The Philosophy of Preservation: Why We Restore What Time Almost Forgets
There are places we carry with us long before we ever hold the keys. Buildings we’ve never lived in, but somehow recognize. Doors we’ve never walked through, but feel drawn toward as if they’re waiting for us specifically. I’ve come to believe that some places choose us more than we choose them. And when they do, you feel the pull in your chest—a kind of quiet insistence that whispers, Don’t look away. There’s something here for you.
For me, that place is the Oddfellow Manor.
It doesn’t matter how many times I stand on the long porch or walk the halls of the old group home. It doesn’t matter if I’m sweeping out the basement dust or photographing the afternoon light spilling through cracked windowpanes. Every time I step inside, I feel the echo: This place is not done yet.
And maybe—just maybe—neither am I.
Restoration is never just about saving a building. It’s about stepping into a story still unfolding. It’s about honoring the people who came before us, holding space for the generations to come, and choosing to believe that what is cracked can be made whole again.
This is the philosophy at the heart of the Oddfellow Manor project.
This is why we restore what time almost forgets.
I. The Call of a Forgotten Place
We live in a culture obsessed with the new. New homes, new roads, new opportunities—new everything. But in the Appalachian mountains, newness has never been the center of our identity. Our pride has always run deeper than shingles and siding. We come from stories. We come from people who built more with less. We come from communities that remember their roots even after generations of storms.
Yet across West Virginia, across small towns like mine, history is quietly dissolving.
Old schools, lodges, factories, barns, homes—once vibrant pieces of our cultural anatomy—now sit worn and hollow, waiting for someone to care enough to lift them back into the light. These buildings are more than structures. They are the memory-keepers of who we once were.
When I stepped into the Oddfellow Manor for the first time, I felt that truth in my bones. Large staircases still strong beneath layers of dust. The scent of old timber and coal heat lingering in the walls. The way sunlight cuts through rooms like a reminder that time never fully wins.
Some would call it nostalgia. I call it invitation.
A building like this offers you a choice:
Leave it to collapse under the weight of time—or help carry it forward.
And once you hear that invitation clearly, it becomes very difficult to walk away.
II. The Weight of History, the Grace of Legacy
The Odd Fellows built their group homes with purpose. They believed communities had a responsibility—to each other, to the vulnerable, to those who needed a place to land when life went sideways. That philosophy shaped the early twentieth century in ways we rarely talk about today. Mutual aid. Shared responsibility. Brotherhood. Care.
This building was not designed as a monument. It was built as a promise.
A promise that no one should face hardship alone.
A promise that community matters.
A promise that care can be a shared endeavor.
More than a century later, that promise still hums beneath the floors. It’s there in the brickwork. It’s there in the small bedrooms that once held people finding footing in a world that was not always kind to them. It’s there in the orchard, the pond, the foundation stones hauled by hand.
When you inherit a place like this—even unintentionally—you inherit its promise.
And I can’t help but feel that continuing that promise is part of my duty now. Not because I’m special or uniquely equipped, but because I heard the call and I answered it. Sometimes that’s all stewardship really is: choosing not to turn away when something asks you to stay.
III. Hope Is a Form of Labor
Restoration is romantic. Until it isn’t.
There are days when it’s just me, a flashlight, and a mess of wires that haven’t been touched since the Truman administration. There are days of bank meetings, asbestos reports, and legal advice with lawyers and tax professionals. There are days when I stand in the basement and wonder how many years of work it will take to make this place safe, functional, beautiful, and alive again.
Hope, it turns out, is not passive.
Hope is a form of labor.
It’s waking up and deciding the long road is still worth traveling.
It’s insisting the building deserves a chance at a second century.
It’s believing that what was once a home for the vulnerable can become a haven for the community again.
And hope is not always glamorous. It’s driving to the property after a long clinic shift. It’s pulling weeds around the old pond. It’s cleaning out rooms one bag at a time. It’s walking through the woods and imagining where disc golfers might stand years from now. It’s learning new zoning language. It’s trusting that small steps matter even when the big steps are still out of reach.
Hope demands sweat.
Hope demands resolve.
Hope demands patience.
But the beautiful thing about hope is that the more you give it, the more it gives back.
IV. The Philosophy of “Enough to Begin”
One of the things I’ve learned as a physician, a father, and a perpetual project-starter is that perfection is the enemy of beginning. If you wait for the right moment, the right money, the right timeline, the right clarity… anything worth doing becomes something you’ll never do.
But the Manor has taught me something different:
You don’t need the whole plan.
You need enough of the plan to begin.
Enough clarity to take the next reasonable step.
Enough support to move one brick forward.
Enough faith to say, “I will start, and the rest will unfold.”
The deeper philosophy of preservation isn’t about certainty.
It’s about courage.
Courage to believe that restoration is possible.
Courage to believe the community will meet you halfway.
Courage to believe the next generation deserves a place with roots this deep.
Every time I walk into the Manor, I am reminded that all great things begin before anyone knows how they will end. The Odd Fellows didn’t build this place with guarantees. They built it because it mattered.
And that is enough for me to continue.
V. When a Building Holds a Mirror
It may sound strange, but restoring this place has been restoring something in me too. There’s a discipline in walking through old halls and seeing not just what is, but what could be. There’s a humility in acknowledging the cracks and choosing to work with them rather than hide them. There’s a deep, quiet reckoning in recognizing the ways we are all a little weathered, all a little faded, all a little in need of thoughtful care.
