WHILE communities debate the worth of heritage buildings, one Warrnambool builder has been saving old materials from the scrap heap and using them to create modern homes.
Ten years ago Gary McCosh realised there was something special about old timber and stone and something sad about seeing them thrown into rubbish tips.
He retrieved timber from old churches, shops, houses, a wharf and railway shed, plus hundreds of sandstone blocks carved from shops, houses and the old woollen mill.
Mr McCosh even has wrought iron fences discarded from old graves.
The pieces were stockpiled then shaped for projects.
``I'm putting history back into the community,'' he said.
``Instead of it going into landfill it goes back into buildings.''
Many of his design ideas have been gleaned from historic buildings in Australia and overseas, including a 1000-year-old house in Scotland.
His most eye-catching achievement is a set of holiday accommodation units called the Stonecutters Inn at the corner of Koroit and Japan streets. The design idea came from an old Scottish pub.
The walls are made of sandstone blocks, many of which would have been carved in the 1800s from a quarry now covered by the former Fletcher Jones factory and gardens.
He obtained hundreds of the blocks from inside the former 1880s W.A. Burnett clothing store on Fairy Street which was recently renovated into modern accountancy offices.
These blocks were cut into smaller sizes for the inn project and a nearby house he called Braeside Stone.