BERNE — In paying tribute to his own childhood, Berne resident Tom Nagengast inadvertently created something of a local attraction at his home near Warners Lake. 

Next to the pond in his yard stands a scaled-down replica of the old Lobdell Mill, a titanic building that occupied East Berne for nearly 150 years before it was torn down.

Growing up in Berne in the ’70s, Nagengast spent plenty of time loitering around the structure that had once housed four millstones and a 22-foot waterwheel.

“We would play in there and get kicked out all the time,” he told The Enterprise this week. “It was an enormous structure; it was awesome.” 

With those memories and an inclination for historical buildings in general, when Nagengast’s wife suggested they build a shed by a pond in their yard, Nagengast decided to call up his friend, woodworker Brett Pulliam, and create a replica of the mill. 

“Brett framed it for me with all-local lumber from Stempel’s sawmill in East Berne, and then of course I finished the rest,” he said, adding that Chris Smith, owner of Maple on the Lake and county legislator for the area, did the roof.

Nagengast just recently got his hands on one of the original millstones, after Helderberg Brewing Company, which stands at the site of the original mill and had been using the stone as decoration, had to give it up because it was beginning to fall apart. 

“I’m in the process of restoring it so I can put that out by our little mill … Eventually I want to put a waterwheel outside,” he said. 

Nagengast said that, like the original, his building is of post-and-beam construction, but everything else is an approximation from photos, all exterior shots. 

He’s only been able to find one interior shot, a grainy black-and-white photo from an old newspaper showing the then-owner Ed Pitcher standing inside of it, tightly framed. 

“It’s just a resemblance, a little reminder,” Nagengast said of his shed. 

He’s not the only one taken by the building’s antique design.

Joel Willsey, a former Berne Town Board member, has been working on digital drawings of the building, trying to approximate the dimensions as best he can with the photos available. 

He said that the craftsmanship of Nagengast’s replica is “exceptional.” 

On a Facebook post Nagengast made last month about his acquisition of the millstone, more than 100 people liked the photos and many took to the comments section to share their own memories of the old building. 

“I remember going there with my Dad,” one user wrote. “It was no longer operating as a mill, but the owner sold specially made work boots from a downstairs office, that my Dad … would buy.”

Another user said they remembered “crawling through a pipe in the basement,” while another recalled some less-than-legal memories. 

Nagengast told The Enterprise he’s been a bit surprised by the reactions.

“People thought it was a lot cooler than I really did,” he said. “I thought it was really cool, but people are like, ‘Wow, yeah, that’s awesome.’”