HMF

“IT’S LIKE PAINTING A PICASSO’

There’s something reassuring in watching Roscoe Ross work.

The knowing eye. The strong, steady hands. The rhythm of his movement.

His way is an old way. It pays no mind to the TikTok world we live in, with its five-second attention span and fixation on fame.

You could say his trade — laying bricks — is biblical: “And you, oh son of man, take a brick and lay it before you, and portray upon it a city,” the Good Book says. 

At sunrise one recent morning at Rose Hill Cemetery, Ross was getting the texture of concrete just right before he began troweling. He was adding a second thin layer to protect a row of old, decaying bricks at a private burial plot. 

You’ll find him at Rose Hill on many days, even on weekends. (“You have to take advantage of your sunny days. I’d prefer to be somewhere catching fish.”)

Last summer, after someone’s car or truck battered the arch at the cemetery’s College Street entrance, it was Ross who took on the restoration. He cleared away the damage, then set about to repair the arch, brick by brick, layer by layer.

If you’ve ever visited the burial site of Allman Brothers Band members near the main entrance to Rose Hill, you’ve seen more of his work. He laid all the bricks there, bringing the shrine to life.

The 68-year-old learned from the best. His dad, Oscar Ross Sr., was a master brick mason for more than 65 years. (So was one of his uncles.) Between the elder Ross and his son, they have 138 years of “union work” between them.

It’s a tie that binds. Sometimes on a job he pulls out one of his daddy’s tools, maybe his trowel. It keeps him connected.

Roscoe Ross was recently honored as one of Historic Macon’s 2024 Preservation Award winners. He won the Jenny Thurston Award, which salutes a lifetime of historic preservation work.

His father saw to it that young Roscoe got a head start on learning the trade. Many a day when the younger Ross got home from the old Duresville Elementary School on Millerfield Road, he would start stacking bricks in the barn, learning different patterns — running bond, jack-on-jack, herringbone — that he’d use on the job one day.

His father would come home from a long day of work, greet his wife, Amanda, then inspect what he had assigned his son to do, correcting him where he needed to.

“When other kids were playing with Play-Doh, I was playing with bricks,” he said with a laugh.

During the summer, he also helped his grandfather, Benjamin Collins, on his Donnan Road farm. Much of Collins’ 145 acres was devoted to fruit orchards — peaches, apples, grapes — but there were peas, beans, corn and plenty more in the garden to harvest in the summer heat.

“I was his right-hand man till I was 10,” Ross said. “Once I got to 10, they put a trowel in my hand.” 

During his days at Northeast High School, he got a part-time job at a Piggly-Wiggly store, stocking shelves and carrying out customers’ groceries. Working at the store also meant he got a Social Security card, which he needed to get into the union.

There were two brick-mason unions back in those days: the Local No. 4, for Black masons, located above the H&H restaurant, and the Local No. 17, for white brick masons. Once you were accepted into a union, you had five years to get certified as a journeyman brick mason.

In 1973, the year he graduated from Northeast, he began twice-a-week classes in the evening, learning everything the program offered, including how to read blueprints.

“You set your own pace,” Ross said. He was able to finish that training in three years because of all that practice in his youth. (He’ll get his 50-year union card soon.)

 “All of that training I did back then for my dad put me years ahead of everybody else,” he said. “Dad was getting me ready for an apprenticeship.” 

In short order,  “I was a full-fledged bricklayer,” he said. Others would have to get on-the-job training.

‘YOU ONLY GET ONE SHOT’

Bartholomew Duhart

He worked for his father about 25 years, but he also worked for other contractors in town, including Bartholomew Duhart, whose creations across the Unionville neighborhood in particular are legendary.

Ross would travel out of town on occasion — even to work on the Buckhead home of Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden — but he preferred being home with his wife, Debra, and seeing his son, Jonathan, who now lives near Atlanta. (Ask him about the two-year British Petroleum project east of Chicago, where more than 200 brick masons lined the inside of 8-foot-tall pipes with fire bricks for more than a quarter mile.)

Ross quickly made a name for himself. People would call his father and ask if Ross could help with their brick or stone projects. 

He’s worked on four different homes for Macon attorney Frank Horne, everything from walkways to fireplaces. (Horne also knew Ross’ father.)

The walkway in front of Frank Horne’s home.

“When people are out walking the dog or pushing a baby stroller, they stop in front of my house (on Albermarle Place) all the time and ask, “Who did this brickwork,” Horne said. “It is absolutely amazing.

“Everybody knows he’s the best. There’s nobody at his level.”

Maryel Battin, left.

In time Ross met Maryel Battin, who led the Historic Macon Foundation for 17 years. After he did some work for her, she saw his talent and asked him to help with restoration and historic preservation projects whenever he could.

Now, decades later, you’ll find that work all over town. A walkway (and reset stone) at Washington Park. Brick walls outside Mercer Law School. At the Robert E. Lee Building, formerly the Professional Building and home to WIBB studio. Inside and outside Mount de Sales High School. The Cannonball House. The old warehouse where 41 NBC is located.

