HART SQUARE BOOK SIGNING
Lincolnton, N.C.
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For nearly forty years, Dr. Robert Hart of Hickory, North
Carolina, has rescued and restored Carolina life of the
nineteenth century, creating in the rolling countryside of
Catawba County an entire village, Hart Square – the largest
collection of original, historical log structures in the
United States.
On December 17,
2011, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m., during Preservation By the Cup
and Heafner Pottery’s Kiln Opening at the former CMC-Lincoln
building in Lincolnton, Bob Hart will sign his new 400-page
coffee table book,
Hart Square: One Man’s Passionate Preservation of North
Carolina’s Pioneer
Heritage.
Ten percent of the proceeds will benefit the Lincoln County
Historical Association.
From corn cribs and barns, to houses and chapels, and even a
few outhouses, Hart Square
documents
Bob and Becky Hart’s award-winning preservation effort with
798 color
photographs
of the structures and their period furnishings, not forgoing
detailed histories and the often humorous anecdotes of
moving and restoring them (sometimes at peril to life, limb,
and digit).
With the
exception of two, all of the village’s structures were
rescued in the Catawba Valley and many in Lincoln County,
including the Blackburn-Summerow-Null-Hartzoge House, from
1793, the oldest structure in the village and one of Lincoln
County’s oldest.
Designed and
published by Nathan Moehlmann of Goosepen Studio & Press, with
a foreword by Bob Timberlake, an introduction by John Rice
Irwin, founder of the
Museum
of
Appalachia,
and principal photography by Reggie Thomas and Glen Walker,
Hart Square tracks the village’s emergence from its
beginnings as a wildlife refuge.
The
Hunsucker House, ca. 1840, the first structure, arrived
in 1973 at the suggestion of Paul Hedrick, of Conover, who
said, “Hey, Doc, there’s an old log cabin over here just
falling down. It would look great on that new pond you just
put in.” Becky Hart recalls thinking it was a good idea to
move the old house, that it would complement the upper lake.
“I didn’t know what it meant,” she says now, referring to
the numerous buildings—seventy-five now—that complement the
first.
With
no intention of moving another
structure,
Bob
reassembled the Hunsucker House along the upper lake to suit
an idealized vision of what a log cabin should be.
He moved the structural timbers, leaving the floorboards,
ceiling, windows, and doors, and even the handmade brick
chimney. As the history of the buildings began to pique his
interest, along with their place in the development of
Catawba
County, he began to salvage everything, including the nails.
By
1998, when Bob moved the Rhodes House, the village had long
become an obsession. He had learned to move and preserve as
much as he could. With the three-story Rhodes House, built
in the early 1800s by Henry Rhodes (1799–1852) and the
largest at Hart Square, this included not only the
clothesline – its cedar posts and original wire – but also a
pair of bib overalls and old shirts found in the attic. “The
outhouse was not salvageable, but we were able to provide an
original three-holer found at the Charlotte Metrolina
Antiques Show,”
Bob says. “He’s always there when the gate opens,”
Becky says, “to make sure he gets the special finds.”
Bob Timberlake in his foreword to Hart Square writes
of these special finds, the historical structures that
create the village, and the
over two hundred knowledgeable artisans and docents
who
demonstrate and share the craftsmanship and subsistence
of
the area’s
pioneers on festival day,
“I’ve
visited Colonial Williamsburg, almost grew up in Old Salem,
and I’ve seen other restored places all over North America,
and nothing compares with Dr. Hart’s village just south of
Hickory.”
Bob
Hart
says
simply,
“I hope the book proves both beautiful and informative,
giving us an appreciation of what life was like a hundred
and fifty years ago.”A
clothbound, 400-page coffee table book, 11.9 inches wide by
12.5 inches tall, with 798 color images, Hart Square: One
Man’s Passionate Preservation of North Carolina’s Pioneer
Heritage retails for $75.
