The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 41

X. a To y's Gift Anniston Sunday, Feb. 4, in X. uxa tim ii i mn a aw -ex sa A AX 111. it II II JS- all I 1 -II I I I I I fcC.U I I 1 I Star PImMi by Km ikim Gerald Willis' mansion not exact Hermitage replica Man with a plan followin through on his Hermitage thanks in large part to.

his success in the lumber business, he found he had enough money to begin work on his mansion. Yet, instead of six columns, his future home, which will stand 37 feet high, is scheduled to get 12 columns. That's six in the front and six in the back, just like Jackson's Hermitage. THE IDEA OF COPYING the Hermitage all 7,756 square feet of it didn't come to Willis after a visit to the actual site. He didn't even tee the real thine until 1972.

13 years after deciding he While it's being built, Willis and his wife, Frances, plan to track down or make on their own those extravagant furnishings that are to make the inside of their residence pass for the Hermitage. If Willis' plans continue to be on target, his family, which includes a son and two daughters, will celebrate their 1980 Christmas in a house seven times bigger than the one they will be living in this coming Christmas. While Willis doesn't have the slave labor Jackson bad to build bis mansion, he does own hrnilwp Mnnam and that illmri him tn make View from soon-to-be front window jp ''y'athiit than, hnv mrirh' nf what tic Mm1 hvhl mm Miiiai By TIM FUNK Star Staff Writer NANCES CREEK Gerald Willis is a stickler for detail, but he's not unreasonable. When he says his new home will be an exact replica of the one his hero, Andrew Jackson, lived in almost ISO years ago, he doesn't mean he's going to live in a place without bathrooms. In fact, the 39-year-old Willis plans seven bathrooms for bis mansion-to-be in Nances Creek.

Modern conveniences like bathrooms were nonexistent In the age of Jackson, so America's fctntft preskknt UfenaUflk.ttMcMM to Om Hermitage, his elegant bouse near Nashville which is now a. national landmark. WILLIS' FIVE-MEMBER family wants the house they began building last July to look as much like the Hermitage as possible, but no one is interested in living in a museum. They want a home. His very own Hermitage is something Willis has looked forward to most of bis life.

To say that he's dreamed about it would be to misunderstand the way Willis, who was elected to the state Legislature last November from the 57th District, approaches things. It would be more accurate to say he's planned for it. "When I was 19, 1 told my wife I was someday going to build a house with six columns for us," Willis says. "I told ber I'd be approximately 38 when I started it. I figured that would be when I'd have enough money to do it." Willis turned 38 on Jan.

6, 1978. On July 7, 1978, version of the Hermitage, This advantage, says Willis, means the price tag on his new home should come to about $200,000. The windows and doors alone cost $13,000, he says. "I thought at one time it would be an all-wood house since I'm in the lumber business. But that would it too expensive to keep up.

So we'll use bricks," Willis says. LIKE ANY BUSINESSMAN, Willis is cost-conscious. Yet, in his pursuit of the habitable replica, expenses seem secondary. Following through on that plan hatched 20 years ago is the important thing. "Plans don't fail," Willis says.

"You just fail the plans." One man who stood by his plans was Andrew Jackson, says Willis. "I liked Jackson's lifestyle," he says. "When he made up his mind to do something, he did it. He fulfilled all of his wanted 'hMsj)so "I picked this house out 2u years ago when I saw it on a movie on TV," Willis says. The movie was "The President's Lady," a 1953 romanticized version of the Andrew Jackson story, with Charlton Heston as Old Hickory and Susan Hayward as the lady of the title.

In a few days, the skeleton of the Nances Creek Hermitage will be in place. It will have taken 100,000 board feet of lumber and 60 boxes of nails to finish this first phase of construction, Willis says. Next, bricklayers will begin putting some skin on the place. Eventually, 160,000 bricks will be used, including 55,000 just for the 10 fireplaces. WILLIS WILL THEN usher in a procession of plumbers, painters and electricians.

By July, 1980, Willis expects actual construction to be completed. "It took two years to build Jackson's house, so I think it'll take us about the same time," he says. rn mmmt- (See Hermitage Page 7C) Andrew Jackson's Hermitage i Us II 41 1 mmm J-- Willis' Hermitage not for from completion Gerald Willis stands before his mansion v4 i.