By Dale Roberson
Rocks are the bane of most property owners on the west side of the Balcones Fault.
To Phillip Hoggatt, stone, especially limestone, is the crux of his art and living. Hoggatt, who with his wife Michelle, is co-owner of Carved Stone, Inc. He spends his days making beautiful and meaningful art from stone.
They have owned their shop on 9-1/2 acres on Bell Springs Road west of Dripping Springs since 1997. Their new office/show room is testament to Phillip’s artisanship. Shelves are filled with bookends, paperweights, cardholders, lamps and other items of beautiful carved art pieces.
Much of the stone he uses for his creations and commissions comes from historic uses, which he repurposes.
“I bought the limestone from the front steps of the State Capitol when it was refurbished,” he said.
Although the capitol building is made mostly of pink granite quarried near Marble Falls, the steps were limestone from near Austin.
“The limestone wears away after years of use,” Hoggatt said.
The steps were replaced with more limestone. Hoggatt said they, too, will wear away with use after time. If replaced with granite the steps would last nearly forever, he said.
He purchased the steps from the front of the Capitol in an auction, but when the state failed to get bids on the stone from the rear steps, they gave it to him just to get disposal. That load also included quite a bit of granite that had been replaced. Since he rarely works with granite, he gave most of it to his friend and fellow stone mason Mike Bond.
Even though he works mostly in limestone, he doesn’t believe it suitable for all stonework.
“It’s soft and won’t last forever like granite or marble,” he said. For that reason Hoggatt said he believes gravestones should be made of granite.
Probably the most notable grave marker Hoggatt has designed and built is that of former U.S. Congressman and famous Texas Attorney General Jim Maddox.
Shortly after Maddox’s death, Hoggatt was selling carved stone pieces in a booth at Founders Day in Dripping Springs. Maddox was a resideny of the Dripping Springs area. Maddox’s widow Marta approached Hoggatt and asked if he would build a monument for her late husband.
Jim Maddox was known as “The People’s Lawyer.” How could he refuse?
Hoggatt designed the 12-foot monument and constructed it of limestone, quartz and granite.
Designing and constructing the obelisk was not necessarily the hardest part of the job, though. The State Cemetery director liked it and approved but getting the huge pieces of stone to their place in the cemetery was another problem.
Paths to Maddox’s final resting place were narrow and could not be damaged. After two failed attempts “we had to go to plan C,” Hoggatt said.
He hired a specialty moving company to do the job. Each piece of the marker was lifted with a high-lift (tall fork lift), the path was covered with pieces of plywood for the machine to drive over to the grave.
Hoggatt has designed another gravestone that means a lot to him and Michelle for another reason. In fact, it resides, not in a graveyard, but on the grounds of Carved Stone.
The marker is not for a famous person, but one whose memory became a fascination for Hoggatt.
Natalie Bateman was a WAC during World War II and designed barracks for the military. Following her service, she designed and built homes and other buildings. One she built herself was her home near Dripping Springs. It was on the property later purchased by the Hoggatts. In fact, they built their first office/showroom on the foundation of that house which had burned. Bateman had been deceased for some time.
However, occasionally Phillip and Michelle would hear the door open and find nobody there. The occurrence happened more than once each time the door opened, apparently by itself, it was announced by a loop of bells attached to the doorknob. That aroused Phillip’s curiosity.
He began to research Ms. Bateman and found her biography on Ancestry.com. then reached out to her niece to learn more.
“I asked where she was buried,” Hoggatt said, thinking he might visit the grave and put a monument there if needed.
“She’s not buried,” the niece said, leaving Phillip perplexed. “She donated her body to science,” he was told.
That left him thinking maybe Bateman’s spirit might want some remembrance. So he got epitaphs from two of the late landowner’s nieces and fashioned a granite marker with a rather copious statement. It was placed in front of the former home of their aunt.
The Hoggatts invited the nieces to a dedication. They attended. Following the service one of them gave Hoggatt a check. When he later opened it, he found it was “rather generous.” Later he received a similar check from the other niece.
“The door never opened alone after that,” Hoggatt said
General Maddox was not the only famous politician benefiting from Carved Stone’s work. The late Texas Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock had Hoggatt make 32 pieces as gifts to the senators who served under him. Bullock bought some 60 pieces from Carved Stone during his life.
Other limestone from famous Texas monuments Hoggatt has purchased and fashioned into art included that from the San Jacinto Monument.
Some of the stone he has collected was used as part of the new Buda City Hall complex.
Local fame is not all attributed to Carved Stone. A photo of a “Star of Texas” piece was used in a national Chevrolet commercial.
No one knows better than Phillip and Michelle Hoggatt that all rock is not a pain in the dirt.
