- Home
- About Us
- Join/Renew
- Member Benefits
- Member Pages
- Log In
- Help
- Museum Store
We bought some land in Stone Mountain Village, a defunct private school, and camp. We are renovating the administration building, a log cabin, into a secondary home. A private lake that is over 100 years old.
We have plans and made deposits on creating an 8,000 sf display building and a separate four car garage for maintenance.
My wife, Anne and I were delighted to entertain four PAS members on their way to the PAS Winter mini-meet just south of us at Calloway Gardens. Liz and Rick Horne did a superb job of planning the events and tours.
We also met a lot more people at the PAS event. George Teebay spent some time on our 1916 Pierce. To say that I learned a lot from George was an understatement! I have it stored near our Stone Mountain home in a mini-warehouse. Eager to take it out on a drive now that Spring is starting to warm up!
Will keep you in the loop as we build and VIP passes to PAS for our opening night. Maybe in May?
Here is a CAD drawing of our larger building
Hi Bill, plan for expansion ! No matter HOW MANY square feet you build, you will want or ‘need’ more within a few years.. !!
My original 40×60 got too-small within a few years.. I added 30×60 to one side, and it only took 2 years to fill up. That’s 4200sq feet.. Your 8000 square feet might take a few years to ‘fill’.. But I think you have a head start on collecting cars and interesting stuff.. So it might be pretty close to full once it is finished and you move in ??
Greg Long
The neatest building for antique cars ever saw was one near Oakland.California.I was looking over an unrestored 1930 Packard 740 Phaeton among the cars in there.It was basically the basement carriage house/garage of a big home probably built in 1912-1915 or so.There was a huge turntable set in this heavy wood floor with tongue and groove wood on the walls and ceilings.The light fixtures were similar to the Benjamin
Clusters of that time.I needed an inspection lamp to look over the Packard so needed to find an outlet.The outlet was an Edison socket on the wall so needed a threaded female adapter to plug the lamp in.Wiring may have been knob and tube.Going upstairs into the potion that was the home,I noticed the wall sconces still had their tipped light bulbs.The doors to where the cars were had glass panels more like windows.It was an overcast day which gave this place even more ambience.There were three Packards and two Lincolns in there.It would be fun to have a display area for a collection that would replicate a dealership of 1910-1930 with period décor and furnishings.This California building even had the smell of an old time automobile facility.
Greg and other gents, we are beginning to dig!
Just got Permits from the City to begin. Called the concrete guy to begin grading and pour foundations.
FINALLY and it IS happening!
I am still looking for a turntable to display full-size cars. Needs to handle at least 6600 pound 20-foot long cars.
Any suggestions?
I have been considering one of these:
Carturner.com
The advantage is you do not have to dig a pit to install it.
That is fantastic!
Bill,
Before you do the floor, you may want to think about the heating and cooling system. The best way to heat the facility may be to use underfloor water heat with a geothermal heat pump that can also provide an air exchanger for air conditioning in the warmer months. There is way more to tell about this, but not enough room to explain here. I used geothermal for my house and garages a couple of years ago here inside the DC beltway. Once done, there is no going back to the old system! It is MUCH cheaper to maintain, for energy cost, and maintenance. It is not, however, cheap to install, as you will need a few wells dug… I would recommend you add insulation under the floor and on the perimeter of the slab before you pour as well. You will also need to run electricity somewhere near the area where you anticipate a turntable, and perhaps in other areas of the slab if you want to add displays, desks, maintenance, etc. If you have any questions, either I or David Coco, who is a real mechanical engineer (I am an electrical), can help. (I love to volunteer David without his knowledge).
How close are you to Stone Mountain? My wife grew up in Marietta. Is the Tucker still in the museum there?
Bill Marsh, congratulations on the rapid progress! Hope you and Anne come to the Annual Meet here in Califunny.
Bill Scorah, the garage you saw with the turntable almost certainly belonged to my late friend Jon Lundberg. His house on The Uplands was technically Berkeley but only a couple of hundred yards from the Oakland line, and less than 1/4-mile from the late John Parks’s stash of three Pierces immobile from 1959 to 2016 but all are now being enjoyed by new owners.
Bill : I use and wholeheartedly endorse in floor heating systems. I have hydronic hot water heated floors in my shop and in about 1/2 of my house, the parts that I had demolished and rebuilt.
