Up & Coming Weekly

August 02, 2022

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM AUGUST 3 - 9, 2022 UCW 13 JASON CANADY, CityView Today. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly. com. 910-484-6200. Elbert "Rex" Lucas loves to solve problems with his hands. e 76-year-old Fayetteville na- tive worked as a heavy equipment maintenance operator for the Army. After his military service, he worked as an industrial maintenance worker for DuPont Teijin Films, where he retired after 37 years. While working for DuPont, Lucas became close friends with coworker Billie Hooks. e two later became neighbors on the edge of Lake Up- church, about three miles outside Hope Mills. Hooks and his wife, Teena, died about two years ago. "Billie was crazy about lighthouses and had to have one," Lucas said. Billie Hooks bought a wooden lighthouse during a "lighthouse buying craze'' and mounted it on the edge of the lake. It stood there proudly until the winds of Hurri- cane Matthew in 2016 blew it down. Disappointed, Hooks dragged the broken lighthouse behind his house. It sat there and rotted for several years until Lucas decided he would restore it to honor his friend. "When I saw it laying behind his house, I knew it was special to him,'' Lucas said. "Something had to be done with it rather than it going to waste." Hooks' son, Chip, now owns the house. Lucas approached him about restoring the lighthouse. With Chip's permission, Lucas dragged the dam- aged wooden frame to his property where it sat another year while he gathered the materials he needed for his vision. Lucas reasoned there was enough housing left to rebuild it. "I wanted it to look like the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, and the more I looked at photos of the lighthouse, the more details I noticed," Lucas said. Seeing the monumental task before him, Lucas enlisted the help of his daughter, Lori Lucas, and his son-in-law, Doug Lazenby. Lucas designed it. "I just painted," Lori Lucas said humbly. Lazenby helped put the lighthouse together and bolt it to its base. "Barring another hurricane, it's built to last," he said. e lighthouse is basically com- prised of three parts: the base, the cone and the light. Overall, it stands about 13 feet tall. For the light's housing, Lucas turned a two-and-a-half gallon bucket upside down and painted it black. e container holds a light that spins just like its larger counter- part on the Outer Banks. Ever a stickler for detail, Lucas fashioned the surrounding guardrail out of wire and envisions someday adding small model figures to the display. "e bucket was then mounted on a carburetor air cleaner," Lucas said. e cone, or tower, is made of strips of sheet metal, and the win- dows were cut out and made from 3x5 photo frames. "e entire structure sits on a base that's made up of an old charcoal grill," Lucas said. Lucas used caulk to make the bricks look realistic. He used his hands to make the caulk look like stucco or stone. Lucas estimated he worked on the structure for four months. Overall, Lucas estimates he has around $200 in the restoration of the lighthouse. He credits Metal Worx Inc. in Fayetteville for donat- ing the memorial sign that reads, "In Memory of Teena and Billie Hooks." "I told Metal Worx about my proj- ect and they wanted to donate the sign," Lucas said. Lucas said he couldn't have com- pleted the project on his own and credited his family and neighbors for their help. Lucas set a goal to have the light- house completed in time for the lake's Fourth of July festivities. e crew finished the lighthouse on July 3, one day short of their deadline. "It rained and stormed that day," Lucas said, chuckling at the mem- ory. "Yeah, we installed the lighthouse while thunder and lightning crashed overhead," Lazenby said. "But we did it." Lucas restored the lighthouse to honor his friend's memory, and it stands as a memorial to their friend- ship. When asked what Billie's son, Chip, thought of the tribute to his father, Lucas said: "Chip became very emotional, and we'll just leave it at that." Lake Upchurch resident restores lighthouse to honor friendship by JASON CANADY, CityView Today FEATURE Above: Elbert "Rex" Lucas restored a lighthouse in honor of his friend Billie Hooks, who he says was crazy about lighthouses. A lighthouse Hooks bought was damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Lucas, with the help of family and neighbors, restored the structure in memory of his friend, who died about two years ago. Below: A memorial sign was placed near the lighthouse. (Photos by Jason Canady, courtesy CityView Today)

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