About Watauga Preservation
Watauga Preservation has been individually owned and operated since 2003 with a customer service focus - working with developers and home owners to provide unique structures and finishes. Working with reclaimed wood remains a core focus with Watauga Preservation providing and installing reclaimed materials, rebuilding antique log cabins and timber frame barns, and supporting structures (development signs, pavilions, storage buildings and garages). While Watauga Preservation has long provided excavation and foundation services as well as installation of custom flooring, cabinets, trims, and other finishes as subcontractors, in recent years we have become licensed in General Contracting and now offer complete new home construction and remodel services.
Charlie Norman named his business to honor both his hometown and his love of reclaimed materials. The city of Watauga is named both for the Watauga River running out of the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina into Tennessee and the Watauga Association, the first semi-autonomous government created in 1772 by frontier settlers living along the Watauga River in what is now present day Elizabethton, Tennessee. Preservation is re-using old stone and wood building materials to rebuild the past into the future.
About Charlie Norman
Charlie Norman was born into a Northeast Tennessee family dominated by construction trades - two great grandfathers, one grandfather, and his father were masons; the other grandfather and two uncles operated heavy equipment and other relatives were electricians, plasterers, carpenters and even a general contractor. As a young man, Charlie worked construction jobs and learned every facet of building trades. A graduate of Happy Valley High School and Emory and Henry College, Charlie began leading construction crews immediately after college and founded his own business in 2003.
Watauga Preservation began as a reclaimed materials business where Charlie sourced 100-200+ year old materials from old log cabins, houses, and timber frame barns and re-purposed them for finishes in new construction. Watauga Preservation expanded this base into timber frame relocation, rustic pavilion construction, home remodels, and finally into residential general contracting.
Charlie lives in Johnson City and Carter County, Tennessee with his family that includes a pretty Harley riding wife, three sons, one step-son and one foster son.
About Log Cabin Fever
In 2015, a film crew started following Charlie around during one of his log cabin rebuild projects. That footage was eventually used to create the Log Cabin Fever series which is currently showing in England and Canada on the Cottage Life TV network. For more information about this series and episodes to stream, please visit their website.