Couple gives new life to former Pilot Mountain school

 For three decades, alumni of Pilot Mountain School on U.S. 64 watched their old schoolhouse fall into ruins, change owners and undergo a second life as an auction house.
Then along came a man with a vision — and an understanding wife — to combine his work with people with disabilities and his desire to give the school back to the community.
The results will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday during an open house at 4806 U.S. 64, 7 miles southwest of Interstate 40.
Tom Brittain, the president of the board of directors at Turning Point Services, Inc., and his wife, Judy, bought the 16,000-square-foot school and nearly 6 acres of land six years ago and started a four-phase renovation project.
“We did the simple things first,” Tom said.
That included cleaning up the ball field that had become a “dumping ground,” Tom said, and giving the community a walking track.
The second phase was revitalizing the school’s auditorium. It is open to the public to rent for events such as plays, meetings and weddings.
Connie Jackson, the facility’s coordinator, said the calendar for the auditorium and a meeting/serving room already have bookings through the end of the year.
Turning Point clients and consumers also use the auditorium named for Frank Baker,  a dairy farmer who donated the land for the school. There are movie nights and holiday parties for the clients, including a Valentine’s dance Monday.
The third phase of the Brittains’ project was the Pilot Mountain Coffee Shop, a cafe that offers breakfast, lunch, homemade desserts and ice cream. Most items on the menu are $2.50 or less.
The final phase is the one that gives the school back to its former students.
“This is a wonderful community,” Tom said, “and it has such a love affair with this school.”
The school is once again an election polling place, instead of the fire department, and Tom said, “People are coming back for the first time in 50 or 60 years.” 
The Brittains have leased space in the old school to two businesses: Kay’s Kolours, which is photographer Kay Scott’s studio and gallery, and Body Kneads, which offers massage therapy.
The original plans included renting out more spaces and creating a mini-mall, Tom said.  While that hasn’t been as successful as first planned, the Brittains opened Second Hand Consignment Shop, Boots & Saddles western store  and  Dickies Brand Store inside the school.
The other space is used to house medical records for Turning Point and as a place for it to have staff meetings and offer day programs.
“The original plan was to use this for the business,” Tom said. “We didn’t know how other things would work.”
He and Judy are both Burke County natives. Tom has relatives in the Pilot Mountain School area, but spent only three months  of his school days there and  the rest at Glen Alpine School. Judy is from Morganton and attended Morganton schools.
Tom is retired from day-to-day operations at Turning Point. He turned those responsibilities over to an executive director. The service offers in-home, activities and day programs for clients and consumers.

Preserving the past

In renovating the school, the Brittains preserved as much of the original physical structure and character as possible. Most of the floors are the original wood, refinished after the Brittains stripped off 30 years of oil finish.
“It was the janitor’s job each summer to oil the floors,” Tom explained.
As for the walls, they are lined with the original bead board.
Most of the original chalkboards still hang in the old classrooms.
Two of the bathrooms have the original tile.
“Ninety-five percent of it has been retained,” Tom said.
Changes include a new roof; new plumbing; new wiring; new heating; air conditioning; smaller, more energy-efficient windows replacing big, old drafty ones; and dropped ceilings (from 12 feet to 9) except in the vestibule.
Tom said the county code enforcement office was skeptical at first of all of the changes, but has since been helpful with the projects.
One sticking point, Tom said, was an old well. The compromise was to turn it into a bell tower and use the water for the grounds, not for drinking.
Judy, who acted as decorator, chose greens, yellows, browns and red for paint colors.
The decor is a mixture of old, new and donated.
An antique stove passed down through Judy’s family to a place in the serving room. A former student’s artwork from the 1950s hangs in the hallway across from a donated church pew. Old windows have been repurposed as mirrors and a menu in the cafe.
Also in the cafe, which was once the school’s cafeteria, the Brittains kept the original brick counter and stainless-steel countertop, lined a bar with stools from the old pool hall on Sterling Street in Morganton and gave the room a bright blue paint color and checkered floors. The cafe is recognizable in a scene in the locally produced film “Pendulum Swings.” When the Brittains bought the property, the cafe was in worse shape than the rest of the building — Tom said the roof was caving in.
 He made the decision to buy the property “in 15 minutes” because of the value of the wood in the trusses he could see through holes in the ceiling.
One of the cafe’s employees, Mary Chapman Waters, 77, attended Pilot Mountain School from 1942, the first year it opened, to 1947. She and her twin sister were there in the third through seventh grades.
Waters said, “I would have never thought I would work here, too. We had a good time then,  and I’m still having a good time here today.”

Reliving the past

Lenoir author Gretchen Griffith has interviewed 150 people who attended the school, which closed in 1972, and is compiling her interviews into a book. She will be on hand Saturday at the open house to share some of her stories.
The school averaged 100 first through eighth graders over the years. Its peak enrollment was 125.
Tom said Griffith talked with settlers of the area who went to the school and caught their memories of how the Great Depression and wars affected them. Former students recalled working in the cafeteria to pay for a hot meal because they couldn’t afford to buy or bring their lunches. Poorer students talked about taking baths at the school or in the principal’s house next door.
The principal, Tom said, was often the eighth-grade teacher, too. His room was located closest to the office so he could wear both hats.

Untold costs

Tom said he hasn’t put a dollar figure on all of the costs involved in renovating the school.
“I haven’t added it all up,” he said.
The roof alone cost $65,000.
But he realizes the renovations they have done will live on in the community for another 60 to 70 years.
“The value we’ve received from being in this community and serving our clients is beyond any dollar amount,” he said.
 
Box
Hours
n Pilot Mountain Coffee is open from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday and 6:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday.
n The Pilot Mountain School is open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.