Hay Hill Services
January 28, 2009
Fred Gantt began with the basics; sticking to them is how the Columbia native gained prominence in the Midland’s burgeoning, but competitive, landscaping business.
We started out cutting grass, Gantt recalled.
Now Hay Hill Services, Inc., with headquarters and a holding nursery in nearby St. Matthews, SC, offers full range landscape architectural services from design to final implementation. If it’s outdoors, we can do it, said the Presbyterian College business major. Except for grass; we no longer cut grass.
In its first 16 years, Hay Hill set down roots by offering traditional landscape construction and installation services. To supply the demand of its growing customer base, the company now employs its own team of brick masons and concrete finishers to assure quality and consistency in its hardscape projects. An employed team also implements landscape, lighting, and irrigation.
Most recently, a sign of the company’s growth was the formation of a partnership with landscape architect, David Stack. Until Stack became part of the company, the Gantts – with Fred and his wife Lee as treasurer – were the only principles.
When David and I began working together several years ago, we found our talents complimentary and recently decided to team up, Gantt said. Although much of our construction, installation and business is, and will continue to be, contracted out to us by landscape architects and designers, we now have in-house capability to take a project from initial concept to final handshake.
That seamlessness drew Stack to Gantt’s business model. Right out of college, I
worked in Charleston on upscale projects, from residential and commercial historic gardens to streetscapes, said Stack. On both of Fred’s commercial and residential projects, many of his jobs came in as referrals, which clearly indicated to me that people were happy with his work. I get a lot of satisfaction being able to continue shaping the outcome of a project throughout the process, the Clemson graduate said.
Stack is realistic. You can’t know in advance everything that can and will happen on an undertaking. As an integral part of this company, I feel I can pay attention to the details and I follow through on every project to the last or final walk through with the client to make sure they are satisfied with the end product.
Our customers count on us to help translate their vision or need into a plan, then a full implementation.
Stack’s philosophy magnifies Gantt’s view of how to make Midlands’ neighborhoods more beautiful, properties more valuable, and customers better satisfied.
