Man patiently uncovers history, layer by layer

Bob Pearl is, if nothing else, a patient man.

He has the persistence to painstakingly remove layers and layers of paint or varnish to get back to the original finish on a piece of antique furniture.

He has the diligence to hand-carve a missing piece of molding to complete an antique cabinet.

And for 10 years, he had the endurance to live in a small mobile home with his wife and two children while he meticulously took down a big, 1830s house in Davidson County and rebuilt it, plank by plank, in Clemmons. He did it, he said, "with kids, schools, bills to pay and a business to run."

His love for old things and his desire to restore them to their original state has been his vocation and avocation for most of his life. Pearl tracks down and sells fine antiques -- he specializes in Southern pieces -- and restores old houses.

His most impressive achievement has to be the house that he calls home. The house sits on 40 acres, which his family shares with 40 cows, that has been in his wife's family since the 1850s. Pearl and his wife, Vicki, had long looked for an old house to buy. The one they found was unusually big for a house of that period -- about 2,400 square feet -- and it had been built by a member of a premiere family of cabinetmakers, the Swicegoods, in the Piedmont. Pearl paid $5,000 for it.

He tore it down, stored its pieces in a barn, and cleaned each piece. He kept track of them with a coding system of numbers, symbols and colors, then put everything back together without any paper plans.

"Everything you see here is where it was," he said. "Every plank is where it was, every brick in the chimney." He added an addition that brings the size of the house to 3,200 square feet.

His house is rich with period details, including hand-planed boards and decorative painting on moldings and mantels. Pearl loves old houses, he said, and he seldom sees one he doesn't want to stop and walk through.

He has always worked on houses in some form. He worked at a painting business to pay his college tuition, then took over the business. He then became interested in antiques, which became his main focus. He traveled the country, studying finishes and styles of construction, and he picked the brains of such local experts as Tom Gray and the late Frank Horton.

He became a self-taught expert in furniture from the Piedmont. His expertise is such, said June Lucas, that when she gets stumped, she turns to him. Lucas is the director of research at Old Salem Museums and Gardens. She calls Pearl a scholar, a dealer and a collector.

"He's my resource; he's of real help in identifying and locating things. He has a phenomenal memory and has been doing this so long," she said. "He probably has had his eyes and hands on more Piedmont North Carolina stuff than anybody I know, especially furniture."

Pearl taught himself how to restore furniture. Getting down to the original finish of a piece isn't always possible, he said. "It has a lot to do with the type of paint put over the original paint and the original paint itself." Solvents can dissolve modern paints and leave some old paints intact. Other original paints will be destroyed in the stripping process.

"A lot of times, you can only discover the original colors," Pearl said. He removes paints and finishes carefully, layer by layer, using either trisodium phosphate or a chemical stripper. He has learned, after taking the stripping process too far one too many times, how to make finishes that look like the original.

"I know what not to do and what to do -- most of the time," he said.

Some people don't want their antiques all shiny and polished; they prefer them to remain as authentic as possible. Pearl has a tall chest in his living room that is lighter at the bottom and increasingly darker toward the top. Drifting smoke from cooking would have darkened the finish, he said.

"The people I sell to would pay a lot more money for that than if it was refinished."

Pearl drifted into restoring houses professionally when he hung doors and repaired plaster in a few Victorian houses in West End. He then helped rebuild and restore an 18th-century house in Bethania after a fire. He used a mixture of baking soda and water to remove the burnt odor and the charring on the walls.

Pearl isn't sure what draws him to the process of taking something old and putting it back the way it used to be.

"My youngest son is taking psychology," he said. "In about three years, I guess I'll have the answer to that."

■ Janice Gaston can be reached at 727-7364 or at jgaston@wsjournal.com.

About Bob Pearl

• Age: 56.

• Hometown/Birthplace: Franklin.

• Education: Attended Catawba College.

• Experience: Restores old houses and restores and deals in antique furniture.

• Family: Wife, Vicki, and two sons.

• Quote/Philosophy: "I just try to do the best work that I can, and I just let my work speak for me."