[placid music] - Coming up on "Best of Our State," the rich history and preservation of some very special log structures.

And we travel back to the restoration of the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

That's next on "Best of Our State."

We dip into treasured stories for a look at all the beauty and character of North Carolina.

Hello and welcome.

I'm Elizabeth Hudson, editor-in-chief of "Our State Magazine."

This is the amazing story of how one man's love of history and passion for preservation led to the largest collection of historic log structures in the world.

In 2014, Dr. Hart welcomed us to a place like no other, a place where future generations will learn from our state's past, Hart Square.

- [Bob] We started Hart Square back in 1973.

[gentle guitar music] Always been interested in wildlife.

Built these ponds, put in wood duck boxes.

Brought in a deer herd.

Brought in four Canadian geese, which now populated to over 100.

Set up different ponds that you could flood with Chiwapa millet for the ducks and the geese.

And I enjoyed doing it, preserving wildlife.

- [Narrator] No one could ever have imagined what the future had in store for this man, his family, and this land just south of Hickory.

But looking back, it seemed predestined, all set in motion by the suggestion of a neighbor.

- "Hey, Doc," he says, "You know, it would be great.

There's an old log cabin falling down over here behind my house."

And he said, "It'd really looked good on that upper pond you just built."

And we put it up by hand, and we used skid poles and ropes.

Then it wasn't long before the same young fellow told me about a log barn that was nearby and said it would look nice by this log cabin.

That basically is how it all got started.

- [Narrator] Dr. Bob Hart, a well-known and much loved Hickory physician that discovered an obsession to go with his medical practice, those cabins, which he found traipsing through woodland and field, spotting them from the air, rescuing many an abandoned old structure from time and weeds, and each one a welcome addition to what became known as Hart Square.

- [Bob] The dates range from 1763 all the way up to 1880.

Almost every building has come within 15 to 20 miles from here.

All have been local in the Catawba Valley area.

- [Narrator] After 40-plus years, he has amassed in one place the largest collection of historical log structures in the US.

And as if the cabins alone weren't enough, Dr. Hart even gave them life.

[gentle upbeat music] - In the business of flea marketing, you go in right at the crack of day.

Morning, Ron, you're late setting up this morning.

Were you oversleeping?

And people who are looking early are gonna find the best buys for the money.

What about the cup ring?

And you go in blue jeans and tennis shoes.

It's the best way to go in.

Hey, Dave, what's up?

- My shoulder's hurting, man.

- I'm not doctoring today.

I'm antiquing.

When your checks don't need to have Dr. Bob Hart on it, it's like a hidden treasure.

You're looking for hidden treasure everywhere you go, and, you know, you find 'em.

Spittoon out of a train station?

They're gonna ask $10 for it.

You offer 'em eight.

You never give 'em 10.

All right, that'll go with the pot.

How much you want for the pot?

Dickering is probably part of the fun.

25, that's too high, 25.

- [Seller] Meet me in the middle for it.

- All right, $30, you're in the middle.

I think it's European, though.

- Really?

- I've learned so much from so many friends that are dealers.

Yeah, it's not a Piedmont.

If it's a Piedmont I'd be- - I tell ya.

- And sometimes you gonna find your best buys in the field, so it's good to know a little bit about whether it's authentic and how old it is or how well it's been taken care of.

That's a good buy right here.

- [Narrator] His good buys have included a hand-cranked butter churn and a dog-powered treadmill, each lovingly placed treasure a fresh clue to our state's frontier origin.

- And certainly my wife Becky has a lot to do with the decorating.

What we trying do is we try and furnish a cabin authentically as much as possible as if somebody lived here and walked out.

You'll see that cabin sitting as it would've been seen in the 1800s.

Each cabin has its own story.

East cabin is absolutely full of history.

- [Narrator] This dilapidated structure found 10 miles from Hart Square was used as a barn, but turned out to be an old school house from the 1840s now restored to its original purpose.

It was a one-room schoolhouse with two doors, one for boys, one for girls.

[gentle upbeat music] Underneath three layers of siding in downtown Hickory, there was a treasure hiding.

- Here we have the Borgia cabin, which was built in the early 1800s by Simon Borgia.

And upstairs we demonstrate everything that you would've found in a weaving house.

