Built with Love
The Black Mountain Love Project is ‘neighbors helping neighbors’
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
January 20, 2021
Mark Mullert, who founded Black Mountain Handyman with his wife Kenda in 2018, is working with a team to establish The Black Mountain Love Project. The initiative will focus on making the necessary repairs to make homes safe and livable for residents in need. Photo courtesy of Black Mountain Handyman
When Mark and Kenda Mullert founded Black Mountain Handyman in 2018, the objective was simple: provide reliable, trustworthy home repair services while being community members that give more than they ask for. The simple formula was an effective one, and in short order the Sutton Avenue business was growing to meet the local demand for quality home repairs.
It didn’t take long to notice a recurring theme.
“There are a lot of people who live in areas, surrounded by nice houses, who are hurting,” Mark said. “There are basic repairs that most of us take for granted, like fixing a roof leak or replacing a rotting floor and all kinds of things that are in no way cosmetic, but crucial to the safety of the home, that people just don’t have the resources to address.”
The answer to that could be love, more specifically The Black Mountain Love Project.
The Mullerts and the team at Black Mountain Handyman launched the website and Facebook page for the soon-to-be 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization earlier this month with a goal to raise awareness and funding for the project, which seeks to help local residents maintain homes that are livable and safe.
The idea came after Mark and his crew became aware of numerous Swannanoa Valley residents who were dealing with severe issues like water damage, unsafe electrical work, lack of insulation and often worse. Some of the stories they heard “really tugged at the heartstrings,” he said.
“There was an 80-year-old man whose floor had completely rotted and fallen into the basement,” Mark recalled the moment that crystalized the need for a community initiative to support those in need of critical home repairs. “The only way you could tell where to step was because the carpet was sagging between the floor joists. His hot water heater had fallen through the floor.”
The customer called Black Mountain Handyman to address a leak in the roof.
“I started asking him questions to find out how long he’d been having these issues,” Mark said. “His floor had fallen five or six years ago, and his water heater had fallen even before that. He was right next to other houses in a place you wouldn’t necessarily expect.”
Mark and his employees fixed the roof and installed plywood for the floor before contacting a plumbing company to reconnect the hot water heater, but he couldn’t bring himself to bill the man for the work.
“I told him I’d been blessed and I just wanted to bless him,” Mark said. “On our end, we were just happy to know he had a safe, dry home with floors and a working water heater.”
“It’s bigger than we imagined”
As the 2019 holiday season approached, Black Mountain Handyman decided to hold a promotion through Facebook that allowed members of the community to nominate others who needed essential repairs on their homes.
“We expected around eight or 10 people would be nominated,” Mark said. “It ended up being 60 or 70. The majority of those were elderly residents with issues like leaky roofs and rotted floors and we realized there was no way to do all of them, it was bigger than we imagined.”
Black Mountain Handyman did three weeks of pro bono labor that year, according to the owner.
Some jobs were bigger than others, and many came about after an initial visit to the home.
Eleanor Love has lived in her Black Mountain home for 65 years. The 89-year-old woman, who turns 90 in February, learned about Black Mountain Handyman through a friend and contacted them about gutter repair.
Eleanor Love, who has lived in her Black Mountain home for 65 years, was one of many local residents who inspired The Black Mountain Love Project. Photo by Fred McCormick
“The roof had caved in right near her bed and all of her gutters had fallen off,” Mark said. “She wanted me to put a tarp over it and repair the gutters, but I knew that wouldn’t work. She was heating her house with an oven, and she’s in another area surrounded by pretty nice homes, and nobody really knew about it.”
Black Mountain Handyman fixed the gutters and worked with Love’s insurance company to repair the roof, according to Mark, who refused to charge the homeowner for the work.
“They gave me an oil heater, tank and a year of fuel,” Love said. “I was really surprised by that, and the heater's been really nice to have.”
The Black Mountain native heard something from Mark that others had heard before when she attempted to pay for the gutter repair.
“He told me he had been blessed and wanted me to be blessed,” Love said.