And soon at the Hay House, where it looks like a delivery vehicle hit one of the stately columns near the driveway.

Ross’ work on the Rose Hill arch.

On a job, he knows the most important thing he can do. It’s pretty simple. “As you go, just stand back and look at your work,” he said. “Pick out your flaws and straighten ’em out while you can.”

In his line of work, mistakes are easy to spot.

“Brick work has always been under everybody’s eye to where it has to be perfect — straight joints, straight head joints, the whole nine yards,” he said. “You may not know anything about brick work, but you can look to see if it’s straight or if it’s pure ugly. You know what I mean?”

In its own way, it is a work of art. And you don’t get second chances. 

“It’s like painting a Picasso,” he said. “You only get one shot to do this. You can’t come back tomorrow.” 

When the Rose Hill archway was damaged last summer, there were sentiments to just tear it down and rebuild. But Ross knew he could save it, and the results have drawn praise far and wide. He used 8-inch bricks — almost 90 years old — for the project that had been set aside for such restorations. (Using incompatible materials can cause damage to historic masonry.)

He credits the foresight of consultant Bill Causey in collecting — and saving — old bricks, cobblestone, marble and more that are invaluable in such preservation projects. It was crucial in saving the old archway. Ross used hundreds of them.

Rose Hill, which opened in 1840, holds a special place for Ross. He has a real sense of history — and pride — about Macon too, even talking at one point about how important it was to Macon’s growth that the city had two big brick companies: Cherokee Brick, founded in 1877, and Burns Brick, founded in 1936.

“Here, Rose Hill, you can’t find a better place to do masonry surgery,” he said. “It’s needed in here. You can see where the families preserved nice, beautiful plots, but over the years of neglect the walls are collapsing. You can go in and surgically restore them. … Whatever the material is, though, we have to match it. That’s what makes it so exciting.”

Historic preservation, he says, “is the heart of the city, … but it takes a lot of effort.”

Causey, who worked for decades with Macon’s Engineering and Public Works departments, now oversees work at Rose Hill. He has turned to Ross time and time again for repairs that require an expert’s touch.

Simply put, Ross’ restoration work on walls, steps and more “is a beauty to behold,” he said.

“He is truly a master craftsman, and upon his departure from this honorable trade, there will be a huge void, unlikely to be filled in today’s construction industry,” Causey said.

“There will always be bricklayers,” he said, “but there will never be another master craftsman like Roscoe Ross.”

‘IT’S UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE IN TOWN’

They couldn’t help but notice the statuesque old building when they’d roll by it on their Saturday morning bike rides.

There it sat on the corner, forlorn and forgotten, a for-sale sign beckoning. It was the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of old buildings in the area. 

But some folks knew that the old “engine house” at 950 Third St. — completed in 1870 — had a higher and better use.

“These kinds of buildings are exactly what Historic Macon should be working on,” David Thompson, one of those Saturday riders, said at the time.

But Max Crook, another longtime HMF supporter and former board chair, upped the ante: “This is where Historic Macon’s office ought to be!”

It was a point of civic pride when it was built. A brief item in the Telegraph and Messenger on Dec. 28, 1869, noted that “the new engine house of Mechanics’ Fire Company No. 4, … is rapidly approaching completion, and when finished it will be one of the most handsome and conveniently located houses of the kind in the city.”

Notice the tower — long gone — in this old photo of the engine house.

The first floor held the fire engine, the “hose wagon,” other equipment — and the horses that pulled the volunteer firefighters’ wagon. The second floor was a large, open space that served as dormitory, office and meeting space. Here, too, was the hose tower, used to dry the fabric hoses. 

At the time, there was a back entrance to the building. After a fire run, the horse-drawn wagon pulled in there so it’d be facing forward for the next emergency. The volunteers took off the horse collars, harnesses and other gear and went home — or back to work.

A look up to the top of the engine house tower, inside the building.

The fire company itself was organized June 1, 1868, made up of mechanics who worked nearby (hence the name.) Their first engine was a hand-me-down: the old hand engine of Protection Fire Company No. 1, which had gotten a “steamer” — a steam engine.

A volunteer fire department, the Macon Fire Brigade, had formed in 1832, about four months after a fire wiped out a two-block business section of Mulberry Street. In 1854, City Council passed an ordinance to organize a Macon Fire Department.

By 1887, though, a decline in the volunteer system was evident. Volunteers lost money when they left their jobs to answer a fire call, and many of them got pressure from their bosses at work. The first paid company went into service that year, with 12 men as “the nucleus,” according to The Macon Daily Telegraph. Volunteer units disbanded.

You can see the old state Farmers Market across the street in these photos.

As for the old Mechanics Engine House No. 4, it was active until 1932, according to the Vintage Macon Facebook site. In the years afterward, it was a social services department, a mechanics shop for the Fire and Police departments, a sewing room, a day care, a community center, a TV repair shop, and a tax preparation office, among other uses. Old-timers will remember the state Farmers Market that operated across the street for years.