I don’t know any other way to put it: There is NO OTHER way to properly heat a large area, and it is nowhere near as expensive as it used to be. The materials and installation of Pex tubing in your concrete floor is something that you will NEVER regret.
Rick and Liz Horne put in hot water heat in their Taj-Mahal-dream shop and car storage building. They are just west of Atlanta, so it is not ‘over kill’ to put in a good heating and cooling system in your area. It does get cold enough to desire to have heat in a shop and showroom. And keeping the temperature stabile is much easier on a car than wild temperature swings.
Along with hot water heat, use spray in foam insulation. It does a much better job than fiberglass bats or blankets. Insulation is the cornerstone of staying comfortable.. Your climate needs both heat and air conditioning.
I’m a bit of a fanatic about hot water heated floors. I’ve had them in previous houses and garages. There is nothing better or more economical to run. The reason is that a person can be quite comfortable working in air temperatures of 55*-60* IF YOUR FEET ARE WARM !! If your floor is cold, your feet are cold, and you won’t be comfortable with an air temperature lower than 70-72*. and you STILL will have cold feet.
We live north of Detroit, near Flint Michigan, and we walk around our house barefoot most of the winter. I work in my shop with air temperatures of 55-60* and I wear just a pair of levis, flannel shirt, and regular shoes. With warm feet, the rest of me is warm and comfortable. I keep my shop at this temperature all winter, so the cars and engines i work on are also at comfortable temperatures.. working on ice-cold metal is no fun, and trying to warm up a car in a shop with a forced-air space heater takes forever and the cold cars get condensation on them with does them harm.
John Wozney might know of a contractor you could get a quote from. He is in the business of building and/or renovating buildings to meet modern heat and cooling efficiencies. He is in the PAS Roster.
Greg Long
Bob and Greg, I really like the idea of heat in the slab. I just don’t know where to start. I have been in forms of construction and renovation for about 40 years including tilt-up construction in building some of the first min-warehouses in Atlanta.
My reason for saying the above is that I probably have the skills to do this. But where to start? Help me!
The concrete guy plans to pour in the first week in May. The building kits will arrive the second week in May. I have time to do something right now.
Liz and Rick Horne are about 50 miles from me. They have been offering us to come visit. Will do. This gives us an added push to go see them.
We are in the Stone Mountain Village. From our front gate to Stone Mountain Park is one mile. Sadly the museum has been defunct for many years. The Tucker was bought by the Cofer Brothers for Stable of The Thoroughbreds, see url below. It is only open for appointments but can get us in. WELL worth seeing. A superb collection.
Among the other great cars is a 1935 Duesenberg SJ Supercharged that belonged to the widow of John Jacob Aster, who perished on the Titanic.
Bottom line, I need DIY plans to make the heat system, and some help!!
Using a lake as a heat sink for AC, maybe scavenging heat?
A friend, who has passed on, was a very creative inventor. He used his private lake as a heat sink for his ac condenser. It was extremely effective and his power consumption was very low.
It would seem to be very effective to use an underwater heat pump design. Hope to get some of your thinking caps to perculate?
Here is our plat and proximity to our 2 acre lake
Moving forward, slowly! Still working on the foundations and hope to be pouring slabs within a few weeks. Weather and personal problems with the concrete contractor delayed us. Our buildings were delivered last Thursday.
We had a LULL forklift to unload, but it was delayed and had to unload 40 foot steel beams with a skidsteer. It is amazing and delightful to watch a master craftsman picking up two 40 foot beams with a forklift with four foot wide forks.
Then moving, smoothly and carefully in one seamless move, depositing these beams between two huge oak trees less than twelve feet apart, not even nicking the trees! See link!
(Medium)(1).jpg){kind=icon}
Could not edit the post above and trying to repost the URL
Wow, that’s a pretty hefty load for a little Bobcat…..operator definitely knew what he was doing!
George,
Yes,it was Jon’s place and it was a very interesting home.Does it still look the same today? In there was the 1930 Packard 740 Phaeton,a 1930 Packard 745 Roadster,a 1930 Packard 740 Club Sedan with a Philco Transitone radio and a 1937 Lincoln K.The Club Sedan had a special dash board to accomodate the controls for the radio and a box under the rear floor for the batteries.It had to be the earliest of car radios as we know them.That Packard was fitted out for the Paris show.I wonder where it is today.