The Manor is not perfect. Neither am I.
But both of us deserve the chance to become what we were meant to be.
Some days I look at the broken floorboards and see my own burnout from years of medicine.
Some days I see the peeling paint and think about the layers of myself I’ve had to shed.
Some days I see the empty rooms and realize how much space I’ve made in my life to choose a different kind of future.
And then there are days when the building surprises me. A stubborn window finally opens. A section of plaster reveals gorgeous old wood beneath it. A forgotten light fixture catches the sun in a way that makes the whole room glow.
On those days, the Manor teaches me something:
Transformation comes slowly—but it comes.
If you tend to the broken places, if you believe in the worth of what’s here, if you give time and touch and attention, beauty finds its way back.
That’s not just restoration.
That’s redemption.
VI. A New Promise for a New Century
The Odd Fellows once promised to care for the vulnerable. To offer shelter and brotherhood. To give of themselves for the sake of others.
I want this next century of the Manor’s life to be a continuation of that promise.
But our world has changed. Our needs have changed. So the ways we serve must change too.
This is why the nonprofit exists.
This is why the property must eventually belong to the community.
The Manor has a chance to become something rare:
A living campus of education, restoration, creativity, nature, homesteading, and community-building—built on the bones of its original mission.
In the next decade, I imagine:
Workshops on canning, gardening, composting, beekeeping, and regenerative agriculture.
A community orchard and vineyard that teaches people to tend land with intention.
Classes on sewing, woodworking, food preservation, herbalism, and the old arts that once sustained this region.
Educational programs that tell the story of the Odd Fellows, the group home movement, and the history of Elkins.
Spaces for small retreats, conversations, creativity, and reflection.
A disc golf course winding through the woods for families, friends, and laughter.
A place where people learn to build, grow, repair, create, remember, and belong.
A place where generations connect.
A place where the old skills are reborn.
A place where heritage shapes hope.
This is preservation with purpose.
Not nostalgia—investment.
Not sentiment—legacy.
Not a museum—an ecosystem.
The Manor will breathe again because people will breathe life into it.
VII. Restoration as Resistance
In a world that moves fast, pauses rarely, and forgets easily, choosing restoration is an act of resistance.
We resist the idea that old means useless.
We resist the belief that history should be demolished for convenience.
We resist the cultural amnesia that tells us the past has nothing to teach us.
To preserve a place is to say:
This matters.
These stories matter.
These bones of timber and brick matter.
What happened here matters.
What can happen here still matters.
Restoration is a rebellion against forgetting.
And if there’s one thing Appalachia understands on a deep, generational level, it’s the importance of remembering.
VIII. On Any Given Day, This Is What Hope Looks Like
People sometimes ask me, “How’s the Manor coming along?” And I never have a short answer. Because restoration is a thousand small victories wrapped in a thousand small challenges.
On any given day, hope looks like:
Finding an intact banister that simply needs a sanding and a new coat of stain.
Walking the orchard and noticing the first new apples.
Hearing from a neighbor who wants to volunteer time, skills, or tools.
Cleaning out one room fully and shutting the door knowing it’s ready for the next chapter.
Completing a grant application even if it feels like tossing a bottle into a vast sea.
Hearing laughter from family or friends exploring the grounds.
Meeting with the bank, the lawyer, or the architects and realizing the project is slowly—steadily—moving forward.
Hope is not sweeping.
Hope is granular.
It’s the small bits that accumulate.
It’s the long game.
It’s trusting the slow burn of good work.
And good work is exactly what this is.
IX. What We Restore, Restores Us
People often think we restore buildings to preserve the past. And yes, that’s part of it. But what I’m learning is that we restore buildings to preserve ourselves too.
To remind us that patience is a virtue.
To teach us that beauty returns with gentle persistence.
To show us that even the most forgotten places can rise again.
To prove that community is built one conversation, one volunteer hour, one shared dream at a time.
To reconnect us with our heritage, our land, our values, our craft, and our responsibility.
When I walk into the Manor these days, I don’t just see what it used to be. I see what it’s becoming because of the hands and hearts that are joining this work.
And I see what I am becoming too:
someone who believes in showing up, even on the hard days;
someone who trusts the slow process of renewal;
someone who understands that legacy is built, not inherited.
Restoration is a teacher.
And I am here to learn.
X. A Final Thought: We Restore Because We Believe in Tomorrow
At its core, restoration is an act of faith.
Faith that what we build will matter to someone we may never meet.
Faith that our time and energy is creating something that will outlive us.
Faith that the future is worth gifting something beautiful.
When the Odd Fellows laid the foundation stones in 1908, they were not building for themselves. They were building for the next century. They were building for people they would never see, whose names they would never know.
Now, more than a hundred years later, we have the chance to honor that same courage and generosity. We get to build again—not because it is easy, but because it is good.
Because the community deserves places with deep roots.
Because our children deserve to inherit more than strip malls and empty lots.
Because the land deserves caretakers who remember its stories.
Because tomorrow deserves something beautiful.
This is why I restore.
This is why I believe in this place.
This is why the Manor is worth every ounce of effort.
Not because it’s perfect—
but because it still has more to give.
And so do we.
