Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990 TAG: 9005100515
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Heard says the decision endangers at least two historic structures that will be destroyed if they're not moved within the next month.
But Explore spokeswoman Joyce Waugh said that's not so, that the property owner "is willing to work with us on that."
The decision to suspend the preservation program and not renew Heard's contract is the latest sign of the cash crunch facing both the River Foundation and the state authority governing Explore as they seek to build the proposed living-history state park that would re-create Virginia's role in opening the American West.
The decision also leaves Heard's status with the project uncertain.
Waugh said Heard continues to work for the foundation on a job-by-job basis, doing whatever work is necessary to keep up the state-owned property along the Roanoke County-Bedford County line.
However, Heard said he had been told to vacate the house he leases at the park site, but was refusing to do so because he has a five-year lease that gives him free rent in return for looking after Explore's five buffalo and its "Buffalo Farm" on Rutrough Road.
Waugh said she didn't know whether Heard had been told to move out but questioned whether the lease really runs through 1995, as Heard says.
Heard has been a colorful and sometimes controversial figure in Roanoke over the last decade. The one-time hippie carpenter calls himself a self-taught preservationist; more orthodox preservationists grouse that he's nothing more than a junk dealer.
Either way, Heard has developed a knack for moving old buildings. And when Salem donated an 18th-century barn to Explore in the fall of 1988, the River Foundation hired Heard's company, Renovation Specialists, to move it.
The publicity surrounding the dismantling of the Intervale barn prompted other people to donate historic structures to Explore - and by spring 1989, the River Foundation hired Renovation Specialists full time, with Heard receiving the title "master builder."
His job was to move old buildings, look after Explore's property, advise project planners on preservation matters and assist in planning the re-created Blue Ridge Town that will be the project's heart.
Heard also used his family connections in the Northern Virginia horse country to recruit two prominent philanthropists - Maggie Bryant, who now sits on the River Foundation's board of directors, and her son, Carey Crane, who serves on the state board that oversees Explore.
The dual way Renovation Specialists was paid shows the overlapping lines of authority between the state board that owns Explore and the non-profit foundation that the board has hired to run the project.
The River Foundation paid Renovation Specialists $6,000 per month as a basic management fee.
The Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority paid for buying and moving the old buildings.
But in late 1989, both the authority and the foundation encountered money problems.
Like many non-profit groups dependent on contributions, the foundation faced an irregular cash flow. As a result, the foundation was late paying some of its payroll taxes last summer and fall, and also put off paying some of its bills. Among those put off were six months worth of fees to Renovation Specialists.
Meanwhile, the authority faced a cash crunch of a different kind. In 1988, the General Assembly had given it $6 million, to be used only for buying land. However, the authority could use the interest for other appropriations and in March 1989, it established a line of credit, secured by that interest, to pay for its preservation program.
Through the rest of 1989, the authority spent $172,508 acquiring and/or dismantling 27 frontier-era buildings, including barns, farmhouses, mills and taverns.
At the time, Explore planners hoped the 1990 General Assembly would appropriate enough money for construction to start this summer. When they saw in late 1989 that the legislature might not have any money to give, they quickly sought to hang onto what money the authority had left. In November 1989, Explore scaled back its preservation program by eliminating much of the expensive research being done on the old buildings.
That upset preservationists, who complained Explore wasn't being scholarly enough.
Now, Waugh says the authority has suspended its preservation program altogether as a cost-cutting measure.
At the same time, she says, the foundation has decided to cut costs by not renewing Renovation Specialists' contract, which expired April 1.
Heard said he had offered to work for less and had been busy negotiating a new contract with project director Bern Ewert and project engineer Richard Burrow. But Monday, he said, "they said they didn't have enough money in the budget to afford me," even if he took a pay cut.
Renovation Specialists represented 11 percent of the River Foundation's staff expenses.
At $6,000 per month, Renovation Specialists was the foundation's third most-expensive contractor - behind the $30,000 per month paid to the consulting firm co-owned by Ewert and project engineer Richard Burrow, and the $9,200 per month paid to history adviser and fund-raiser Mike Gleason.
The foundation also pays a total of about $7,500 per month for four other staffers who are hired as employees, rather than consultants.
News of Heard's layoff came a day after Explore added two new people - Joseph R. Loferski and Charlene Anne Bailey - to its preservation advisory committee, bolstering its roster of advisers with specialists in old wooden buildings and living-history museums.
Loferski is an assistant professor of wood science at Virginia Tech. His speciality includes why some wood deteriorates faster than other wood - expertise the proposed living-history state park will need as it reconstructs the frontier-era buildings it has acquired.
Bailey, of Luray, is a former training guide for Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, an outdoor museum in Indiana, and a former archaeologist technician for the Bureau of Land Management in California. She holds a bachelor's degree in outdoor recreation and park administration from Indiana University, with an emphasis on farm museums and living-history programs.
Waugh said the foundation is seeking grants to pay for moving more old buildings and may rehire Heard's company if the grants come through or if contributions for the preservation program pick up.
Heard said Explore has detailed drawings of all the old buildings he has moved, but it would be "difficult" for someone other than him to put them back together.
He also said the foundation still owes him more than $30,000 and that no payment schedule has been worked out.
by CNB