ARTICLE: THE HOUSES THAT TOM BUILT by John P. Flannery

When we talk about the three houses that Tom Bullock built, where Tom and his wife, Mary Beth, live outside Lovettsville on Stevens Road, we are not talking about Mother Goose and what Jack built.

We are instead talking about a ten year undertaking of historic recreation from a recycled salvaged log out-building and a timber framed Federal Colonial plantation home circa 1829 from Central Southern Virginia (called “Oakland”).

We are talking about aged logs, bricks, mantels, a staircase, rails, windows, various, numerous artifacts, all consonant with the architectural details of another era.

“We had to live in a mobile home,” Tom said, “and it shook and shuddered when the wind blew outside.” 

To secure the materials, Tom cleared out honey bee hives, vines, critters from the original sites, took apart the buildings, labeled the parts, then reassembled them. 

What was lost or damaged, Tom duplicated with identical woods, following the original design, so that history past, Tom said, would “remain intact for future generations to enjoy.”

“The first of three houses we built was the kitchen house,” Tom said, “and it had bedrooms so we were done with shaking winds, next we built my office, called the ‘patent house,’ leaving a gaping space between for the third and main house, the plantation home and, guess what, it fit perfectly.”

Noting that this was accomplished faster than Jefferson’s building at Monticello, Tom mentioned, “You know Jefferson did go bankrupt – we nearly did.”

Mr. Bullock is the President of the Lovettsville Historical Society (www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org/)  and President of his own company, Bullseye Restoration Inc.

“I was always building as a kid,” Tom said, “Lincoln logs, erector sets, and finally cars.”

“My father was stationed in Stuttgart, and married into the Kalber family,” said Tom, “so I got to return summers to Germany, when I was let out of school, traveling from Alaska, San Jose, Tampa, wherever my Dad was stationed;  in Germany, I found I loved the old stuff there, the museums, the festivals.”

“I studied mechanical engineering,” Tom said, “because I liked to build things.  On my summers in Germany, I built forts, also,” he laughed, “pits to lure other kids.”

“In high school,” Tom said, “I hunted for old bottles in abandoned houses.  In College, I was a  handy man at job sites.  When I worked construction, I could read plans when the other workers could not.  At 20, they’d look at me suspicious that I didn’t know enough but I proved I did, and filled in as a welder, brick mason, whatever the position, when it was needed.”

After college, Tom passed up Texas Instruments to work two weeks on and two weeks off at building sites, taking on jobs of his own in the off weeks, getting a rep and clientele, finally setting up his own shop, collecting books, knowledge, antique tools, even learning how to be a black smith, with his own forge.

That’s how Tom had the opportunity to restore and recreate historic homes and the thought to build his own.

 “The Lovettsville Historic Association is just an extension of my passion,” Tom said.  “Right now, I’m studying the cemetery for the First German Reformed Church.”  The Church was founded before 1748, east outside of Lovettsville on the Lovettsville Road.  “The congregation met in members’ homes and only built a brick church in about 1819,” said Tom, “and that church they tore down in 1901 to construct St. James in town with the same bricks.”

“The cemetery remains,” he said, “but the question I’m considering is whether there are empty sites in the yard itself, and whether all the graves are contained within the cemetery’s walls.  There are unmarked graves, head stones, and I suspect that there are graves outside the walls, perhaps hundreds more.   I’ve used dowsing with some success to locate the graves, and a probe to examine whether the earth has been disturbed because of the digging of a grave.  Some are suspect of dousing, using rods that indicate grave sites, but I’ve had good results.  In any case, we will have to consider using some sample excavations or ground sonar, a modern but expensive technique, if we are going to confirm this preliminary inspection.”

Getting back to “the house,” Tom said, “Mary Beth and I together planned our house.”  

“As for how we met,” Tom said, “I went to a New Years’ Eve party with “a girl I was seeing,  Mary Beth Griese came downstairs acting like she knew me, offering up a special bottle of champagne that, once consumed, I kept, and I left with the bottle.” 

Unbeknownst to Tom, Mary Beth looked everywhere for that bottle but couldn’t find it. 

 
“As I planned,” Tom said, “I sent the bottle to her with a handwritten note that I wanted to see her, and we did.  That’s how it started.  I believe Mary Beth still has the bottle.”