---

It was just an old barn, you probably thought, if you read about its destruction in the Tennessean the next morning. Nobody died, not a horse, not even a barn kitty. Just a barn that went up in a dazzling display of thirsty flames the night before, August 15, 2011, after a hundred years of doing duty at the entrance to tiny, rural Leiper’s Fork Village. But from the steady stream of cars, SUVs and dusty pickups pulling through the gates of the Hunt farm that same bright, beautiful morning, you would’ve thought they’d come to say goodbye to a well-loved friend. And in a way, they had.

Long faces, quiet condolences, deep hugs. At least a dozen people sitting on the porch or standing around the yard, some in button-down shirts on their way to the office, most in the standard tee-shirt-and-jeans uniform of the musicians, farmers, artists, blue-collar, and off-duty white-collar workers who make up this eclectic community. They shift their weight from foot to foot, boot to boot, and stare across the pasture to the hulking pile of skeletal timbers and black wreckage now silhouetted by the clean, knife-sharp sun of a new day. Thin ribbons of white smoke curl up through the charred branches of overhanging cottonwoods.

It’s the smell that gets me first, as I approach the iconic white farmhouse and climb the steps to the wide front porch which, in simpler times, formed the stage for the town’s annual Fourth of July bluegrass concert. That bitter, wet, ashy stench of destruction that will linger in my hair and clothes long after this day. Bruce Hunt sits beside his wife of thirty-odd years, Marty, in one of several black rockers. Although I’m not sure they’ve noticed, both are chain-smoking like crazy, with two overflowing ashtrays, a full cigarette pack and a couple of empty ones all fighting for room on the small table between them. Both sets of eyes stare at the surreal scene out beyond the pasture like the reality hasn’t quite caught up with the information in their brains.

Bruce has a cut about an inch long on his forehead and it’s caked with dried blood. “Firemen think it was the electric,” he says, between long, slow drags. “Five minutes earlier, I coulda put it out.” He shakes his head and crushes the butt into an ash pile, then lights another with hardly a pause. “I saw the smoke, looked in and saw the fire, but I just couldn’t get to any of the three fire extinguishers I had in there…three! Then there was this big BOOM – an’ next thing I knew, I was on my hands and knees on the ground.”

My eyes widen. This tall, leathery, hardworking, gotta-be-pushing-seventy guy had actually been blown out of the building by the force of the explosion, like some animated super-hero. A fact that, as it sets in, stuns me. Remarkably, the only damage I see is the cut over his eye which I can’t help commenting on.

“You should see my knees,” he says, without an ounce of self-pity. I glance down but his skinny, knobby knees are covered by torn, charcoal-streaked jeans. It occurs to me that although the explosion may have cut him up a bit, it also may have saved his life. Because once things started “popping”, as he described it, they didn’t stop for a long, long time. Propane tanks, refinishing fluids, huge boxes of rifle shells – you name it and it was going off like another Fourth of July party, according to anyone who saw or heard it. Five minutes earlier and Bruce might have been inside, trying to get to one of those extinguishers when the explosions started, instead of standing at the doorway, about to get blown clear from the danger.

But this tough old cowboy, who everyone knows has a heart like butter, doesn’t see it like that. “Five minutes earlier and I coulda put it out,” he mutters to every new arrival. Marty, who usually does most of the talking, is hardly adding a word this morning, just listening. Her eyes are glassy and shell-shocked behind her large, round, glass frames after what was surely a helluva long night. She keeps glancing from the wrecked barn to Bruce, like she’s trying to decide between killing him for almost risking his life, to reassuring herself he’s still there. There isn’t a person in this town who hasn’t wished for a relationship even half as strong as what these two have built, and if anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lyin’ fools.

But here’s what you wouldn’t know, just driving by that beautiful old barn. Bruce Hunt’s soul was in that structure. Because this grungy old cowboy with the ragged jeans slouched on the front porch with a half-smoked cigarette between his blackened fingers is a modern-day Renaissance man. An architect who designed several local houses; an advertising veteran, astounding graphic designer and Photoshop whiz; and a master wood craftsman. But what ties all these brilliant talents together is his deep appreciation for historical design, in all its forms.