But there it sat in April 2018 — and Crook’s challenge.

It was an unlikely proposition. Historic Macon had moved into a new office on Poplar Street in 2017, and here was Crook suggesting yet another move just 2 ½ years later.

The old firehouse had been on the market awhile, and there had been no strong offers. Ideally, a private developer would have come in to “get this building back to life,” Garlington said. Only that wasn’t happening.

So as a “developer of last resort,” Historic Macon began kicking the tires. In May 2018, Crook and Garlington went inside the building to look around.

Everything downstairs — where offices had been off and on — was covered up, but at least it had kept up with the times, with wall-to-wall carpeting, drop ceilings and more.

Upstairs? “It looked like it hadn’t been touched in a hundred years,” Garlington recalled.

As radical as the prospect had seemed at one time, the thinking now became clear. The building — the oldest standing masonry firehouse in Georgia, we believe — needed saving. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

“So if we have an opportunity now when this building is for sale, let’s proactively put our money where our mouth is and buy it,” Garlington explained.

In August 2018, the HMF board approved the purchase. We closed on the sale that October.

Thanks to our Fading Five fund, Historic Macon was able to negotiate a “bargain sale.” The building appraised for $170,000. We bought it for $135,000. The owner got a $35,000 write-off.

It still needed a lot of work, of course. We asked to reallocate money in the Downtown Loft Revolving Loan Fund, funded by the Peyton Anderson Foundation, the Community Foundation of Central Georgia, the 1772 Foundation, and the E.J. Grassmann Trust. They agreed. We broke the big news during our 2020 annual meeting video.

Work began in summer 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic.  Renovations were fairly straightforward, Garlington said, although there were hurdles. The office space is actually smaller than our former Poplar Street home, which we’ll be leasing.

Our construction crew even found old photos and re-created the huge doors that covered the original arched entryway. (And just so you know: We think there were two fire poles in the building back in the day. There were none by the time we got involved.)

For all the project’s challenges, we’re proud of the outcome. It’s a bold move. We’re one more jewel on a street that is now teeming with new energy. The renovated Robert Train Building is right up the street, and our new duplexes in Beall’s Hill are rising out of the ground as we speak.

“Not only is it an iconic building that needed to be saved, needed a good use, but in this case we are again pushing the boundaries of what people think of when they think of downtown,” Garlington said. “We’re generating activity … and revitalizing the Oglethorpe Street corridor for other investments.”

Marvin Riggins, who retired as Macon-Bibb County’s fire chief in 2020, got a recent look at our new office and was pleased.

“I’m just so happy to see this building preserved,” he said. “It is a treasure for our community — and our city. It adds historic value to the entire community.

“Without vision, it would be lost.”

With our move, we’re also closer to our Flea Market warehouse, just two blocks away. And our shop on Second Street is nearby.

Even though we’ve moved in, we’re not through. There are plans to dig up all the asphalt in front, uncovering old cobblestones and putting down turf — and trees — that old photos show were once there.

“It will be beautiful one day,” Garlington promised.

We held an open house in September 2020, letting members see the early stages of our renovation work. We’ll have another one soon to reveal the result.

“This building has not looked this good — ever, frankly,” Garlington said. “When it was built it was lovely. But it had horse stalls. It was functional. Now, it’s beautiful and unlike anything else in town.”


A BIG THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

Funders*:

Peyton Anderson Foundation;

1772 Foundation;

E.J. Grassmann Trust;

Community Foundation of Central Georgia;

Beverly Knight Olson;

Knight Foundation.

*Most of these funders initially invested in HMF's Downtown Loft Revolving Fund in 2013. After the success of our 551 Cherry Street project in 2015, we couldn't find another suitable building. As such, these funders generously reallocated the revolved funds to the rehabilitation of the Fire Hall.

Trades:

RDG Ventures — donated services;

Tom and Christian Yun — lead contractors;

Pro-Aire — HVAC subcontractor;

Bowman Electric — electrical subcontractor;

Ricky Hopson — plumbing subcontractor;

Michelle Garlington Interiors — design;

Shannon Fickling — architecture;

Laurie Fickling — landscape design (not yet complete);

Electrical Design Consultants — engineering;

PiTech Engineers — in-kind structural engineers;

Total Design Services — HVAC and plumbing engineers;

Cherry Street Energy — solar;

Dublin Glass — storefront doors and glass office doors;

Willingham Sash and Door;

The Floor Guy — partially donated services;

Noland — donated plumbing fixtures;

Mac Scarbary — plumber;

Georgia Artisan — site work;

Geotechnical & Environmental Consultants;

Lisenby and Associates;

Cana Communications;

Burt & Burt;

Mantai Remodeling;

Advent Business Interiors;

Traditions in Tile & Stone;

Builder's FirstSource;

Warno-Cam;

Trading Post Moving & Storage — donated moving services;

Olde Town Shutters & Interiors;

IconiCraft Custom Cabinets;

Elite Cleaning Services;

Big Hair Productions.