Restoring old cabin connects Richmond man to his roots

NATHALIE - Four years ago, Richmond engineer Robert Moss was standing in a thicket of pine trees, tangled vines and poison oak deep in rural Halifax County — face to face with a decision that would change his life.

Moss, a hobby genealogist and Civil War re-enactor, had found his great-great-grandfather’s burial site on a 300-acre farm off winding Hog Wallow Road many years earlier.

When the former tobacco farm was sold and about to be subdivided, Moss had built fencing in sections in Richmond and hauled it to Nathalie to protect the cemetery — not much larger than a couple of king-sized beds — that housed his ancestor, a Confederate soldier named James A. Shelton.

On this trip in October 2005, Moss and his 11-year-old son, Shelton — named for the ancestor — ventured away from the graves and stumbled onto a weed-choked dirt road. At the end of the rutted tracks, the boy discovered a nondescript, decrepit cabin.

“Shelton said, ‘Oh, cool! It looks like a haunted house,‘ “ Moss recalled.

Moss’ engineering gears, oiled as an undergraduate at Virginia Military Institute and polished in graduate school at the University of Virginia, began to click.

Could he turn the ramshackle structure into a modest weekend retreat and forge a bond with his past?

He bought 11 acres, including the cabin and cemetery. But somewhere along the line, as most people who renovate old homes know, visions and costs began to spiral higher than those Halifax pines.

Countless treks to Nathalie and more than $100,000 later, Moss’ emotional touchstone is a fully restored yellow cottage with indoor plumbing, air conditioning, a satellite dish, a new kitchen addition, a fireplace insert, a big-screen TV/Blu-ray Disc player and cozy furnishings.

Every weekend, Moss, known as “Clinker” to friends and family, leaves the comfortable Richmond home he shares with wife Betsy, Shelton and daughter Augusta, 13, and drives two hours to “Shelton’s Rest.“ He tinkers around the cabin, reveling in the connection to his family history and the freedom from big-city pressures.

“I never envisioned getting to this point,“ said Moss, seated in a rocker in the living room, its wood floors sanded, puttied and painted a neutral gray and the walls a vibrant red.

“I think it’s amazing what Clinker has done with the place,“ Betsy Moss said. “And while it’s been more of a project for the boys during the construction process, now that plumbing and other amenities are in place, the girls are looking forward to spending time in the country, too.“

He wasn’t a novice at the project. The cabin was the third restoration for Moss, a principal engineer for ECS Mid-Atlantic; the first was a 1930s house in Virginia Beach and the second a Federal home on Church Hill.

The cabin’s origins remain a mystery. Moss said it most likely was an outbuilding of a plantation dating to the late 1700s. “This would’ve been quarters for slaves or tenant farmers,“ he said. “It originally had dirt floors, which is why the ceiling is so low.“

The cabin, perched on a bluff with a view across the Childrey Creek valley, is distinguished by a stone chimney and a columned front porch. Its configuration was what Moss calls a one-over-one — a single upstairs bedroom over the living room.

Moss hired a Halifax contractor to install the footings, framing and Sheetrock for the rear addition, but he did the work on the original cabin and the interior of the kitchen himself.

He found his builder and electrical, well and septic workers through friendly neighbors and word of mouth in small towns such as Brookneal and South Boston.

Moss removed the cabin’s hand-hewn siding planks and took them home, 10 at a time, to sand, prime and paint. He stabilized the foundation with stone piers and added mortar to stabilize the chimney.

The roof was framed with woefully inadequate 2-by-4s. He cross-braced it with larger beams and reinforced the living-room ceiling. “It took a lot of carpentry to get the framing stable,“ he said.

Moss secured the cabin with a metal roof, some replacement windows and blankets of insulation. He bulked up its doors with tongue-and-groove panels salvaged from the original ceilings. He built a new mantel and bricked over concrete that had been slathered over the stone fireplace.

In the new kitchen, Moss finished the walls and installed cabinets, flooring and moldings. The room is a cheery yellow with green cabinets. Nearby, he built a full bathroom in the original structure.

A steep flight of steps leads upstairs to the bedroom, furnished with Moss’ childhood sleigh bed, a twin-over-double bunk and a portion of Betsy’s Raggedy Ann and Andy doll collection. The floor slopes noticeably, but Moss is vigilant for cracks in walls or other signs of settling.

The cabin, he said, “is full of odd geometry.“

On the front porch, white rockers invite guests to sit and watch for deer or wild turkeys roaming the woods. Distant cousins frequently stop by to see how the cabin is progressing or to invite the Mosses to reunions and fish fries.

Betsy Moss can’t always be convinced to pack up the family and drive to Halifax at week’s end, but Moss feels a tug when Fridays roll around.

“I have withdrawal if I don’t come,“ he said.

Julie Young is a writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch