FALLS MILL, TENNESSEE

                                                     My first picture of Falls Mill, 1991

Back in my salad days of the early Nineties, I had been a Historic Repair Guy of some talent in Little Rock, Arkansas, but I apparently did too good a job. Because of this, one of my clients asked me to move to Washington D.C.to do a lot of work on her townhouse 16 blocks from the White House. This lasted for a year and got me a series of serious restoration jobs in South Carolina, where I honed and developed my skills in Historic Restoration. It was in the Palmetto State that I was given the moniker "The Old House Doctor," and I've been publishing under that name ever since.

On my way to D.C., I stopped at an old mill near Winchester, Tennessee, and paid my four dollars to tour it. I met the owners, the Lovetts, seriously admired the building, and also met the Miller. I say Miller because this guy, Butch Janey, knew more about water-powered mills than anyone I have ever met. And if you can run an 1873 mill, dress the stones, repair the race and belts, and fix the 42-foot overshot waterwheel, well, you got my respect, dude.

Plus the ground corn and wheat are out of this world. They sell it before it's made.

I noticed the mill had what we in restoration refer to as 'returns,' i.e. horizontal wood ledges at the end of barge rafters, those roof supports that stand out from the actual building. Under the  eaves, you know; those things. And the returns on this mill were in terrible shape, as many are. They are Horizontal and so catch water. Look nice, with a Classical flair, but are nothing but trouble to keep up.

I mentioned this to the Lovetts, but they only shrugged. Another smart-assed tourist telling them what to do with their building. And to tell the truth, I was still quite wet behind the ears in the trade at age twenty-seven.

So I spent my year in D.C., and on the way back stopped at the mill again. Said the same thing, got the same result.

But while in D.C. I'd met Peggy, who would soon hire me to do a top-to-bottom restoration on The Cason House in Hodges, South Carolina, and I would travel there with my dog, busted van, and tools to do the job. I kept going back past Falls Mill, which was on the way, visiting the Lovetts, Butch, and the Mill each time.

After me mentioning the rotting returns just one too many times, this time on the way back from my three-year duty in South Carolina, they said, "We can't get anyone to fix the returns because they're so high up. Maybe YOU want to give us a bid?"

I had to admit they would be a challenge to reach.

But after my success in South Carolina, where I had not only restored the 1835 Cason House, but replastered and repainted the interior of the 1812 Stevenson Station, restored the interior of a nameless 1885 farmhouse near Abbeville, roofed the pyramidal 1870 Hodges Pump House in downtown Hodges (population 152, including me), and done a major upgrade to the 1810 Mansfield Plantation in Georgetown after Hurricane Hugo...

I figured I was ready to tackle Falls Mill. I really wanted a National Register property as a feather in my cap, and though Mansfield was that, I had not been the sole craftsman.

Oh, the gossamer dreams of the young!

So, after my return to Little Rock in 1991, I sent them a ridiculously low bid, saying they had to put me up in their restored Bed and Breakfast cabin.

"What in the world is a 'Bed and Breakfast?' I wondered.

Needles to say, I found Falls Mill to be my biggest challenge to that date.

Front of Falls mill twenty years after repairs

Back in those days, I took very few pictures of my projects, having a few good analog cameras but seldom using them on jobs. I'm sure I actually have some paper photos of this job in my collection, and if I find them, I'll add them to this post.

The returns were blackened with water damage, insect invasion, and most were hanging at odd angles.

But you get the picture (sorry) as to why no locals wanted to work on the returns. The lowest in the picture above is about eighteen feet above grade and the highest is ten feet above that. I brought a twenty-eight foot ladder from Arkansas but ended up renting a thirty-two for some of the job.

The tops of the returns likely had metal covers at one time, but these has long disappeared. I removed the desiccated wood, reframed about half of the structure in each return, and trimmed out the exterior. One thing that gave them extra life; I primed all the end grain (ends of the boards) as well as all sides of the wood before installing them. End grain is like a sponge and is almost always the place rot starts. The tops of the returns were sheathed with older pine I salvaged from somewhere local (better wood that had been cured and dried over time, MUCH better than plywood), and wrapped the tops with galvanized sheet steel after painting them. Granted, they could now use a paint job, but I think they stood up pretty well for twenty years.

Call the Lovetts if you want to try your hand at painting them; they'll likely hire you. I'm sure THEY aren't going up there

   I had to replace some of the crown moulding on the front eave, and being more of the daredevil than I                                  am now, I did it from the metal roof above. It was still difficult.

But, of course, it was not the front that scared away the local carpenters.

                     Forty-two foot overshot waterwheel. One of the only times it was not turning.

If this steel water wheel is forty-two feet high, you can bet the apex of the gable roof above is nearly ninety. And it sure felt it, because I had to replace ALL the crown moulding on this side. Yes, I did it from the roof, and I was in harness. It was scary as hell.

The real challenge was reaching the return on the right side. That poplar tree is MUCH bigger than it looks, and its base is twenty feet below the race. To reach the return, I had to build a wood platform from the tree to the machine shed (where all the belts and pulleys are), then haul my ladder up to THAT platform to build another from just below the shed roof to the tree. Hauling the 28 foot ladder again, until I could reach the return.

The job took a little under two weeks, and I purposefully did it in February. This building, which houses not only the mill, but a store and an industrial machine museum, was always filled with wasps buzzing around doing their evil little waspy tasks. I am no fan of wasps, especially on a tall ladder on a platform thirty feet above a moving 42-foot water wheel with so much power it could cut me to shreds in a few seconds. Thus doing the job in February; that way I could avoid the little vespids.

But, But, BUT!

It was the warmest February in decades, and the wasps, though a bit sluggish, still woke up and stung everyone on the site as I disturbed their nests hidden in the exterior woodwork. This included the Lovetts, Butch the Miller, and a lot of tourists including about twenty Boy Scouts touring the museum as a group. 

I was the only person not stung in that twelve day job.

Go figure.