Oh, a replica is okay here and there, when you can’t find the real thing. But Bruce’s passion is for the authentic, whether it’s the beautifully aged pine floors reclaimed from an old distillery now covering their home floors, or a set of windows from an old church. In fact, about half of that enormous barn was stuffed with one-of-a-kind antique lathes and rare tools where, day in and day out, this astonishing craftsman turned out rehabbed, re-cut, or re-imagined pieces of history from salvaged materials that when finished, are almost impossible to tell from the originals – work that shaped many aspects of Leiper’s Fork, from furniture to complete structures.In fact, later that day someone commented that half the Leiper’s Fork community came out of that barn – and they weren’t exaggerating.

Fifteen or so years ago, when it looked like the town core might fall into the hands of commercial developers, the Hunts and another good friend, Aubrey Preston, bought several run-down buildings in the little village of blink-and-you-miss-it Leiper’s Fork. The trio’s appreciation of history, coupled with their strong eye for design, were key in eventually shaping Leiper’s Fork into the charming, historical village visitors know today. Their efforts also helped to put the local real estate market through the roof.

In the Hunt’s case, they scavenged the South for reclaimed lumber, flooring, roofing, windows, and whatever else they could find of interest to turn a dirty old cement laundry mat into a gleaming, two-story showpiece that now houses a real estate company in the center of town, and looks like it’s been there for centuries. Across the street, they helped to rebuild a gas station Preston bought, using reclaimed barn wood siding and decking to transform it into a beautifully rugged, high-end art gallery. Directly across is Marty’s landmark antique store, which she ran for thirty years before leasing the lovely old building to an upscale antique dealer friend five years ago. In the end, numerous essential elements of these structures – and many others – went through Bruce’s sure hands in that barn workshop.

The other half of the old Hunt barn overflowed with western antiques from Marty’s days in the business, including pioneer wagons, wheels, harnesses, tin, and who knows what else…probably not even Marty. But the rafters of Bruce’s shop were just as astonishing, lined with a wildly unique collection of dozens of horse bits. All gone.

Thoughts like these cause me to head out to the smoking mess to begin shooting pictures. The journalist in me knows this is history in the making – sad history, but history none the less. Across the field, people continue to arrive and leave, but after a while, I see Bruce get out of the rocker, climb into his forest green Kawasaki Mule and make his way out to what’s left of his creative home.

The little vehicle, which resembles a golf cart with an open back, pulls up to the massive pile of tangled metal and charcoal, with the Hunt’s old border collie, Buckshot, lumbering behind. On the back of the Mule is a huge and oddly ironic sign left over from a recent community road clean-up. It reads: Litter Pickup.

Bruce unwinds his long, wiry frame, climbs out, and without pausing, reaches around the back for a four-foot long trash pickup tool left over from the event. He gets right to work. Even today, when he has lost so much, he’s just not the kind of guy to sit around when there’s work to be done. And there’s plenty of that here.

He moves with purpose, right to a particular corner which I now realize was his shop bench. He begins to pull things out, then toss them aside, and eventually I make out the tall metal shapes of three or four lathes. Next he bends that old back of his down to dig through the rubble. A wrench appears from a pile of ash two feet deep and he tosses it to a specific area near the fence. Then another wrench. Something that looks like a hammer. Pulleys. A tool box appears, blackened but still in one piece. And the pile near the fence grows.

A local builder, the one who recently helped remodel the main house, appears at my side. “Has he started rummaging yet?” he asks quietly.

“Yep”, I say. He watches Bruce’s lone figure for a moment, then steps into the rubble near him and begins to dig. A young man appears from nowhere and joins the other two in the mess. The pile of salvage near the fence grows. I shoot pictures for a while, partly for the Hunt’s  insurance records, and partly because I can’t take my eyes off the sight of Bruce, who just a few hours ago was blown out the doors of this barn, now knee deep in ashes, determined to short-circuit the sadness and dive right into a new future. After a while, I put my camera down and begin to dig, too.

