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Pellissippi State Community College facilities staff salvaged marble from the former Bungalow School, which Tennessee Marble Co. stored and then polished before Tennessee Memorials engraved the names of major donors for the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville.

Pellissippi State Community College workers salvaged at least five pallets of Tennessee Cedar marble from the former Bungalow School location in Alcoa. Tennessee Marble Co. in Friendsville stored and refinished the stone for use in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center on the college’s Blount County campus.

Historic marble plaques honoring donors who helped turn the former Bungalow School into the Blount County campus for Pellissippi State Community College are now displayed in the main building of the Friendsville campus.

A marble plaque honors Martha and J.L. Goins outside the administrative office in the newly opened Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center. The front desk inside also features marble that Pellissippi State Community College salvaged from Bungalow School, which served as its Blount County location before the Friendsville campus opened in 2010.

Workers from Pellissippi State Community College salvaged pallets full of marble slabs like this one from the former Bungalow School before it was demolished to make way for the Vintage Hunters Crossing apartments in Alcoa. The Tennessee Cedar Marble is used throughout the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville.

A plaque honoring Air Force Maj. Gen. Fred Forster, who also served as president and CEO of the Blount Partnership, is one of many in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville. Pellissippi State Community College salvaged the marble from the former Bungalow School, which served as its campus in Blount County until 2010.

Workers at Tennessee Marble Co. in Friendsville run slabs of marble salvaged from the former Bungalow School, which opened in 1920, through a polisher. The marble has been reused in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development center, which opened last week.

Pellissippi State Community College facilities staff salvaged marble from the former Bungalow School, which Tennessee Marble Co. stored and then polished before Tennessee Memorials engraved the names of major donors for the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville.

Pellissippi State Community College workers salvaged at least five pallets of Tennessee Cedar marble from the former Bungalow School location in Alcoa. Tennessee Marble Co. in Friendsville stored and refinished the stone for use in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center on the college’s Blount County campus.

Historic marble plaques honoring donors who helped turn the former Bungalow School into the Blount County campus for Pellissippi State Community College are now displayed in the main building of the Friendsville campus.

A marble plaque honors Martha and J.L. Goins outside the administrative office in the newly opened Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center. The front desk inside also features marble that Pellissippi State Community College salvaged from Bungalow School, which served as its Blount County location before the Friendsville campus opened in 2010.

Workers from Pellissippi State Community College salvaged pallets full of marble slabs like this one from the former Bungalow School before it was demolished to make way for the Vintage Hunters Crossing apartments in Alcoa. The Tennessee Cedar Marble is used throughout the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville.

A plaque honoring Air Force Maj. Gen. Fred Forster, who also served as president and CEO of the Blount Partnership, is one of many in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville. Pellissippi State Community College salvaged the marble from the former Bungalow School, which served as its campus in Blount County until 2010.

Workers at Tennessee Marble Co. in Friendsville run slabs of marble salvaged from the former Bungalow School, which opened in 1920, through a polisher. The marble has been reused in the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development center, which opened last week.

Although the Bungalow School was torn down a few years ago, parts of it can be found throughout the new Ruth and Steve West Workforce Development Center in Friendsville. At least 90% of the marble on a large wall honoring donors, plaques beside classrooms, interior window sills, as well the front desk in the administrative office, was salvaged from the school built in 1956.

Before the building off Middlesettlements Road and U.S. 129 was demolished to make way for the Vintage Hunters Crossing apartments in Alcoa, Pellissippi State Community College workers pulled pallets full of Tennessee Cedar Tavernelle marble from the walls.

Bungalow School served Blount County Schools until 1989, according to the district. The building then became home to Pellissippi State, which previously held classes in various schools, until the college moved to the current Friendsville campus in 2010.

Marilyn Roddy, director of major gift development for Pellissippi State Foundation, visited the building in the summer of 2019 to consider how to salvage the plaques honoring contributors for the establishment of the college’s Blount County Center.

