By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — Crouched over the long stone wall, the man in the broad-brimmed hat carefully places a long, flat stone on top of another one.
He looks at it, and then picks up another stone and repeats the process. Stone by stone, the wall is inching its way across the frontage of the Mother of God Orthodox Church property on Cherry Hill Road.
Passersby would think that John Dragan had spent his entire life laying stone and building walls — but they would be wrong. In fact, Mr. Dragan spent most of his adult working years in finance overseas in Saudi Arabia. He worked for the Saudi-Aramco Oil. Co.
But lately, instead of working with numbers, Mr. Dragan has been working with stone, learning as he goes along. It’s a change of pace — from working with one’s mind on more cerebral tasks to just working with one’s hands.
Building the wall was Mr. Dragan’s idea. An avid bicyclist, the Montgomery Township resident often rides his bike in the Sourland Mountains. He noticed the stone outcroppings and the stone walls that people built. Those walls “add a lot of character” to the properties, he said.
While he admired the stone walls, he never intended to build one himself — until he saw the piles and piles of rock and stone that the contractors who were building the church had excavated from the ground. That’s when he got the idea to build a wall in front of the church.
“It adds to the presence of the church,” he said.
The Mother of God Orthodox Church was originally located in Rocky Hill, but moved to rented quarters when it outgrew that space. The congregation purchased land at 904 Cherry Hill Road several years ago, and moved into its new home earlier this year.
Mr. Dragan, who belongs to the Mother of God Orthodox Church, began building the low stone wall — which will be 375 feet long when he finishes it — last summer. The first step was to learn how to lay a stone wall. There are many good sources online, including YouTube videos, he said.
“I am learning as I go along,” he said. “I’m not an expert. I see things that I didn’t know yesterday. It takes time. You can’t rush these things. I work a few hours a day, five or six days a week. I am focusing on making sure I do it right.”
Using simple tools — a hammer chisel, a small sledgehammer, a crowbar and a shale bar — Mr. Dragan smoothes the edges of each stone to ensure they fit together. He picks through the piles of stones, looking for ones with flat faces. Then, he lays one on top of another. They fit together “dry” — no mortar is used.
Mr. Dragan builds two walls, and then uses rubble to fill in the gap between them. He said he builds two walls for stability, and also for aesthetics. Gravity forces the stones to hold themselves together in the two walls, which are built parallel to each other.
“I like the look of a dry wall. If something were to damage the wall, it can be put together more easily. Mortar deteriorates after a while,” Mr. Dragan said, adding that in his opinion, a wall built with mortar is not as “pretty” as a dry wall.
“I love working with stone. It is extremely peaceful. It’s just me and the stone. You can see a fox walk across the driveway. It’s also the permanency that I like about stone. It’s all over the world,” Mr. Dragan said, noting that people build stone walls to mark off boundaries.
And what happens next when he finishes building the wall, probably sometime in the fall?
There are always other projects, Mr. Dragan said. He has his eye on building a mailbox enclosure, a pizza oven and a fire pit on the church property — all with stone.
But for now, Mr. Dragan is focused on building this wall.
“Once I get it finished, I will be extremely pleased with having done it,” Mr. Dragan said.