- [Narrator] Before the Industrial Revolution, families made their own clothes or made clothes for others in upstairs rooms like this.

One structure moved to Hart Square from a site in Burke County is still used for its original purpose.

This 1760 mill was known by many names before Bob Hart christened the Hickson-Bradshaw Mill after two of its owners.

There once were over 30 mills in Catawba County, each located within a day's wagon drive from its customers.

The miller would grind their grain on the barter system.

This cabin built by a carpenter in 1820 boasts a beautiful stone chimney.

- I was able to take it down in two days.

It required over a year to put back.

This chimney alone along with the kitchen chimney took almost two months.

- [Narrator] Kitchens back then were detached to reduce the risk of fire in the main house.

Meals were typically prepared on an open hearth, cooking at different temperatures at different times over a single fire, juggling several dishes at once.

But the tasty home-cooked results usually were worth the time and effort.

[bell ringing] - This log structure was an original barn, which we moved about five miles from here and one of the first buildings that we put into Hart Square.

We've converted it into St. Mark's Chapel.

My grandchildren have been baptized in it, and it's been consecrated by the Bishop of North Carolina.

Churches and chapels in the early days basically was born of a preacher, and the person who came was called a circuit rider.

And he might visit you every four to five weeks.

And in the interval, then you would have somebody that was a deacon or a senior member of the church would act as the preacher for that particular service.

The circuit rider himself carried an organ which folds up.

It's called a wagon organ.

It's been in the church here for over 30 years.

It's never been tuned.

The tone is perfect.

[slow hymnal music] One of the things that I love mostly about moving these cabins is going back and finding people that lived in them, that were born in them.

- [Narrator] After a day spent searching for one owner, he finally found Essie Norwood, who once lived in this 1860 cabin.

Problem was she was in the hospital.

- And only a doctor could go there at 12 o'clock at night and knock on the door and ask her what she was gonna do with it.

Well, she gave me that cabin.

She and nine children were raised in that one cabin, and she told me she could remember the front room as she came in.

She could see through the cracks of the floor.

She could see the chickens underneath the cabin.

Well, I marked those floorboards, and if you go in that cabin today, you will see cracks in the board.

You can see all the way to the ground underneath.

And I brought her back.

You should've seen the tears that came out her eyes 'cause we used every board and every window that was in that particular cabin.

I give a lot of credit to my wife.

She's put up with me having this village for some 40 years.

I say I have a passion.

My wife says I've got an obsession.

But promised my wife after about 60 that I wouldn't move another one.

I say I'm through, but, you know, if you find a real unusual one.

- [Narrator] You know how that goes.

The spirit is willing, but the heart is weak.

A history book inspired his next project.

The story was about Adam the pioneer Sherrill, who in 1747 became the first European to cross the west side of the Catawba River and settle there.

To protect his homestead, he built a stockade.

You know what happened next.

- I look at a log cabin, and the first thing is can it be restored?

Boy, I love finding something that is not gonna be here in five or 10 years that I can bring back the life.

It's great to find a cabin that has not been restored electrically, and you've seen it, or moved.

The log stuff between 'em just falls out.

Got old square nails, you can reuse 'em.

'Cause I use a lot of modern-day tools, even though I find that in some cases, the old tools are better.

The iron sometimes sharpens better.

I use log carrier to carry these logs that are 100 years old, the chisels.

I mean a lot of the stuff we still use even today.

I come out here six days a week probably.

Sundays I go to eight o'clock service.

I'm out here by 9:30.

So I can be here from daylight to dark.

Love every minute.

257.

- [Narrator] Several months and countless man-hours later, 97th restored log structure in Hart Square adds a notch more texture and a whole lot of history to the village.

Hart Square is a place filled with home places, home places rich with memories made over time.

- [Rick] Yes, this house means a lot to me and my sister.

We grew up in this house visiting our great uncles and great aunt.

- The house had stood empty for about 15 years.

We knew that it would deteriorate.

I had heard about Dr. Hart's village, and we sort of sent word to Dr. Hart that we had a log cabin.

Our Uncle Wade, who lived in this house and had always told us there was a log house underneath.

- The part we're in right now is like a cocoon that was inside of the rest of the dwelling.