Sitting on the deck earlier, I’d mentioned to Bruce that, besides two pretty well-burned-up tires, his tractor still looked good. “I got lucky,” he said. “I moved it out just an hour or so before the fire, so it was beside the barn instead of in it. For 35 years, it’s been the only thing on this farm that always runs. Hell, I’ll turn the key today and it’ll probably start right up!” A little while later, with the guys gathered around him, he turns the key and miraculously, the tractor does exactly that. Surrounded by smoking wreckage, that engine kicks over on the first try like it was fresh out of the mechanic’s shop. A cheer goes up and a smile creases Bruce’s weathered face, the first I’ve seen all morning.

A short time later, a neighbor pulls in with a horse trailer and things get interesting. There are four Jerusalem donkeys in the pasture beside the barn – a miniature breed with crosses down their backs, an ancestor which, legend has it, carried a pregnant Mary on its back. Someone dropped them off at the Hunt’s for a temporary stay a few months back and never returned. Without a barn anymore, some neighbors have decided this is an extra headache the Hunts don’t need right now. But getting someone to agree to take four cute, but bull-headed donkeys is no easy task, not to mention capturing them. And already, the generous neighbor was calamitously close to getting kicked. A pack of men drift over to ponder the issue, and right then, they seem glad to have a problem that can actually be solved.

The thing is, just like the townfolk, animals seem to gravitate to the Hunt’s little piece of paradise, so it’s no surprise these donkeys don’t want to leave. But getting four ornery donkeys into a small horse trailer who really don’t want to go is like a puzzle with no reasonable answer. Eventually, the team decides to use metal gates to form a small pen, then back the truck up to force the animals in. It’s pretty hilarious watching these grown men trying to plead, push, lift, swat with a broom, and otherwise coax four donkeys into doing something against their wills. For a while, it’s unclear who will win. In their midst, Bruce leans on the fence, looking pensive. He tells me later he’ll miss the “cool little buggers.” But right now, there is too much else to be done.

Finally, the donkeys are in the trailer and for the moment, at least, a sense of accomplishment settles on the men. In the midst of so much destruction, at least something has been fixed. Because these men are just like Bruce – men who can’t sit by idly when their neighbors are in such need. But the insurance people have stopped all work until an inspector shows up, so for now, these guys are like nervous, fidgety children in need of exercise. They wander back to the pile of smoking rubble, probably planning their next attack.

All morning people come and go, offering all kinds of help from bulldozers to food. Later, someone shows up with a carpenter’s belt and brand new set of tools for Bruce. He is ecstatic.

And it’s not just the adults offering support. Although many adults didn’t know about the fire until the next day, my 12-year-old daughter informs me after school that the news was all over Facebook – live. “A kid in my class lives on the hill across the road,” she says. “He was posting stuff like, Pray for Bruce and Marty – Their barn is on fire!”

I like hearing this. I like that these rural, but computer-savvy kids were rallying help from above, before others even knew what was happening. That’s the South for you – a land where if there’s not already a church on your corner, there’s one coming soon. And even the kids will be praying  for you.

But this show of support is far more than religious duty. It’s about community, about taking care of your neighbors – neighbors who may live five or even ten miles down the road. And maybe more than anyone else here, Marty and Bruce Hunt have earned it. For forty years, whenever anybody in this valley needed anything, they stepped in to make it happen. Today, it’s their turn to need help – and the warm arms of this community they have been so instrumental in creating will be there for them. This community will do what it has always done: See this disaster through, one piece, one pile, one day, one dollar, one donkey, one neighbor at a time.

Says one later, “It’s all replaceable. The thing to remember is that Bruce is okay – and the rest is just stuff.” Because as he just pointed out, it was, after all, just a barn.

---