'Homesteader' program
proving popular
By Patrick Lynch
The News & Advance
With little construction
or building experience and only a few architecture and
drafting courses under his tool belt, Scott Smith is taking on his
first major project.
A bookcase, perhaps? A bedframe? A birdhouse?
Not quite.
His project happens to be a three-story, brick Federal-style home,
nearly 200
years old, with half the slate from its roof missing, a collapsed living-room
floor
and a staircase so wobbly only one person can walk up it at a time.
One brave
person.
Two massive sheets of plywood cover an 8x10 foot hole in the front
of the
house where a bay window once revealed Harrison Street. A doorway on
the
second floor, without a door, leads to the dirt 12 feet below and missing
plaster
allows one to see through the home’s walls. Or where the walls might
one day
be again.
But, as Smith is quick to point out, the house, built in 1816 and vacant
since
1993, has strengths, the strongest its sound brick frame.
Peering from the third floor one can easily see the thickness of the
exterior brick
wall — all two-and-a-half feet of it. (They really don’t build ‘em
like they used
to.)
As Smith admits, his do-it-yourself experience is “not much. Basically
a lot of
Bob Villa.”
But on the strength of those brick walls, Smith, a 24-year-old history
buff, is
building, or restoring, his dream home. He purchased the house in April
1999.
In his dream, Smith sees his finished house almost exactly as it appeared
to
Peter Elliott, the Lynchburg man who built it in 1816, when Harrison
Street
formed the southern boundary of the city.
And while Smith, who works in corporate sales for Intelos, must look
in through
the home’s now-shattered windows to see where his dream will materialize,
his
vision of an accurate restoration has been sharpened by his exhaustive
research
of the structure’s, and its owners’, history.
Having torn down plaster, pulled up rotted floorboards, explored the
yard and
researched old deeds and tax maps, Smith is “finding some neat things
from life
in the 1800s.”
Smith has dug up a bullet mold like those used in the Revolutionary
War, a pipe
dating to the early 19th-century, children’s marbles, thimbles, buttons
and an
old, silver makeup case with remnants of rouge and a very tarnished
mirror.
He has also researched the lives of the home’s former owners, and developed
a
few hypotheses about what changes each made to the house.
For instance, he knows a man named John T. Murrill owned the home from
1853 to 1891. Murrill sold groceries and leather goods. So Smith figures
Murrill, being fairly well-off, probably installed the home’s iron
gas-piping in the
late 19th century, when the luxury was first available.
The pipes still run along the ceiling, next to the home’s original
electric wiring.
Smith plans to leave these features, “so that in 50 years, when the
next person
restores the home, they can see” these eccentricities, too.
While some things will merely remain in place, much of Smith’s work
will
require recreating an early 19th century feel.
He is still researching Peter Elliott, and particularly wants to know
how wealthy
he was.
“I need to know what sort of furnishings (Elliott might have had),”
Smith said.
Other things are decided on. In the true spirit of restoration, Smith
is keeping
most of the upstairs floorboards (some, including most on the first
floor, have
suffered water damage due to the missing roof). And rather than a glossy
finish,
he’ll paint them as Elliott likely did.
Smith’s quest for detail is even found in the mortar he’s using to
fill in loose
spots in the brick. Having studied the makeup of the original mortar,
he has
come to believe it was made using sand from Blackwater Creek.
“Some of the pebbles I found are too large to be from Horseford Creek,”
he
said, referring to a smaller stream that once ran right beside the
house.
So Smith goes to Hollins Mill Dam to collect sand from the creek for
his
replacement mortar.
It might be fair to say Smith is, to this point, more wrapped up in
the history than
the restoration. He’s built a Web site that gives an extensive history
of the home.
When he’s being honest, Smith admits, “I thought I’d be living in it
by now.”
He isn’t deterred, though, because he sees through the rubble around
the house
to his vision of the future.
Smith bought his house at 622 Harrison St. through the “urban homesteading”
program run by the Lynchburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
According to authority director Ed McCann, he’s one of eight people
to take
advantage of the program, in which the authority sells dilapidated,
but historic,
homes for $1 if the buyer agrees to restore it, can show how it will
be financed
and promises to live in the home for at least five years after the
purchase.
Like all those who buy into the program, Smith knows it will take determination,
a plan, money, and a dream.
“I’m going to put $30,000 into this,” he said. “You can’t buy a house
for that
much, and when it’s done, it’s going to be something.”
Read more about Smith’s home at www.intelos.net/~wsbsmith.