The Stone Which the Builders Rejected

2/14/2011

I was tired that day, a migraine from a change in air pressure had sent the hammer gauge off the charts, but I persisted in wanting a Valentine’s Day celebration that did not include a daughter’s school play at the end of the day. So my husband and I made our way downtown’s Over the Rhine, to what was rapidly becoming our second city, after hearing about the scheduled demolition of the Wheatley Tile Company building to make room for the new Horseshoe Casino.

The Wheatley Tile Company once rivaled Rookwood Tiles. Both were founded in the city in the early 1900s, both produced simple primitive designs in earthen colors on clay. The Wheatley tiles had more of a raised outline around its depictions than the Rookwood, which is how dealers often told them apart.

The Wheatley Tile Building sat in the northeast corner of downtown Cincinnati. While some were demolishing, others were preserving, such as the owners of the Wooden Nickel antiques. They had gathered the most impressive pieces left in the Wheatley building and tenderly removed them to their studio, which is where we were presently headed.

Clarify: Mark and I knew nothing about antiques. We muddled through the first building of the Wooden Nickel without mittens (note to self, needed when visiting in winter or spring), we thought we were highbrow when Mark noted “Eastlake” on a tag on a piece of furniture that we almost had to step over to view other more interesting mantle pieces, some made from oak in about the late 19th century. Eastlake style, named after Charles Eastlake, a British architect who never actually made the furniture, only offered design concepts, was about all knew about the style of furnishings that were outfitting the Italianate/Victorian homes in Over the Rhine and across the country in the late 19th century.

This was after all, when we were beginning our own journey of someday (within a few years) establishing ourselves in a community as a couple and not parents of four. Or at least when Charles Mueller had begun his. We had been intoning his name since we came across a thesis written about a home he built in the 1860s and housed his wife and six children, smack dab in the middle of Over the Rhine. I imagined the area was called Over the Rhine in those days. And that Charles had been a member of a famed German choral group. Charles too, we knew, was also an apothecary.

Why were we so interested in Charles? Because he probably still haunted the house we had been stalking yeah these many weeks since a developer showed us the place. I would not refer to my first viewing of the home as love at first sight, mainly because I walked in with a flashlight, a miner’s headlamp, one that my son and I used to go on long walks at nighttime and the neighbor, Mr. Prus would stop to ask what we were looking for. And Davis might answer, “Bugs.” And I might shake my head in agreement and in astonishment that a neighbor had busted me doing this.

But love at first sight? At first sight of what? It was dark and damp and dusty, the holy trinity of preservationists, plus a foot of snow formed molds around my feet as I stomped through the streets to get to the front door. I am no wimp. I grew up in Cleveland.

While no one is happy in Cleveland, we are at least a hardy sort of folk. I spent winters in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana. I ski. My annual rite of Winter is to run during the first snowfall, and the last, even if, in Cincinnati, I never know when that might be, could be February, could be April, May for that matter.

We stomped our feet to stay warm, and dare I say, in homage to Mother, not dare track a foot of snow in a house that had no heat. The developer pulled out what appeared to be a map, but it was an architect’s rendering of a potential renovation of this home. We mulled it over with flashlights, and occasionally I looked up to note the absence of rails on the wooden staircase. I also note the lack of rats scurrying across my boots in the first instance we had passed into the parlor room, but I moved forward with caution.

We trekked through three floors of home, and a basement. It is hard to be clear-minded when you have been blindsided, by 150 years of history, by the blank slate of plaster walls and boarded transoms. My mind spun in the many directions that the stairs were running and that the developer was talking. It raced back and forth to my favorite piece of furniture made from rural furniture maker with cherry and burl wood. Would those bookcases fit in whatever room we might call a study or parlor? The Amish table crafted to hold six lives and then some, how would that fit into the kitchen space? My herbs and tomatoes, where would they grow?

The amount of work that would have to be put forth to accomplish this? It would be like raising a baby all over again. Did I want that? My children tell me people get shot in OTR, as if they have witnessed this themselves. I say, sometimes you have to play PollyAnna. My ancestors did, and survived the crossing of the Atlantic. Surely, Icould survive the crossing of city limits and for that matter, Central Parkway.

Our tour of the home concluded. The developer walked us through a few more buildings, shared wall condo spaces, a few industrial lofts across the street and around the corner. And each time I glanced out windows not boarded, or peered down alleys not blocked, for some reason, all I could see was the house we had just toured. Actually, owners back in the 70s has painted the brick an obnoxious Kelly green, so I suspect the coloring made the structure stand out as well.

We ended that day, Mark and I, without exchanging real words on the drive home, mostly suppositions about timing, costs. Its funny, I don’t recall there ever being a decision that we definitely wanted to move to OTR. That we wanted this house so bad we would give our first born, second third and fourth, to become the caretaker of this piece of history. There were some ideas, events, happenings in life, such as my life with the person now driving the car, where you “just know.”

As it was Monday, I had not set an ounce of pen to paper to write for my Monday night writing class. So, I wandered to the back office and sat down in front of the computer. But my mind, which had time traveled to 1860s only hours ago, was now stuck in the past, or the future, but certainly not in the time in front of me.

So, I loaded up Google instead and typed in the address of the home we had just visited. And there I found a thesis, written by Micheal , a student at the DAAP program at UC, with a master’s in historic preservation. The central focus of the thesis was the home we had just viewed, dare I say, our home. I was reluctant to share this with Mark, because I knew how Fate worked, and suddenly, I would realize Fate was leading me down I-71. I also wanted to absorb the information for myself first. Instead, I had to cook spaghetti and head out of the house, leaving Mark engrossed in the document instead.

So, we began to develop this narrative around things the writer revealed in his thesis. Charles’ occupation as apothecary for one, was of interest to Mark, because of his medical background. When I told Mark the house would need a name, and blatantly suggested the Apothecary, we both burst out laughing, knowing either the police would be knocking down our doors, or a certain portion of society that also makes OTR its home would be asking for something else.

But I am all about names. I had a name for my book before I wrote it. I know the title to my poems before penning them. I named our son (or daughter) before the baby was born, ready either way. Some might argue a name projects an outcome before its time, but I argue a name is what creates the vision. When I wanted to develop a drive through coffee bar concept, I was stuck in the planning stages until I had a name. What’s in a name? Everything. But Apothecary would be left out!

A few weeks later, we exchanged emails with the builder, with a design contract sitting in my email inbox that I had not looked at, but there I sat, taking the time to write a three page excerpt on two tiles we would buy at the Wooden Nickel, enticed by TV coverage earlier in the week of Wheatley artifacts that would be for sale. We were either suckers or on a mission. I opted for both.

The tiles, which we finally viewed at the Wooden Nickel, depicted a crusader on horseback. They were made as companion pieces, as such one faced left, one faced right. So, a buyer would have to purchase two, for karma and all. These types of pieces were used to anchor designs in fireplaces. I told Mark, “we should buy them.”, noting this was another step in the direction of our downtown move. The price seemed fair, as we later researched on the Internet. But at the time, I felt nothing said commitment like setting it in stone. Isnt that what diamonds are all about?

On the way home from our most recent foray into the city jungle, I kept asking Mark, “what is that Bible quote, you know, the one about the stone and the builders. “ I never was one to memorize Bible passages, except as they related to the singing of Veggie Tales.

Later, it struck me, and I shouted out, “the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”. Some interpretations say the Greek word in the Psalm 118 also translated to capstone, such as a capstone project upon graduation. But I like the idea of a cornerstone, a foundation, a commitment to the long-term. A capstone might indicate, “my work here is done.” But a cornerstone proclaims, “my work has just begun.”