BY MARCIA A. CHIDESTER

FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR

When Dan Spear moved an old plantation house to his property in Spotsylvania County, his wife, Linda, looked forward to eventually living in the timber-frame structure.

She loved the two-story Greek Revival home, known as Riddick House, plucked from a 150-acre cotton field in North Carolina.

Never mind that the house, originally built in 1812 and damaged by Hurricane Isabel in 2003, was slowly decaying.

Spear, owner of Spear Builders of Virginia, had the house disassembled--with each of the 50,000 pieces numbered and cataloged--then hauled to Spotsylvania in three tractor-trailer loads.

"It looked like we had a lumber yard when we unloaded," Spear said.

Spear reassembled the home on the 82-acre parcel on Courthouse Road that he named Stevenson Ridge, in tribute to Union Gen. Thomas Greely Stevenson, killed at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

He wiped decades of dust and grime from the 7,000-square-foot structure, one labeled board at a time.

"It was intense labor, cleaning and restoration," Spear said.

Although Spear reconstructed with the original floor plan and 12-foot ceilings intact, he did make some changes.

Heart-of-pine floors in the master bedroom, dirtied with decades of drippings from country hams that should have hung in the attic, were moved to the dining room.

Spear repaired roof damage caused by Isabel. He replaced rotted siding, installed new electric, plumbing and heating systems, and added a sunroom.

Once the house was reconstructed, the couple installed a state-of-the-art kitchen that complements the floor-to-ceiling fireplace. They painted interior walls with the purples, blues and greens found in a C. Roy painting of a peacock, which hangs in the dining room.

And they assembled a vast collection of antiques, some dating to the 1500s.

A writing desk, once owned by former U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is in the master bedroom. Wood-and-leather bar stools in the sunroom came from Elvis Presley's Graceland.

Renovation complete, the Spears, and their bevy of dogs and cats, moved in.

Within a week, the whole family moved out again.