“I’ll find it,” Wes Martin said as he deftly scrolled through his photos with that same meaty lineman’s paw he’d used over the years to fend off hellbent defenders like the Los Angeles Rams’ All Pro tackle Aaron Donald and the Philadelphia Eagles relentless end Fletcher Cox.
“Here it is,” he said as he pulled up an image of himself as a Washington Redskins (before the name change to Commanders) rookie guard, diving through the air like a 317-pound guided missile in front of a New York Giants defender, ready to corral the loose football his sprawling quarterback, Case Keenum, had just fumbled into the end zone.
“Case was extending over the (goal) line and the ball came loose and I jumped on it,” Martin said with a grin. “We scored – it counted as a touchdown – and I’ve always claimed it as mine though the stat sheet doesn’t show it.
“They gave the score to Case. They said he broke the (goal) line before he fumbled.”
Although Martin didn’t get recognized for that recovery, he most definitely gets credit for his latest save.
As we spoke the other day, he stood a few yards away from the stage of the 97-year-old Mayflower theater, an iconic piece of entertainment history in Troy that had set vacant for nearly a decade and before that had had a heavy-handed remodeler cover up its storied past with drop ceilings and newly added walls.
Today, the building – now known as Mayflower – The Encore – has been gloriously restored and turned into an entertainment venue with live performances, a full menu, and an eye-catching cocktail lounge thanks to Martin, the owner of Busted Brick Realty, LLC and Village Vantage from which he and his two partners have operated the business since January 1.
Before that they served as the landlord for the operation that was run for seven months by Anthony Scott, the owner of A.M. Scott Distillery.
The place has continued to blossom under Martin’s leadership and soon a rooftop bar will be added that provides an unmatched view of the Town Square.
There are no establishments quite like this in the Miami Valley when it comes to the history of both the building and the man most responsible for bringing it back to life.
The 600-seat theater – which cost $100,000 to build, had wrought iron electrical fixtures containing cast replicas of the pilgrim ship, and had a mural of “The Departure of the Pilgrims” on the main foyer wall – opened on Jan 31, 1928.
It debuted with the showing of a new silent film, Wife Savers, featuring Wallace Beery and ZaSu Pitts. A new $15,000 Grand Wurlitzer organ played by Edward Dollinger provided the background music that accompanied the movie.
The Troy Daily News ran a special section on the “beautiful, new theater” and local businesses all ran ads, noting how they had provided everything from the heating and plumbing to the millwork, painting and decorating.
In the first decades of operation, The Mayflower showed films and presented stage shows featuring comedians, singers, vaudeville acts and dramatic performances.
A fire in 1970 destroyed the adjoining buildings on one side of the theater where the Prouty Plaza now stands with the giant mural backdrop by the local artist, the late Aka Pereyma, painted on the side of The Mayflower.
By 1988 the building was bought by the Teicher Theater Company and the inside was divided by newly constructed walls that hid the stage and allowed for separate theaters to show different films. By 1996, the Mayflower’s expanse had been further walled off to allow four separate movie screens.
Finally, in 2011, the theaters closed and since then the building housed an arts center which also closed.
Martin purchased The Mayflower in 2022 and brought much of it back to how it originally looked, while also adding some stylish revisions.
When the venture with the distillery didn’t work out, Martin and his partners decided to operate it themselves.
This business is just one in the 28-year-old Martin’s growing portfolio of hometown-specific real estate holdings.
In Versailles he owns a commercial property that’s about to open as The Rails of Versailles, a pizzeria and craft beer place.
And in West Milton, his hometown, he owns a pair of properties, one that houses Rural Desk, which offers shared office space for various small businesses and individuals and also private office space.
For the past six years he’s owned and served as president to Brave Breed Rescue, a shelter for abused, unwanted or stray dogs.
“I want at-risk dogs to have a safe place to mentally and physically heal,” he once told me. “I want them to understand that no matter what has happened, they can be loved by a human.
“In the end, I just want them to go from a bad situation into a good loving home.”
His mom, Rhonda, runs the operation on a 13.5-acre former winery Wes bought for it. To date she said they have saved “hundreds and hundreds” of dogs.
With all these off-the-field involvements, Martin admitted: “I haven’t officially retired (from the NFL) but I’d say it’s pretty much over.
“Life just evolves. I had a really good run at it and probably made it a little longer than I should have.”
Through the better part of five years, the fourth-round draft pick out of Indiana University played in 38 NFL games and had 11 starts.
He spent three seasons with Washington, one with the New York Giants and had brief stints in off-season camps of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Cleveland Browns, from whom he was cut in 2023 after suffering a serious concussion in a preseason game.
He and Bailey Spitler – with whom he’d been friends back at Milton Union High and began to date when he was an IU sophomore – married five years ago in the Ozark Mountains at the famed Thorncrown Chapel, which was voted one of the 12 most beautiful churches in America.
They have three small children now and live on 13 acres in Darke County.
He said he likes being a dad: “The kids give you that unconditional love, that innocence. When I come home, they’re there to greet me and smile and they just want to play and have fun. They’re so full of life. They energize you when you’ve had a long day.”
And he admitted taking over the Mayflower – especially moving from owner to owner-operator – has had its taxing moments.
