also do homes in Knoxville and Oak Ridge and places like that as well through East Tennessee.”

Although the company does some radio and newspaper advertising, that is not where the bulk of business comes from. “We advertise, but most of it is referral,” Grove said. “Word of mouth. In 53 years, a lot of people out there have our products.”

The Alexander Guest House was not the first project with Dover. Emco-Williams has participated in others. There are more planned.

There is also much commercial work waiting. “We’re thinking of doing some work in Branson, Missouri,” Grove said. “Pigeon Forge and Branson are kind of sisters. We have a lot of timeshares and motels coming up.”

All this adds up to a busy year.  “If the wheels don’t fall off, we should have an even better year in 2016 that we had in 2015,” he said.

For more information please visit www.emcowilliams.com.