We do know that the house is probably the oldest house in the village with the date of 1763 scratched into one of the bricks on the chimney outside.

- [Susan] It's a special time for us because when we come in and get the house ready for the festival, it's just a time we can be together and reminisce and talk about all the good times that we had here in this house.

We're just very happy that the house is here, and it can be shared with so many people.

- [Narrator] This house, along with everything in it goes on public display once a year when the village comes alive during the annual Hart Square Festival - We used to barbecue a pig on the grill just to have a few people come in and people making apple cider and stuff.

But it's grown into major event.

Festival is always the fourth Saturday in October, and tickets sell out in one day.

- [Narrator] Beneficiaries include the foundation Bob Hart has established to perpetuate the village and the Catawba County Historical Association.

- Good job on the weather, Bob.

[laughs] - Hey, Deedee.

- Really good job- one the weather.

- Good job on the weather.

We have 250 people that come in and demonstrate.

We like everybody here to be dressed in costume, and I don't know of any place in the country they will come in and demonstrate on original equipment and tools.

[machine clacking] We had the gristmill breakdown.

The belt broke on it, and we've had somebody re-lace it.

And we had the cotton gin breakdown.

- I got it working.

Got it, they got it working.

Why do I think people come here?

They see people as they would've seen them in the 1800s.

- Will that be awesome or what?

- Mm-mm, I'll be back five o'clock.

- Yeah, okay, good.

- It brings memories of family, particularly grandparents, great grandparents and it's a way that they lived.

They can appreciate and remember doing things.

They can remember slot jugs.

They can remember going to an outhouse and not having running hot water.

And I've enjoyed teaching, and it's a way that I can possibly preserve life that our generation can appreciate what their forefathers had done to make life as it is today.

[gentle upbeat music] And one of the ways that I relax mostly is when everybody's gone, and I can walk through the village and look at the different buildings and have the feeling of warmth as if I had lived in this town.

I've had a wonderful life working, doing what I loved doing most and enjoying the history, researching it, putting these buildings back as if somebody lived in them.

To me, that's been a way that God said, "I love you."

I told my wife I wanna be cremated, and I want my ashes spread over the village.

And hopefully upstairs they may have some log cabins.

- Up and down our state's coastline stands seven beautiful lighthouses, each with its own fascinating story.

One of my favorites is the Bodie Island Lighthouse on Nags Head.

Originally built in 1871, this stalwart of the coast has endured more than a century's worth of storms.

We got to follow the remarkable journey of its restoration.

- [Narrator] The first lighthouse constructed between Nags Head and Oregon Inlet in 1848 was so poorly made that before long, it began sinking to one side and was quickly abandoned.

Its replacement, also called the Bodie Island Lighthouse, was constructed in 1859 and had a more robust building budget.

That lighthouse was blown up by retreating Confederate soldiers in 1861 to keep it from falling into the hands of Union forces, which could have used it as a navigation aid or lookout tower.

The new 1872 Bodie Island Lighthouse was built to last, and it has.

Although by the time the 21st century rolled around, wind and water pretty much had had their way with the 165-foot tall structure, and it was all but worn out.

- Here's a good example of some of the old cracked stair treads.

- [Narrator] In fact, by the time the National Park Service began restoration of the landmark in September of 2009 when the light went dark, the lighthouse was in precarious condition.

And as it turned out, a new dawn for the old structure was years away.

- My husband and I came down to visit Bodie Island, and we were just very discouraged at the shape that it was in.

It needed painting.

The storm panes were broken in the landing room up above.

And there were no plans to transfer it from the US Coast Guard to the National Park Service.

We found it hard to believe that here it is in the heart of the National Park, and yet the Coast Guard still owned it.

And at that time, Coast Guard had no money, no staff to take care of it.

It was a pipe dream to get it restored, but we set out on a journey.

We were determined to see that it got the attention that it deserves and the funding that it deserves, and it took a long time, 18 1/2 years.

- [Narrator] Here in a building that's been under nature's assault for well more than a century, issues that may seem relatively minor, like peeling paint on interior walls, offered clues to a deeper dilemma, deterioration at the heart of the structure, most ominously where the brick tower and the load-bearing belt course come together.

The cast-iron drum itself was cracked, along with some of the 16 brackets encircling it.

