Charles Nevinson buys in bulk: 300 pairs of doors from France, 8,000 tiles from Belfast. He can outfit an entire home. Born and raised in the U.K., Nevinson comes from a family of architects and artists. A favorite childhood pastime was counting chimney pots on walks about London.

He had a successful early career in capital development, restoring historic London buildings for adaptive reuse (to pubs, restaurants, wine bars, townhomes) and in the process making invaluable salvage contacts across Europe. He helped restore Boston’s Faneuil Hall; after completing a project in Atlanta, he decided to stay here and open his architectural salvage business, in 1981.

Where It All Began

Nevinson started out in a small house (Dick Van Dyke had lived there) but outgrew it and moved to the abandoned, 30,000-square-foot Foremost Dairy building. He filled the store with mantels and mirrors, doors, columns, and lighting fixtures as well as hardware both vintage and reproduction.

The former rehabber wants to make things easy for his buyers. In areas of the shop, staffers strip, refinish, and even carve woodwork; repair and re-lead windows; rewire fixtures for UL approval; and plate and polish hardware.

What’s Trending?

Popular garden materials include limestone pots and urns, benches, chimney pots, statuary, and mushroom-shaped staddle stones originally used to keep wooden granaries off the ground. Nevinson offers cast-stone reproductions indistinguishable from the originals—handy when multiples are needed.

Additional Offerings

Drafting and residential design services are offered: A recent project was an Elizabethan country house outfitted with salvage from top to bottom: oak timbers and roof beams, limestone walls and salvaged doors, hardware and lighting, and even vintage iron gates and fencing.

— Photos by John Neitzel.

RELATED STORIES

• Salvage Solutions
• What’s Old Is New Again: Tour Vermont Salvage
• Salvage Decor

Architectural Accents, 2711 Piedmont Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA: architecturalaccents.com

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