It all started in 1920, formally known as Wayside Garage. Located outside of Gettysburg, Pennslyvania, the “building” sits in Aspers, PA, right on the corner of Carlise Road. It started as a garage and at some point turned into a fruit stand and distribution for all the apple orchards nearby. When this occurred, they added a large addition to the left of the building that large trucks could drive in. The steel beams still show the original fruit orchard’s name.
I’m not sure how long it stayed in the fruit business, but it eventually turned back into an automotive garage. It stayed that way until the 2000s when the building fell into a bit of disrepair. I’m told vandals broke into it and trashed the place. It also seems a fire occurred on the new side of the building, judging by some of the steel beams. Looking at the records, it was purchased again and used as an automotive garage. However, from what I read, it went to a tax sale as the owner had some issues with the law and was locked up, thus, why I assume nobody was paying the tax and it went to the sale.
A nice local guy bought it and turned it into a metal fabrication shop. He welded some amazing things in the building and made a few nice upgrades, just enough to get by. However, some areas were lacking, the roof on the back of the building over the bathroom collapsed, lots of debris outside, and the overgrowth was pretty bad. Eventually, in 2020 he decided it was time to retire and listed the building.
It sat, it wasn’t the prettiest building. The overgrowth really took hold, some trash outside piled up, the garage doors were totally rotten and the bathroom, where the roof collapsed, needed a ton of work. Nobody was buying it.
My projects continued to grow. We considered adding space at the house, which, would make things easy. However, I was going to the shows in PA (Carlisle) and I was concerned about making our house (a contemporary-designed home) look a little, well, “unkempt”. Having spent a weekend at the Carlisle Fall Swap, I found myself starting to wonder … could I afford a commercial building?
Jason and Jack’s: Circa 2021
I made an offer on the building in August of 2021 and the offer was accepted after a lot of back and forth. In October 2021, I officially closed the building and got the keys.
The work begins
The Future
Jason and Jack’s is kind of like building a legacy of sorts along with preserving history and building amazing memories with my son, Jack. It’s a place we will do endless projects together, restore cool stuff, and build memories. Regardless of where life sends us, we’ll have the building close enough to an airport where we can even fly in if one day we live further away. For now, we are enjoying it and it’s part of our Youtube Channel, @jamzdotnet – The Jason and Jack’s playlist. Please follow our journey, we appreciate it.
Cool building history
