Our Story — DocWild

Riverbanks Botanical Garden, built under DocWild's oversight

DocWild has over 50 years building and renovating homes — not always a smooth road, but we’ve weathered the storms and evolved when we had to. We started in 1972 as Francis Marion Builders, then were reborn in 1976 as DocWild’s Funky Building Company when the housing market collapsed around us. That era made us known for some of the most memorable bars in Five Points — GreenStreets (three times over), the old Yacht Club, and Bryan’s Warehouse, which may have helped birth the Vista.

After an accident forced our owner to step back from building, and a stretch working with Loveless Commercial Contracting overseeing construction of the Riverbanks Botanical Garden, DocWild rose from the ashes again — this time as a family affair, father, son, and daughter. We’ve spent the last decade focused on residential design-build renovation, though we still love the occasional outrageous project.

Our trademark “construction panache” has taken us places most contractors won’t go: a 6,000-square-foot, three-story home styled as an African hut, no straight wall in it, thatched roof and all; a home cantilevered over a ravine on the Saluda River; a 250-year-old plantation home written off as an uninsurable fire hazard.

Every one of them came with its own problems to solve — but between careful design and the engineering degrees father and son both earned at Georgia Tech, we’ve never had a failure. Not one, ever.

As Lynyrd Skynyrd put it: “I know a little.”