Preserving one of Virginia's most unique historic homes

We're at the Octagon House, which my great, great grandfather decided to build this big, beautiful home here in Smyth County. What is important to me is that it's a responsibility that I carry. If I'm an ancestor, then I need to know the story so that we can pass it on and tell other people about it. The reason I'm interested in the Octagon House is, probably about a decade ago, I did some work with students through the Community Design Assistance Center. I got one of my studios in the interior design program and they made some proposals for how this house could be adaptively reused and interpreted to be of value to the community and to the region. So, it's really a documentation at this moment in time before they start the work. A lot of what I've been doing is a lot of Matterport scanning, which uses a LiDAR system to produce a 3D model of the building. With that, it tends to be a lot more accurate than hand drawing, and it's a lot faster because you can get all the elements in one pass. Most of the people at the auction wanted to purchase it and tear it down. I said, cannot do that. So, I purchased the house. This was a workplace. And it's not easy to talk about at times, but the enslaved people built this house with their hands, and we may only have the fingerprints left. Now we're going to research that. But at this point, that's all we have. So, we're going to honor those people. We're poised to become one of the biggest cultural sites in Southwest Virginia. And it's not only for the culture and history, but it's workforce development. It's artisan development. So, we're trying to bring a lot back here by doing something unusual, something that no other place has.