The capstone was laid this evening on a stone house on South Main Street in Dayton.
"It's been a long, laborious task to lay all these big, thick stones," Bo Bauer said.
The fieldstones that surround the house are what's left of the giant retaining walls on South Main Street between the former Montgomery County Fairgrounds site and Miami Valley Hospital. The walls were demolished when Main Street was widened several years ago.
Bauer, of Wilmington, said he salvaged about 1,500 tons of limestone originally quarried in Centerville.
"This is our little house in the city," he said.
It's taken more than two years to finish the exterior.
"We thought we'd have a small little celebration with my family and a couple friends to lay the last stone on the very tip top there," Bauer said. "It's nice to have it finished. I plan to finish the house on the inside this winter and we'll be able to move in the next month or two," he said.
The Bauers have more plans after that.
On the lot next door they plan to build four townhouse style residences, also with fieldstones. Bauer said he's just waiting on building permits from the city.
