Ariel Hartman’s future career path was evident as far back as his early teenage years, when he picked up a hammer to help renovate a house his church had bought in Greenville’s Green Avenue neighborhood.
“It became quite apparent that he had a knack for construction, framing, trim,” says Chuck Hartman, Ariel’s father and business partner and pastor of Greenville’s Fellowship Bible Church. “He was able to visualize load paths.”
The teenager got even more experience on a youth group renovation project in Miami, and he wasted little time gaining further training at Greenville Tech and earning his builder’s license when he turned 18 in 2005. About a month after his birthday, Ariel launched AJH Renovations.
With the help of his father, who had left a career in chemical engineering to become a minister, the family business expanded to include Designed for Downtown and AJH Custom Homes, with a fourth enterprise focusing on commercial subcontracting in the works. While Ariel focuses on the custom homes and commercial work, Chuck leads the design studio and the renovations division.
“It runs in the family,” he says. “I wasn’t in the construction industry at all, but my grandfather was a carpenter, and my father built their first house and renovated a 150-year old Pennsylvania farmhouse. So I learned things growing up. I don’t know if it’s a genetic trait.”
AJH Renovations Runs in the Family
Working in the renovation business with Ariel gives his father the chance to unite his love of history with his love for design.
“I look at these homes as having seen so many generations,” says Chuck, who teaches history as well as chemistry at his church’s school, Milton Academy. “The home stays; people move. Just knowing how much life these buildings have witnessed, our forte is to preserve that as much as we can and try to retain the ambience of the house’s age and maturity.”
With their companies able to handle various phases of the process from conception to execution, the Hartmans pride themselves on championing the design-build model in the Upstate. It’s much more streamlined than the design-bid-build process, where the owner has to juggle multiple contractor bids once the plans are complete.
“When you have a separate designer or architect, you can get a lot of things that fall through the cracks,” Chuck says. “When it’s all in-house, we have multiple eyes that are always looking at the project. That integrated communication is natural to the design-build process.”
Working with family members enhances that advantage. Chuck’s daughter-in-law is the Hartmans’ business manager, his granddaughter is one of their administrative assistants, and his grandson works in the field when he’s not in school.
“There’s just a higher level of commitment when it’s a family business,” Chuck notes. “We have a very intimate interest in its success and its reputation. AJH are Ariel’s initials, and his name is out there on all our site signs and trucks.”
Looking back, this chemist-turned-homebuilder believes his family has found the formula for success.
“It’s been one team, and for 20-plus years, it’s worked really well,” says Chuck. “I’m glad we started it, and I wouldn’t have done anything different if we went back and did it over.”
See what the designers at Designed for Downtown and others had to say on designing a stylish nursery.
Find out more at: ajhrenovations.com; designedfordowntown.com; and ajhcustomhomes.com.