“As a fundraiser, you pledge that donors’ gifts will be honored, even past the useful life of a facility,” she explained in notes about the project shared with The Daily Times.

When she returned with a facilities team for the donor plaques, the workers showed her marble throughout the building. “I was stunned at the beauty in ordinary places,” she recalled.

At the time Bungalow School was built, marble was not only readily available nearby but also inexpensive. Tennessee Cedar Tavernelle marble, in shades of maroon, was used for wall cladding and bathroom stall partitions.

“One of the remarkable things about the Tennessee marble is it’s very dense,” explained Josh Buchanan, business and relationship coordinator for Tennessee Marble Co. “The porosity’s like .05%, so essentially nothing soaks through it. That’s why they used it so much in bathrooms.”

With the building scheduled for demolition, Roddy worked to save the marble from being sent to the landfill.

“I hatched this crazy idea and had to sell the president and the architect on it,” she said in an interview. “There was something about the story of the marble coming home to Friendsville.”

They approved. “I thought it was a great idea,” said Chuck Griffin, president and CEO of BarberMcMurry Architects, which designed the $16.5 million workforce development center. “It’s becoming more and more popular to reuse existing material where we can.”

The plaques Roddy originally went to salvage are now in the main building on the Friendsville campus, and plaques honoring the original donors for Bungalow School were given to BCS.

Salvaging the marble was a labor intensive effort, and Roddy credits Facilities Director Regina McNew with authorizing time from her staff.

“The real heroes are those guys at Pellissippi State,” Buchanan said “It was really a phenomenal effort on the side of their maintenance staff.”

The workers pulled five or six pallets of slabs from the building and neatly stacked them with material between to prevent damage. “It was neatly done,” he said. “I was impressed.”

Based on his estimates some of the slabs may have weighed up to 300 pounds.

Tennessee Marble President Monica Gawet agreed to store the marble while the architects finished the design, and the company measured the slabs to calculate the useable area.

“We got everything we could out of the existing slabs,” Buchanan said.

Instead of cutting around some of the holes originally used to hang the marble, the company was able to fill them with crushed stone and an epoxy resin. Tennessee Marble supplemented the salvaged marble with some stone recently quarried in Friendsville.

The cedar color is the top layer of the stone, Buchanan explained, with light and dark rose beneath. Dark rose marble was used in the Blount County Courthouse, and Tennessee pink in the Maryville Municipal Building.

“It’s been quarried here in Friendsville since the late 1800s,” he noted. “There’s a pretty good chance what’s in that school originally came out of this quarry. The slabs match what we quarry today.”

The marble company removed mortar and glue from the old slabs and polished the stone before sending some pieces to Tennessee Memorials in Maryville for engraving. G&P Masonry of Knoxville handled the installation.

Over the past few years, while the Pellissippi State salvage project was going on, Tennessee Marble also was working on major projects for other parts of the country, including Penn Station in New York City and a building for Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. Every week the company receives photos seeking matches to previously used marble, including projects at the White House and U.S. Capitol. “Pretty much everything we do touches the past,” Buchanan said.

Of course, the history of the marble at the workforce development center extends back much farther than Bungalow School.

“Tennessee Marble is ancient coral reef fossilized. This stuff has been here for like 500 million years,” Buchanan explained. “It’s pretty incredible when you think about this was 250 million years before the Appalachian Mountains were here. The earth was still pretty much covered in water. There was a shallow sea that stretched across East Tennessee, and this coral reef was growing and flourishing and some of the earliest life forms on the planet.”

“You look at this stone, and you’re looking at the fossilized remains of that. It’s tiny little shell fossil creatures, essentially a coral reef that’s been … preserved right here in this really dense stone that we use to build with,” he said.

“It’s always nice when it can stay local, and it’s always nice when that stone can serve a long life,” Buchanan said.

Amy Beth earned her degree from West Virginia. She joined The Daily Times in 2016 on the education beat covering Alcoa, Maryville and Blount County school systems.

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