Live bait, ice, beer and wine.
For decades, a weather-worn sign outside the former Waymansville Grocery Store in southwest Bartholomew County promised those items – especially for those heading off to swim or fish at nearby Lutheran Lake.
The store had been closed for about five years when it was purchased in October 2017, by Chris and Melissa “Mel” Lewis at a public auction. While the red brick exterior at 15693 E. State Road 58 retains the same general design, the interior of what is now called “Mel’s Country Market” has dramatically changed.
Although the wife won’t say how much her family paid for the building, Mel Lewis does say the couple has invested a five-figure sum, as well as a year-and-a-half of time and energy, into a complete renovation of the exterior.
“We spent a lot of nights out here working past midnight,” Chris Lewis said. “We basically gutted the entire place.”
Improvements included pulling up six layers of old tiles covering a beautiful hardwood floor, ripping out a false ceiling, pulling down plaster over brick, adding insulation, installing new plumbing and electrical wiring, as well as roof work, the husband said.
“We sanded, stained and varnished every single board, as well as adding an extensive amount of trim work,” Mel added.
One of the most expensive renovations was reinstalling windows that had been covered over several decades ago, Chris Lewis said. It was costly because each of the windows were of a different size, so each replacement window had to be custom-made, he said.
It was 15 months after the couple purchased the building that “Mel’s County Market” finally opened on Dec. 6, 2018.
Rather than create an old-fashioned Mom and Pop grocery store, Mel Lewis wanted to create a destination country market that offered unique items unavailable at larger, conventional box stores, her husband said.
For more on this story, see Tuesday’s Republic.
