When the pine siding on the White Water Tavern was installed, “Return of the Jedi” and “National Lampoon’s Vacation” were the big tickets at the box office and Toni Basil’s “Mickey” was a chart topper. That is to say, the exterior of the beloved dive bar has seen better days. Still, those diagonal-patterned exterior walls have long been part of its charm, leaky roof and all. Maybe that’s why owner Travis Hill is so worried about making a much-needed update.

Tomorrow that work will begin, with kiln-dried Arkansas cypress planks going in where the old wooden boards have, as of late, hung on for dear life against the elements. A mill called Arkansas Hardwoods will provide the 3,000 feet of board, milling and heat-treating it and shipping it to Little Rock from Carlisle (Lonoke County).

The wood was sourced by woodworker and White Water Tavern regular Joe Meazle. “Joe did it for essentially the cost of a lunch,” Hill said. Meazle had built some bookshelves for Hill and his family at their home, and Hill knew Meazle was a fan of old-school hand tools for woodworking, and that he knew about different types of wood.

“We went and walked around a couple of different mills,” Hill said, “and really couldn’t find much until we found this Arkansas Hardwoods place. They actually had Arkansas cypress, where most of the others were bringing it in from Mississippi.” It took about three weeks to cut and then needed time to dry so that it will stay straight and flush against the building when installed. It’ll run around $30,000 and should, the sawmill said, last around 40-50 years. “It’ll outlast me,” Hill said. “It’s natural. Bug-resistant, rot-resistant.” The whole thing could have been done at a third of the cost, he said, with cheaper Hardie board. “But I wanted real wood. And I’m willing to spend the extra money to make sure it’s done right.”

“The building is solid, structurally,” Hill said. “Most of the problems are, like, there’s a hole where a critter can get in, and there’s a leak in the side of the wall. And the building’s not really insulated. So two weeks ago when a heater went out, it was pretty chilly in here when it was 14 to 30 degrees outside.”

They’ll pull all the old wood off, put up OSB as a sheathing surface to seal the building, then Tyvek board for insulation, then cypress on top of that. It’ll be a traditional lapship pattern, rather than the diagonally mounted boards that grace the tavern now. “When it’s new, it’s gonna look too nice for the White Water,” Hill said. That worries him above all; long before 2021 when Hill and his wife Natalee Miller became owners, they were connected to the place. They had their wedding reception at the bar, as a matter of fact, and Hill, who works at UAMS and runs a record label called Last Chance, books the perpetually sold-out Holiday Hangout at the White Water every December.

“It’s just gonna change the profile of the building. You’re used to driving by and seeing this run-down little building and it’s gonna look new, with the new wood and trim on it. But within six to eight months, it’s gonna do what’s called silvering. The sun causes a chemical reaction and the cypress turns gray, essentially.”

The regulars at the bar seem much less concerned. “The old timers I sit with,” Hill said, “they all say, ‘You’re doing what it takes to keep the place around.’ The most important thing was to keep it a juke joint. To keep it looking like what it is.”

Painting of the White Water Tavern by John Goodwin

Next up: Hill and the crew will begin the third phase — an outdoor stage for acoustic shows, a bigger patio footprint in the back, a bigger space for the bar’s weekly farmer’s market and a beer garden — all contingent on the restrictions of the rezoning request that’s underway with the city of Little Rock and expected to be resolved in March or April.

And what’ll happen to all the old wood? A silent auction, maybe, to recuperate some of the costs of the project? A musician who performs at Holiday Hangout suggested they cut it into sections and sell it off in take-home-sized pieces. Larnie Hughes — partner to former co-owner Sean Hughes and a longtime bartender at the tavern who now organizes the Saturday farmers market — piped up with a suggestion as she was artfully etching the weekend’s live music lineup in chalk on a blackboard. “Put it toward the Goose musician’s scholarship fund!”

“I’m all in,” he said. “We all are. We’re dedicated to keeping it going and making it as healthy or healthier than it’s ever been.” Giving the table a tap, he added “Knock on wood, if we can see the end of COVID coming, this is where I wanna spend the rest of my days.”

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