Terry Livingood and Helen Truesdell investigate their stony Rocky Top sentinel that bears a strong resemblance to the hard-hearted grinch who stole Christmas. (KEN BECK photo)
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Along a 250-yard stretch of Lofton Road in the Lascassas community, eclectic rocky pillars reach for the sky. It’s enough to make motorists passing by slow down or even stop their vehicles.
Even more mysteriously, this time of year a dozen or so of the limestone columns wear Santa Claus or elf caps, while one stone stack bears two Christmas stockings, and sprouts from an oak stump dance in the breeze with colorful ornaments.
Welcome to Terry Livingood and Helen Truesdell’s Rocky Top wonderland.
Livingood and Truesdell, both widowed, met several years ago through a mutual friend. Today, they make their lives together in the house Truesdell has lived in since 1972.
The rock pillars or stone sculptures by the side of the road were erected by Livingood, a notion he took on two years ago.
Today, there are about 100 rock stacks on their 6 acres. They range in height from a foot to 6 feet tall. The ones most noticeable are those across the road from their house christened Rocky Top.
“I had no aspirations or intentions of stacking rocks. This was a brushy area, and we proceeded to clean it up. I wanted to mow there,” said Livingood, who grew up near the small town of Cincinnati, Iowa, and worked the earlier years of his life as a farmer and cattle rancher.
Later, he had the freedom to travel a fair amount to various spiritual centers, which led to his writing two published books. He has spoken at various churches and also sponsored and facilitated healing and spiritual workshops.
“I started throwing rocks into a pile,” he explained. “I had one rock too big to throw, so I just sat it down on top of another rock and saw that it balanced. I got another rock and it balanced on top of that one, and it seemed sort of a fun thing. They could be stacked quite precariously and yet they still stood. It just kept on going until it became what it is.”
“The first time he made a huge rock stack so people couldn’t drive onto the property,” Truesdell recalled. “Then, he progressed, building a little rock city that went north, south, east and west.”
November a year ago, a neighbor suggested to Truesdell that she should place some Santa hats atop some of the stone figures.
“So, I went to town and bought some Santa hats and ornaments and decorated some rocks and put ornaments on the trees,” said Truesdell, who collects nutcrackers.
“It’s really neat. People began seeing the little rock stacks. But Christmas with the rock Santas is the most fun,” she said. “He’s made good use of the rocks that God left here. It’s a hoot. We’ve had people stop and thank us for giving them some joy.”
Besides the rocky formations, Livingood built and set in the cedar woods the silhouettes of two mama bears, two baby bears and one papa bear. Near a picnic table, a sign warns “Do not feed the bears.”
“When I’m out there making rock stacks, I wonder if I’m possessed or obsessed,” said Livingood, whose resume includes portraying Santa Claus. “I never had any idea that it would attract so much attention. Everyone that goes by waves when I’m out mowing or cleaning the yard, and people don’t litter along here anymore.”
“It’s like a state park the way he has cleaned up the place. It’s a Utopia for us,” said Truesdell, also revealing that her best friend has stacked rocks while they vacationed on the Maine coast as well as in Guadalupe, Texas, and Moab, Utah.
“When we put on the Santa hats,” said the man who stacks Tennessee fieldstone for sheer delight, “people said we had given a new definition to Santa rocks!” |
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