Blast from the Past
Hobie Martin
Easterday Construction lost another friend earlier this month. Hobart (Hobie) Martin passed away September 5th. You can read his (Impressive!) obituary here.
We met Hobie through is connection to the Veterans Memorial at Fletcher Cemetery. That connection was through his son, Architect Brent Martin, who we have worked with extensively on many projects. When I first met him, I said, “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Martin.”, to which he replied, “If we’re going to work together we should be friends. Call me Hobie!” I definitely enjoyed our time working together.
In 2014 we were contracted to move the existing memorial stone to a new location on a plaza created for it. The stone has the names of veterans carved into it and sadly was running out of space. You can find several posts about working on this project here.
Knowing this historic significance of the piece made the project a bit daunting. We ended up working with Tom Lenker to make this move as he was always one of the equipment operators I trusted most. (When someone would ask about him, I told them I would trust him to scratch an itch on my right shoulder blade with an excavator tooth without a second thought.)
While I didn’t see Hobie often after that project, I did keep track of him through Brent. He lived a long and good life and in the end, was able to pass in his home with his family there.
The project goal was to have the project complete by Memorial Day. Several of us from Easterday Construction attended the dedication service and the Memorial Day Service that year. I stopped to check on it when I went to Hobie’s visitation and the plaza is a great tribute to his community service.
Blast from the Past – Culver Academies’ Boy Scout Headquarters
At the award ceremony for Ginny earlier this month, I was reminded of Culver Academies‘ connection to the Boy Scouts of America. In 2010, we built a cabin to be used as a Boy Scouts Headquarters at the far east side of the Woodcraft Camp. The picture to the right is the cabin when it was completed. You can see some pictures of the cabin under construction here.
The cabin is a scaled down version of the Woodcraft Camp sleeping cabins, following the same basic design, but including a larger porch that doubles as a project work space and a stage for presentations. The ribbon cutting ceremony for the project was scheduled to coincide with the 100 years of scouting jamboree that was held in Washington, D.C. that year.
Over the years, Easterday Construction Co., Inc. has completed many projects at Culver Academies, from new construction to major remodels. As has been discussed here before, the origins of our company are tied to the work our founder, Russell L. Easterday, did for James I. Barnes Construction in the early 1920’s. This prompted the creation of Russell L. Easterday Construction and Supply Company as a subsidiary of Barnes Construction and the gentleman’s agreement that allowed Russell to make the subsidiary his own company.
Heritage Park Mural
Sometimes our projects make the news. Sometimes it’s our staff. This time it’s equipment! We are leasing scaffolding to the Town of Culver for the mural being completed on the wall of The Garden by Elizabeth. The picture above appeared on the front page of the Oct. 3rd, 2019 edition of The Culver Citizen. The new mural will be a bold addition and eye-catching update to the Park. It has been interesting watching the progress.
The tie-in is interesting because Easterday Construction Co., Inc. built the trellis and arbor for the original Heritage Park. (See a post regarding the carpentry work we completed here.) Since that time, some of the structures suffered from age and “deferred maintenance”. Some of the plantings are past do for some thinning.
Landscapes change and parks adapt to new uses over time. It’s not surprising that there is a new vision for the park. A lot of thought went into the original design though and I hope some consideration is given to the vision and investment of Richard Ford, Richard Fisher, Mark Holeman and others when they originally created Heritage Park, not to mention the loving care Ansel “Bud” Cripe put into the construction.
Blast From the Past: Memory Countertop
This is an old project that came to mind the other day when talking to a new client. Unfortunately I often kick myself for not keeping the best picture record of projects. In this case, I have pictures of the finished counter, but not particularly good pictures of the counter once it was installed. Hopefully there is enough here to give you an idea of what can be done.
This project was the renovation of an old summer cottage. The style was dated, but filled with memories for the Owner’s family. The kitchen and bathroom had deteriorated to the point of discouraging use of the entire cottage. The plan was to do a renovation in the style of the older portion of the home, but including an addition which expanded the kitchen, included a small dining area and created an enlarged bathroom with modern amenities.
The home’s “living room” was in the center with no windows. Everything was heavy woodwork with dark stain. Again, they wanted to keep the style due to the historic ties, but also wanted more light. The solution was to brighten up the kitchen including lots of windows and bright colors and then create a pass-through window to transfer some of the light to the interior living room. It was very important to the family to preserve the character and style of the original cottage, so a lot went into making sure the addition blended new with old.
