Old building gets new life

    Murphy – The former maintenance building adjacent to the Cherokee County Courthouse downtown has been sold.
    Local residents Ryan and Holly Christy were the lone party to bid on the property at 35 Central St. County officials sold the building through a sealed bid process, with the minimum amount set at $110,000.
    County officials say the property is worth at least $142,990. The Christys bid $125,000.
    “We’re super-excited about this,” Holly told the Cherokee Scout.
    Holly Christy, who sat second chair on the defense team earlier this year during the murder trial against Daniel Hughes, owns The Christy Law Firm on Peachtree Street. Her tentative plans are to move the business to the Central Street building once renovations are complete.
    “Over time, we’re going
to do some major renovations on the outside and inside,” she said. “It won’t be immediate. I’ll probably move my law office here in the future.”
    The Christys have asked Murphy Power Board whether it’s possible to raise low-hanging power lines outside of the building. The couple also wants to reconstruct the exterior to provide more of a historical feel, replacing the brick with the same blue marble quarried from Marble that was used to rebuild the historic courthouse.
    “We’d like it to mimic the courthouse in terms of aesthetics,” said her husband, Ryan Christy.
    They plan for that historical feel to extend inside the building as well.
    “We have old chairs that came out of the courthouse, so we’re going to do something with those to incorporate some history into the building,” Holly said.
    The couple also plans to knock down all walls that
are not load-bearing so they can redesign the interior layout.
    “We’re going to restructure the whole upstairs,” Holly said.
    The two-story, 5,000- square-foot building occupies .07 acres of land. It contains two staircases, two bathrooms and a kitchen.