A recently departed Cayce distillery and its unconventional landmark aren’t coming back to the city along the Congaree River, but the business’ owners are starting fresh in another part of Lexington County.

John and Venetia Sharpe, longstanding South Carolina artists whose work tends toward sculpture and pottery, closed Southern Essence Distillery in October 2022, initially hoping to reopen in a year’s time. The distillery’s Frink Street location housed in its yard John’s 16-foot-tall wireframe sculpture of an AT-AT walker (most famous for its appearance in the Star Wars film “The Empire Strikes Back”), but when it became clear they wouldn’t be able to expand in that space the way they wanted to, the Sharpes packed up the AT-AT and looked for other opportunities.

Now, they’re working to rehab three pieces of property in the small town of Swansea, with hopes of turning the hamlet of less than 800 people into an arts destination and helping to draw much-needed commerce to the economically depressed area.

“We’re 20 to 25 minutes from Columbia,” John said of the town where his father is from and where his grandparents met at a basket factory, enthusiastically stating his case for why it could work as a place to visit with the proper artistic motivation.

“It’s far enough away. And it’s close enough,” he explained. “A lot of us Swansea people look at supporting each other, supporting Gaston, supporting Pelion and North. And I keep kind of smiling and saying, ‘That’s the same as taking a $100 bill and passing that same $100 bill amongst everybody.’ The town does not increase in wealth. ... We need to have something that Columbians will come out and visit us and drop their $100 bill.”

To get people from Columbia — and Orangeburg and Charleston — to come drop their dollars in Swansea, the Sharpes have acquired the old grain silos along the railroad tracks at West 2nd Street, a circa-1880s cotton gin building surrounded by other structures and five acres of swampy land along South Spring Street, and one of the many dilapidating storefronts along Monmouth Avenue in the heart of the municipality’s small downtown.

That storefront at 275 S Monmouth Ave., the former home of the Swansea Coffee Shop, will be the first element to open, with the Sharpe’s daughter soon moving on from her current job and taking over an ongoing extensive renovation of the space where she will eventually operate a new cafe.

The silos and surrounding structures should come online next, with the Sharpes planning to set up a pottery kiln and studio out there along with space for metal working — and perhaps eventually rebirthing Southern Essence Distilling in one of the buildings.

“Out of the nine or 10 [distilleries] that have tried in and around the Columbia area, only one is left, because it is difficult to get a wholesaler,” John said of the struggles they had to consistently find an audience outside of people who came by their space in Cayce.

Depending on what parameters you put on the Columbia area, there are either one or two distilleries left operating here at this point — Hollow Creek in Batesburg-Leesville and, if you cast a wider net, Gorget Distilling Co. in Lugoff.

Giving the Chronicle a tour of their Swansea properties, the couple emphasized that leaving something for their children is a big emphasis in their current efforts — beyond their daughter taking the lead with the cafe, they mused about being able to eventually reopen the distillery and hand it off to their grandson, who they note with amusement has also asked about living atop the tallest grain silo.

The couple has plans to give the public previews of what it hopes to accomplish at the silos in the near future, leaning jokingly into two upcoming occasions — looking to bring six or eight potter’s wheels out to the property for people to play on and then fire their creations on 4/20, the high holiday for pot smokers, before hosting an event on May 4 (marked by Star Wars fans as “May the Fourth Be With You”) to rechristen the AT-AT sculpture at the road in front of the silos.

The cotton gin compound and its surrounding swampy land will be the hardest to deal with and the last element to come online, with the Sharpes hoping to transform the buildings into multi-use artistic and living space, where they can take up residence and also bring through various artists-in-residence. They also hope to surround the structures with a sculpture garden.

At present, the cafe is the only space with a clear path to getting where the Sharpes are trying to go, as they are still in talks with structural engineers and architects on how to transform the other two properties.

“It's a lot more complicated than we ever thought,” John said.

But if they’re able to realize their vision, it could be big for Swansea.

“The Town of Swansea is aware of the Sharpe's plans,” Mayor Viola McDaniel told the Chronicle. “They purchased several properties over a year ago but have not move forward on any major constructions or renovations to that area. The Sharpes have done some pottery classes in the town and at events. We look forward to them opening the facility that was once the Swansea Coffee Shop. They are a great family and we welcome them to our area.”