Ruth Lovinsohn has lived just west of town limits for nearly four decades. When she began a deep cleaning of the home in March of 2020, she discovered black mold in recesses of her kitchen. The 71-year-old Lovinsohn, constricted by a limited budget, got to work on the project immediately.
“It’s a struggle maintaining a home, we live in a subtropical rainforest and a lot of people forget that,” she said. “That water can do some damage, and as soon as I identified the issue I pulled up the rotted floor and moldy subfloor and threw all of that out. But, eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t do anything else myself.”
She searched for a contractor who would bill by the half-hour.
“I really only needed someone to cut three-quarter-inch pressboard into specific shapes to fit the kitchen,” Lovinsohn said. “But most contractors only bill by the hour and I needed to keep the cost down.”
Black Mountain Handyman project manager Charlie Wilson completed the work in the kitchen and followed up by installing a piece of plywood to support Lovinsohn’s water heater, which had been out of service since the previous September, due to a soft floor.
“They told me they would show up, but wouldn’t accept money,” she said. “I am very grateful, because a lot of carpenters won’t schedule smaller jobs and focus on the bigger projects. It was very nice of them to help me the way they did.”
Lots of Love
The similar surnames of Love and Lovinsohn was a curious coincidence to Mark, but they resonated with the Black Mountain Handyman team.
“This is a caring community,” said the former Montreat College professor who wanted to remain in the Swannanoa Valley after seeking a new career path. “We already loved this place, and we know a lot of people feel the same way.”
The Mullerts quickly realized their small business couldn’t possibly address all of the critical needs in local homes, but support for what became the Black Mountain Love Project might.
“We started talking to people around town and held informal meetings last summer,” Mark said. “I told them about some of the homes we’ve worked on for no charge, but I also told them that the list was bigger than we could handle by ourselves.”
There are many local nonprofit organizations doing the important work of feeding and clothing people, he added, but his experience illuminated a significant need for residents struggling to maintain safe homes.
“We have a lot of seniors living here on fixed incomes,” Mark said. “Many of them can’t always afford the things a lot of us take for granted.”
The Black Mountain Love Project will allow online donations to cover the costs of materials to be used by professional tradespeople who will perform necessary repairs. The Mullerts and their team believe the initiative can strengthen the community.
Kenda and Mark Mullert founded Black Mountain Handyman in 2018 in an effort to provide reliable and trustworthy home repair services. The business owners and their team are now working together to establish The Black Mountain Love Project, a nonprofit organization that will help maintain safe homes for homeowners in need. Photo courtesy of Black Mountain Handyman
“I know this is a place that responds to needs,” Mark said. “This is just another opportunity for people to spread love, and I want this to be what Black Mountain is about: neighbors helping neighbors.”
Building a team to build a stronger community
The vision of The Black Mountain Love Project is ambitious, according to Mark, but establishing a nonprofit organization that can provide essential repairs at no cost is a start.
“This has to be bigger than Black Mountain Handyman, it has to become its own thing,” he said. “It’s going to require brainstorming, connecting people and businesses and a good deal of collaboration.”
In the early stages of forming the organization, the Mullerts have met with hardware companies, Hensons and Town Hardware, as well as equipment company Whatever Rents and local contractors. The group has been in contact with elected officials and Town staff while also communicating with local churches, including Valley Hope, Black Mountain Presbyterian and Christ Community in Montreat.
“We are a small company, but some of the larger contractors have resources they can contribute,” Mark said. “We’re going to work with some of them and try to create a model that allows teams of professionals to do the work. We want these repairs to last.”
Organizers are working to establish an advisory board for the Black Mountain Love Project. They are currently searching for a director to work with the board to guide the organization toward its mission.
“We need people to get involved who want to be the champions behind this project,” Mark said. “A lot of people move here because it’s a beautiful location, but they stay because of how special the community is. A big part of that is whether you’re out there hammering a nail, or giving resources to help your neighbor, you’re going to feel good about it.”