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An original newel post is back in place on a stairway in the plantation house.
The plantation house is currently being reconstructed
An infant's footprint was found in a brick that fell as a chimney was being moved. Another item found was the 1793 Spanish coin below.
Carpenter Paul Crocker works on the main-level flooring from the basement of the 1812 home being reconstructed in Spotsylvania.
Wooden pins hold the main structure
A single coat of the original pastel milk-based paint covers the shutters
Craig Jacobs runs Salvagewrights Ltd., the company that moved and is now reconstructing the house.
The original faux pine finish remains intact on a pine door in the house. |
W HEN DAN SPEAR set out in search of an antique log cabin to reconstruct on his Spotsylvania County homestead, little did he know his plan would evolve into the reconstruction of an 1812 North Carolina plantation house.
Spear knows a little bit about construction. For decades, his company, Spear Builders of Virginia, has been building houses in the Fredericksburg area--144 of them last year alone.
Like a lot of people who love their work, Spear's pastimes are a lot like his work: He builds and restores things, including houses and old cars.
For a while now, Spear and his wife, Debbie, have been kicking around the idea of having a bed-and-breakfast on their property, and creating an interesting and historic place for people to stay.
The log cabin was part of the plan.
So back in 2003, when he spotted a little newspaper ad for Salvagewrights Ltd., an Orange County business that deals in "architectural antiquities," he picked up the phone.
That put him in touch with Craig Jacobs, whose Web site, salvagewrights .com, says that he either has, or can find, any sort of antique architectural element, from hand-forged door hardware to entire buildings.
Speaking of people who actually live what they do, Jacobs and his wife have raised five daughters in a Madison County log cabin that he calls "two steps above camping."
"I'm looking for an old log cabin," Spear told Jacobs. "Have you got anything interesting out there?"
In the fall of 2003, Jacobs had been contacted by a North Carolina woman who had a dilemma. The 19th-century plantation house she owned in Como, N.C., 15 miles from the southeastern Virginia city of Franklin, had part of its roof blown off by Hurricane Isabel. She knew the post-and-beam house might have some historical significance, but didn't know whether it was feasible to save it or if she would just have to let it be gutted for its parts.
That sounds interesting, Jacobs thought, and off he went to Como, where he found himself in a salvager's dream.
"I went inside and as I looked around, I started shaking. I deal in salvaged parts. It's not often I get to see the whole house," said Jacobs. "I knew this one was special."
It was sitting in a 150-acre cotton field.
"I didn't know how I could afford it, but I asked her if I could buy it and about five acres around it. But she wasn't going to do that," he said.
Jacobs said the pressure was on, because there were other guys lined up to gut it for the parts, given the opportunity.
Back in Orange County, he was weighing his options when the phone rang. It was Spear, asking about a cabin.
"You wouldn't be interested in moving an 1812 plantation house up here from North Carolina, would you?" asked Jacobs.
Within days of Jacobs' 1812 overture, he and Spear headed to Como. As they pulled up to the house, Spear said, he knew before he got out of the car that he wanted it.
The place was known as the Hare plantation, named for the family that built it. Jacobs said the family apparently went broke building the house, because they sold it and moved out immediately after it was completed. The next plantation over was that of Richard J. Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun.
On Dec. 1, 2003, Jacobs had a crew in Como to begin what would be the four-month effort of taking the house apart. Each piece was numbered and cataloged.
"We wanted every board to end up exactly where it was originally. Even the wear patterns and contours in the floors would be exactly as they were in the house," said Jacobs.
The crew discovered that the original builders had a numbering system of their own, using Roman numerals that were chiseled or scored into the wood. But Jacobs said they haven't quite broken the code.
He said they managed to recover all of the flooring and about 40 percent of the beaded siding. The rest of the siding was rotted beyond repair.
As work progressed, all sorts of old items were discovered--irons used to press clothing, a butter mold with a bird design, a rusty old cow bell.
"Between a beam and floorboard we found a 1793 Spanish silver coin. It had to have been put there by the builder," said Jacobs. It was the sort of coin that would be cut up into pieces of eight.
A delicate part of the process was removing the chimneys without having them crumble. Only one brick fell away--and it happened to have a young child's footprint in it. Jacobs said that sort of thing happens as soft clay bricks are set out to dry in the sun before baking in a kiln.
"I collect those. I've got all sorts of animal footprints, but I never saw a baby's print before," he said. Jacobs reluctantly gave the brick to Spear as a memento of the project.
Among the peculiarities they discovered was that although dowels were used to fasten the first-level floor boards together, tongue-and-groove boards were used on the second story.
"We can't figure out why they did that," he said.
Jacobs is also intrigued by the decorative touches found inside the house, such as the faux graining created by running a comb or something similar over different-color coats of wet paint for a wood-grain effect.
Then there's the 12-foot, floor-to-ceiling mantel that will be the focal point of the living room. There are four fireplaces feeding into the two massive chimneys. The upstairs ones will be converted to gas.
On the second story, Jacobs notes, the wood trim has been painted only once in nearly 200 years, using what's believed to be a gray-pigmented milk-based paint.
Southern yellow pine was the only wood used in the house, and only the heart pine at that. All of it was either pit sawn or hewn, and all of it is extremely heavy.
"It is unbelievable how they managed to build this," Jacobs said of the 19th-century structure, considering what must have been a long and laborious process. "They would have to use animals to move this stuff around. We could use a crane."
The trees used by the original builders were huge. The main structural posts and beams are 36 feet to more than 40 feet long, many of them 14 inches square for their entire length. The center post begins at the floor of the English basement, then rises through that ceiling and two 12-foot stories into an attic that's another 10 feet at its tallest point. Huge "summer beams" run the full width of the house.
By spring 2004, the house had been brought in three tractor-trailer loads to Spear's 82-acre Spotsylvania property off State Route 208, a couple of miles north of the courthouse.
Jacobs' crew, including his ace carpenter Paul Crocker, began reassembling the house last September. Today the structure is enclosed, with a new standing-seam metal roof. Spear expects the project to be finished, for the most part, this summer.
The house now has a total of about 4,500 square feet on three levels, plus the attic.
Spear marvels at the craftsmanship that went into the house that will eventually become home for him and his wife.
"The joinery is just phenomenal," he said, considering that cuts were made using relatively primitive tools, with everything laid out on the ground.
Spear notes that despite the 12-foot ceilings, the door openings are about 6 feet 8 inches tall, the same height as the doors in the houses he is building today.
Jacobs and Spear agreed that some new elements would have to be blended with the old for practicality's sake. The house was reconstructed on a new foundation, and a wing is being added to the rear of the house. Gypsum board will be used for interior walls, instead of the plaster that was used originally.
"We have to live in both worlds," said Jacobs, explaining that rebuilding the house exactly as it was would be cost-prohibitive, and the finished product wouldn't be entirely comfortable or convenient by modern standards.
For Spear, this project is not at all like building a house for one of his customers.
"We'll probably never be 100 percent done, if you know what I mean," he said.
To reach RICHARD AMRHINE: 540/374-5406 ramrhine@freelancestar.com
