Hi, I’m Julie Martin. In 2014 Ivey Welch and I were looking for downtown space to open a branch office for my company, Port City Realty. The original idea was a small space or a shared space. At that time Mobile did not have anything called a co-working space, so when you asked people if they would share their space with you they thought that idea was a bit odd. Finally the people renting the space at 450 Dauphin Street, a photographer and a videographer said yes. It was a large open space with a stage and a upstairs loft. They needed help paying the rent. When I signed the lease, to start August 1st, it was for a real estate office. One of my closest friends in Atlanta, Sherry Robinson is an artist. Mobile has a great Art Walk the 2nd Friday of every month. So I called Sherry & asked her if she would like to bring her art and hang it on the wall and participate. So Sherry came and hung her art and I joked on Facebook about becoming an art dealer. At the time I thought I was being funny. But then other artists started coming. By the August Art Walk the walls were full of art work and Gallery 450 had been very organically been created.
From the first Art Walk there was always such a good vibe at Gallery 450. Every art walk we could count on a musician showing up and entertaining us. Theatre groups put on skits, new artists of every kind joined us. There was always something going on. Other small businesses joined us and we also became a co-working space. Then people started asking us if they could rent the gallery for events and we turned into an event space. It was a fabulous time in our lives. We really loved it and people loved Gallery 450.
But, as happens in most downtowns, rents go up and it gets challenging to afford to run an art gallery. And remember…we were actually a real estate company. So we moved to a smaller location, still downtown. Our second location had a fabulous courtyard which provided some fun options we did not have at 450 Dauphin Street. We still had wonderful artists and great art walks, but by 2019 we made the business decision to move into a co-working space and close the gallery until we could find a place that we could afford to buy for the gallery.
Ivey and I both specialize in historic homes and I already live downtown, but it still took us until 2023 to find the perfect place. In all fairness, when we closed in 2019 we did not have any idea how crazy the world was going to turn in 2020. By 2020 I was so glad I was not in a downtown lease of any kind. Early summer of 2023 Ivey told me she had found our house. Perfect size, wonderful location, acceptable zoning and she thought we could get it for a really good price. It took a few months but she was able to get the house at terms we were satisfied with. I was out of town when the owners agreed and actually signed the contract without seeing the house. Ivey said it was exactly what we wanted. I trusted Ivey. All we had to do was a full house renovation on a historic house.
The renovation itself has been a work of art and a work of love. We have reused/repurposed everything we could. When we had to replace over 2 rooms of hardwood floors, our contractor found us some hardwood that had just been pulled out of a building that had started as the Azalea Theatre, which was built around the same time as the house. Antique stores, estates sales, and yard sales were frequented to try and remain as authenticity as possible. As with all historic homes, there will always be more to do, but we could not be happier with what we have now. And that vibe, from the first Gallery 450 is here. You walk in the house and you feel good.
We are now at 1114 Dauphin Street in The Dauphin Way Historic District of Mobile Alabama. We are just getting started again but we already have some absolutely fabulous artists who have joined us. Sherry’s art is hung in the apartment we made in the back for an Airbnb. Other artists from our original gallery who have joined us, besides Sherry Robinson, are Cathy Irby, Bill Tyler and the sculptor Pete Doyle. We already have people booking the space for small parties. Musicians have reached out to me about some intimate music nights. We have so many plans for this place. We will try to keep the site and social media updated. We are hoping to start an Art Walk for The Dauphin Way Historic District, at least semi-annually. We have a great place with plenty of space to enjoy art, music, sunshine/moonlight, and good company. Oh, and we now have 3 real estate branches sharing our space. Port City Realty united with EXP Realty LLC and 3 brokers, Ivey Welch, Taylor Russ & I all run our branch offices out of this space.
Gallery 450 