And huge chunks of the exterior had already fallen away, some large enough to have endangered anyone walking below.

Immediate action was required beyond the temporary repairs already made.

- Okay, what you see here is pretty much the cable that's actually holding this lighthouse together.

I mean, you can see up here some of the balcony.

It's just barely hanging on now, so, yeah.

[hopeful music] - [Narrator] So in 2009, renovations began.

The first-order fresnel lens was removed.

A skeleton-like scaffolding was erected.

[hopeful music continues] Fixtures around the lighthouse gallery were repaired or replaced.

- Sorry about that.

- [Narrator] The masonry was fixed.

Even the lead paint was removed.

The business end of the lighthouse got new brass soffits to replace the plugged up cast-iron ones under the gallery so the lighthouse can breathe again.

And 21 worn-through or cracked stairsteps were melted down and recast into new ones in Florida before being restored to their places on the spiral staircase, a very green feature for a lighthouse that should remain in service for, oh, say another 137 more years before Mother Nature wins out once again, and the structure requires major attention.

But the deeper the engineers went, the more damage they discovered.

- We have the belt course, which is the bottom level of cast iron that everything else sits upon.

There's serious cracking in every section, and there's 16 sections of everything around this whole structure, 16 brackets, 16 belt sections, 16 sections on the walkway.

And each one of the 16 sections of the belt course, which is what this is right here, has the same cracking pattern, which starts from one side, goes up, and comes back down to the other side.

Here's another example, the next one over, same exact crack sort of situation.

- [Narrator] After a goodly amount of discussion, it was agreed that the modifications necessary to restore the lighthouse to not like-new, but better than new, would require more time and money.

The expensive scaffolding would have to come down, and the Bodie Island Lighthouse would have to remain dark for who knows how long.

- Well, I think the biggest thing was that we actually had to shut down, I mean, dismantle everything, the scaffolding, and then actually turn around and wait almost a good year before we could actually get back onto this operation again.

- [Narrator] March 2012, Congress approves additional funding for the restoration project.

The scaffolding goes back up.

And work begins again.

But the National Park Service and a cadre of engineers have to make one concession to their goal of maintaining the historic fabric of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse structure was designed to support one person or so, a keeper and his assistant, not thousands of visitors.

- The Park Service made a promise that we would open up this lighthouse to the public, and that's where we decided to do the full restoration.

- [Narrator] A year passes.

With the internal problem solved, workers get busy on the exterior.

Windows are replaced, and painters bring the faded lighthouse back to black-and-white life.

It's now March 2013, and the lens is returned with the same backbreaking labor and extensive rigging as before.

Only this time, the crates and their precious cargo are going up.

- [Cheryl] They took Cape Lookout, they took that lens out long ago and took it up to Portsmouth, restored it.

Never will get it back, so we didn't want that to happen with Bodie Island.

[hopeful music] - [Worker] There's only one here.

- [Narrator] The larger pieces of glass in the lens weigh close to 300 pounds.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] The lens in the Bodie Island Lighthouse is a first-order Fresnel lens, named after French physicist and engineer Jean-Augustin Fresnel, who built his first lens back in 1823.

A first-order lens is the largest of the Fresnel lens family, and its 344 prisms can capture a small amount of light, magnify it, and project it 19 miles out to sea.

Cleaned and polished, the new old lens is magnificent.

It only needs one thing to fulfill its mission, a beam of light.

April 18th, 2013, the descendants of its early keepers will restart the lamp.

- [Park Officer] Three, two, one.

Push the button.

[crowd cheers] Yay, guys.

- [Narrator] The Bodie Island Light stands present and accounted for once again, its beacon a welcome sight to the mariners, who have missed the light's comforting presence and a welcome site to lovers of lighthouses, too, who now can marvel at its craftsmanship, [hopeful music continues] climb the 10 twisting flights of stairs to the public walkway, and gaze out to sea from a historic structure that has been lovingly restored at last.

[gentle upbeat music] - Thank you for joining us for "Best of Our State."

We've enjoyed sharing North Carolina stories with you.

We'll see you next time.

[gentle upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - [Announcer] More information about "Our State Magazine" is available at ourstate.com or 1-800-948-1409.