Chapin recently held formal unveilings for a pair of projects the town hopes will enhance the beauty and charm of its historical downtown.

The more expensive of the two didn’t cost town much at all, as Pat Lewandowsky, secretary and historian for the Chapin Historical Association, paid for the $20,000 restoration of Chapin’s first town hall, built in 1948 by her grandfather, Addison Bostain, Sr. Nichole Burroughs, Chapin’s town administrator, told the Chronicle that while the town chipped in for a few odds and ends, it was Lewandowsky’s generosity and dedication to her town and family’s history that paved the way for the project.

The other project more specifically targeted beautifying the town, as the large mural “Small Town Charm” bedecks the town’s name with a variety of embellishments that emphasize the good things about living near Lake Murray. The piece, painted on the side of the Chapin office of firearms distributor Davidson’s, is the 31st in the burgeoning Chapin Art Trail pulled together by the local Crooked Creek Art League.

Barbara Teusink, the leader of the league’s community art project, told the Chronicle that the $5,000 stipend that went to Chapin artist Nicki Peeples to design and install the mural came through a joint agreement, with the town, the Chapin Chamber of Commerce and the league all helping to foot the bill.

Speaking to the Chronicle between back-to-back Nov. 9 ribbon cuttings for the projects, located across Lexington Avenue from each other, Chapin Mayor Al Koon emphasized the role that beautification and historical preservation play in making the town a place people want to visit, which in turn hopefully invigorates the local economy.

“It’s protecting the past and ensuring the future,” he said. “I have found that arts are things that really bring people together, more so than I ever recognized in my previous life. So I became a big supporter of the Crooked Creek Art Leage and all their projects they’ve done around town.”

Along with preserving history, he emphasized restoring and activating unused buildings as a driver for where Chapin is looking to go, pointing to the feasibility study the town has been permitted to go ahead with by Lexington-Richland School District 5 to explore the possibility of repurposing the old Chapin High School on Columbia Avenue He mused on possibilities for the space, including a library expansion or a performing arts theater, which the current Chapin High doesn’t have.

“The intent would be that we could somehow keep some building sor something on that property up there to recognize and honor the past, but also make it into something that would be a game changer for us in the future,” Koon said, tying that project back to what the town hopes to accomplish with its newly unveiled downtown improvements.

With Lewandowski leading the way as de facto project manager, the restoration of the first town hall — known affectionately as “Ity Hall” due to the “C” in “City” having fallen off before the restoration — is as close to the original as logistics and updated codes would allow, including the two jail cells included in the back of the building, which is included on the National Register of Historic Places.

During the cremony unveiling the restoration, Lewandowski detailed that her grandfather moved the family to the area to work on the Lake Murray Dam, and once it was complete, opened a grocery store in Chapin, having given his children a choice between that and a farm as the family’s next endeavor.

“This was the original downtown Chapin,” Lewandowski said of the area around the old town hall, “with several small grocery stores and other businesses. ... My family was kind of listed in that. One grandfather had a store on this corner. Another grandfather has a store on that corner. And my great uncle had a store and haircutting in the middle.”

The new mural spotlights one of the town’s defining features through the years — its proximity to Lake Murray, featuring a dock and tranquil water at one end and angelic wings at the other, with “Chapin” spelled out between and filled with a variety of idyllic lake scenes.

Speaking at the event, Peeples, the artist who painted the mural, emphasized how she wanted it to embody the spirit of the town that’s been so welcoming to her since she moved there and started her art career.

“It’s the kind of town that people stop just to say hello,” she said. “Even when you’re six feet up a ladder painting.”