ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608050040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: AMSTERDAM
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
CABIN CREEK at Cloyd House opens its doors today on U.S. 220 in Botetourt County.
About a year ago, Lisa Farmer bought an 18th-century log cabin so she could move it up the road a few miles and open a gift shop in it. She talked about her deep regard for history. A "labor of love" she called it.
These days, she still calls it a labor, but of a different kind.
"I feel like I'm in a labor room," she said. "I'm like 'Get this thing out of here, I'll be real happy about it later.'''
Later comes at 10 a.m. today.
That's when Cabin Creek at Cloyd House opens its doors on U.S. 220 in Botetourt County about five miles north of Interstate 81. The store sells "country goods" - from candles and dried flowers to furniture and stuffed bears.
Friday, Farmer was already glowing over her latest creation.
It really has been a labor, but she confesses it's her own fault. She's what you might call a stickler for accuracy.
Farmer was already in the gift business with a store called Pepperberry's on the Roanoke City Market when she heard about the discovery of an 18th-century cabin in the Amsterdam section of Botetourt.
Workers about to demolish the building stripped away a layer of vinyl siding to find rows of horizontal, ax-hewn chestnut logs. Some digging through the Botetourt County courthouse, which has unusually complete early land records, determined that the house probably belonged to Michael Cloyd.
Cloyd's family came from Pennsylvania in 1745. Cloyd, a surveyor and landowner who provided supplies to Colonial troops during the American Revolution, helped found the town of Amsterdam in 1794.
Farmer had about a day to decide whether to buy the cabin. Since then, it has been a constant concern. Her husband may call it more of a headache.
Richard Farmer, a contractor, builds new houses. A 200-year-old structure was another matter.
"With new houses, everything is a blueprint," his wife explained. "This was all in my head."
Lisa Farmer's hope was to save absolutely everything she could. To her, it was a matter of preserving a piece of a county that is increasingly overrun with new things, such as factories and subdivisions.
Farmer fears that Botetourt may lose touch with its past, in part, she says, because there's little support from the county government to save it. She was disgusted to learn that while the county was paying millions of dollars in incentives to companies who agreed to build factories here, she couldn't get a dime to preserve the home of one of the county's forefathers.
Though restoration of the cabin probably cost twice what a new building would have, the Farmers persevered.
They salvaged all the original windows, but it took a month to do it. About half the floors were saved and, after some wrangling between the Farmers, the stairs were, too.
Lisa had to set aside her concern for authenticity in some matters. The lime and fox fur chinking between the logs, for instance, was replaced with a modern goop called "Perma-chink."
Lime and fox fur it ain't, but then the original stuff didn't come with a 300-year warranty.
In the end, the Farmers' marriage has fared as well as the Cloyd house - still intact.
There are still a few pieces of trim to be finished, but for the most part, the store is ready for visitors.
Farmer says she will use the upstairs to teach classes in Colonial-era crafts and maybe "aroma therapy."
Yes, aroma therapy. It's the practice of soothing nerves with certain smelly herbs. If you think it sounds more New Age than Colonial, you're right, though Farmer points out that herbs were used for all kinds of stuff in the 18th century.
Customers will get a good dose of history, as well.
From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, re-enactors will stage a scene from the diary of a surly future French king named Louis Phillipe, who visited an Amsterdam tavern in 1793 and remarked for four pages on the uncivilized manner of Americans.
Sounds like the nose-in-the-air Frenchman could have used a little aroma therapy.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY STAFF Lisa and Richard Farmer spent the pastby CNByear turning their 18th-century cabin into the gift shop that opens
today. color