“Yeah,” he said with a growing smile, ”I’d say it’s been tougher than battling Aaron Donald or Fletcher Cox all day.”
‘When he moves, you move’
When it comes to dogs and football, Martin’s love of both dovetails back to the German Shepherd the family got when he was eight.
“His name was Sarge, and he was the best dog I ever had,” Martin said. “He was pretty awesome.”
In the past he told me how they’d go to a local creek and hunt for crawdads and then frolic in the local swimming hole.
Sarge was best though at sports.
“He loved ball,” Rhonda said. “His life was playing ball. He didn’t care if it was baseball, football, whatever.”
She told how he slipped onto the high school baseball field during a game and tried to give the Bulldogs another infielder good at grabbing ground balls.
At home, where Rhonda raised Wes and his older brother Adam, she said they’d play 2-on-2 football out back: “One of us would have Sarge and he was good.
“I remember when Wes played Pee Wee ball, Sarge would come to practice with me and the next thing he’d get on the line, too. The coach would tell the kids, ‘OK, watch the dog. When he moves, you move.’
“And soon as they snapped the ball, Sarge took off.”
Wes nodded and started laughing at the memory.
By the time he was in fifth grade, Wes was bigger than everyone else and didn’t need much help. Sometimes, he said, he’d get lined up at tight end and he’d just run five yards and turn and “they’d chuck the ball to me.”
It was quite a sight, Rhonda said:
“He’d be going down the field with like eight kids on him trying to bring him down.”
In high school, he helped lead the Bulldogs to the third round of the state playoffs when he was a junior. He won All-Ohio honors his last two years of high school and was named the Southwestern Buckeye League Lineman of the Year.
He chose Indiana and after a redshirt season, he started 43 of 50 games over the next four years, won All-Big Ten honors twice and All-Big Ten Academic honors four times. He would graduate with a 3.75 g.p.a. and a degree in criminal justice.
He also was the undisputed strongman of the team, bench pressing 535 pounds and squatting 655.
Overlooked after his final season and not invited to the NFL’s scouting combine in nearby Indianapolis, he put on a one-man show at the Pro Day he and 11 other Hoosiers held in Bloomington in front of scouts from 28 pro teams.
The NFL folks marveled at his skills and got to see his character, too.
He already had started his nonprofit dog sanctuary as a IU junior and at his Pro Day he raised funds for it by getting sponsors to make monetary pledges for the number of 225-pound bench presses he could do in a row.
His effort – 38 in a row – would have topped all the offensive linemen at the combine but one.
Washington drafted him and he ended up playing in nine games as a rookie and starting five. The next season he was named the starter at left guard and held the position for five games.
He was released after the last preseason game in 2021 and signed 27 days later with the Giants, where he saw considerable playing time.
Waived again that following spring, he signed a day later with the Jacksonville Jaguars and lasted through two months of training camp and was cut.
He soon signed with Washington again for the 2022 season. After being waived again, he ended up in Cleveland until the concussion “pretty much shut me down for the year.”
‘That’s my kid!’
“The biggest thing I miss is the locker room and the guys,” he said. “It’s a pretty unique thing for a fulltime job. You’re with 80 other people who are very similar, very like-minded to you and you’re working toward the same goal.
“I also miss the way you communicate, the way you resolve...,” he said, then paused as he searched for the right words.
“It’s hard to explain and I don’t want to sound insensitive. There everything is pretty cut and dried. If I’m mad at a defensive lineman I’m playing against, I just try to hit him harder the next play. There’s an outlet for aggression.
“In the real world, the entrepreneurial world, you tiptoe around as you work through the issues.”
The challenges were especially there the day in mid-January when he reopened Mayflower – The Encore as the owner operator.
His previous tenant had scheduled a show for that day – Dueling Pianos – and though there was some behind the scenes juggling, the public enjoyed the show.
Martin has tried to make Mayflower – The Encore more accessible to local patrons. There is no longer a dress code. The menu has expanded from shareable plates to seven entrees, five appetizers, three salads and a couple of desserts. A new drink menu is about to be unveiled.
The entertainment has gone from nearly all jazz to a mix of musical genres along with comedians, karaoke and other shows.
Next Thursday evening Mayflower – The Encore will host the Dayton Dinner Theater’s presentation of The Wizard of Oz.
Martin is especially looking forward to the rooftop bar which is coming soon.
As he talked about that and other projects in the area he has in the works, his mom chimed in:
“We want a country bar with peanuts on the floor and cowboy hats and boots!”
He laughed and nodded: “That would be fun.”
You got the idea that could happen one day and that made Rhonda beam even more at her son, the NFL lineman who was just as impressive now as a local entrepreneur.
And that brought you back to that photo of the fumble recovery he’d pulled up on his phone and the way the FedExField crowd and especially his mom was sure he’d turned a bobble into a memorable touchdown.
“I was sitting up in the stands with Santana Moss (Washington’s former star wide receiver) and everybody around us was going nuts, especially when Wes spiked the ball,” she said.
Wes laughed at the memory: “Yeah, I did spike it. It was the Bud Light Celebration of the Week that week.”
Rhonda nodded:
“Everybody was going crazy watching that and I was telling everybody:
“‘That’s my kid! Hey, that’s my kid!‘”
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