Half Circle B Ranch House

Contributors:
Henry Irven Gaines, architect
Dates:

1936

Location:
Fletcher, Henderson County
Street Address:

Cane Creek Rd., Fletcher vicinity, NC

Status:

No longer standing

Type:

Residential

Images Published In:

Carolina Architecture and Allied Arts: A Pictorial Review of Carolina’s Representative Architecture (1942).
Henry Irven Gaines, Kings Maelum (1972).

Note:

Gaines describes in King’s Maelum the construction of Carl Baumann’s mountain house above the Cane Creek Valley. It was built of stone and timber from the large property Baumann had acquired. Local craftsmen, who were also farmers, employed their traditional building skills. The stonemasons “would carefully select a stone with moss on one face, lovingly lay it in place so that the moss would be face out, and after it was set, gently brush off any loose mortar with a fertilizer sack. Then they would stand back with hands on hips and admire it. This did nothing for speedy building, but what of it? . . . There was one old and grizzly, stoop-shouldered fellow who took exceptional pride in notching the logs at the corners. He always addressed me as ‘Boy.’ When he got the notch in the log cut to his satisfaction he would call out to me, ‘Boy, come over here and watch her go into place! ‘ The two notched logs would fit perfectly, and he would back up a few feet, take a proud look, and say, ‘Ain’t she a beaut?’”