A lot of discussion went into how to accomplish the connection and it was determined that the pass-through should also serve as a bar top creating a supplemental eating space. A sketch/plan for the top was created and approved. The top cantilevered into the living room space held up with decorative support brackets. The pass-through was cased in oak similar to the rustic trim throughout the house. Plinth’s were used around the opening to cover gaps necessary to fit the completed top into place.
The Owner was a photographic artist and had preserved many historic photos of gatherings at the home. She had a vision of including these photos in the renovation. A little research on our part uncovered a product called Kleer Kote from U.S. Composites. The product is an clear epoxy coating that is self-leveling and creates a glass-like finish. The Owner provided specially duplicated photographs that were compatible with the Kleer Kote and gave us an arrangement she wanted. We then placed them on the top and permanently adhered and protected them with the coating.
For those of you considering this, a few tips on using the Kleer Kote: 1) The product has to be mixed slowly to avoid creating air bubbles , 2) the product is flowable, but thick when applied, so care must be taken not to move the media being preserved during installation and 3) the product is self-leveling, but is syrupy as it goes on, so care must be taken not to over fill the borders of the area being filled. You can work it a little to help the spread, but again, this must be done carefully to prevent creating bubbles.
This is the original cottage before the addition was built. The door shown entered a hall into a narrow kitchen and the room extending on the right was a small breakfast nook. The stairs were in poor condition and the railing was unsafe. The cottage was winterized each year via a series of pipes and valves in the basement. (Which only one family member knew how to do.) The basement walls were deteriorating to the point light could be seen through mortar joints. The breakfast nook itself was actually an addition many decades old, but its foundations were in worse shape than the original cottage foundation which was much, much older.
The renovation included removing the old structure for that housed the breakfast nook and expanding that space to include the new kitchen, dining area and bathroom. The space is still compact, but fitting with the rest of the home. The smaller, high windows were updated, but in a similar style. New steps and railing were installed to improve access. The plumbing was reconfigured and valving was created to make winterization easy and self-explanatory.
There was a tree that was dying near the home which created a potential future hazard. The tree had meaning to the family and was difficult to lose. As a solution, we removed the tree and had a local chainsaw artist create a carving and bench. The bench includes wood burning art and a plaque commemorating family members, their interests and their time at the cottage.
Community Building
History Corner from the February 2, 2018 Culver Citizen
It’s always been kind of a joke that I don’t know how old Easterday Construction is. I tell people that Great Grandpa (Russell) Easterday was too busy running a new business to worry about commemorating business milestones. I’m sure, like all small business owners, at that point he was just concerned about keeping it in the black. He wasn’t thinking about any kind of legacy. We’ve done a little better with that regarding Becky’s new business, Berger Audiology. Chances are it won’t be here 85 years from now, but I’m sure that’s what Russell thought too!
Dad used to tell me he thought the company began in the 30’s, but on a walk to lunch I happened to notice the concrete marker on the Elementary School Gym named us as the contractor when the “Community Building” as it was known then, was dedicated in 1929. (Hard to read, but I’ve included a picture below.) That moved the date back to at least 1928. So the History Corner in the Culver Citizen last week qualifies as a Blast from the Past project. I’m assuming that this was one of the first large projects completed by Easterday Construction, though I can’t say for certain. Our current office is across the Slate Street to the west, but at that time the property was still part of Russell’s farm and was only used as staging for equipment and supplies. The current office wasn’t built until the 50’s (again history is sketchy), while in the beginning the offices were on the second floor of the State Exchange Bank Building (currently First Farmers Bank & Trust).
Dedication Marker on the south side of the Culver Elementary School Gym
Easterday Construction has been involved in several additions and renovations at the Culver Community Schools over the years, so there s a lot of history there. Dad played high school basketball there. (He still blames getting thrown into one of those block walls just off the court for his reoccurring back problems.) When I was in school, that was the Jr. High School Gym. I had gym class there and played (briefly) on the Jr. High basketball team before acknowledging that growth spurt didn’t translate into talent.
It’s always interesting when ties to the past like this come up. It usually results in conversations with those with memories of those times. Unfortunately those of that generation are getting fewer and fewer.
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MacKenzie Ledley - Executive Director, Pulaski County Public Library