Rocking the courthouse

By Misty Shultz/Staff Writer

June 11, 2007 02:07 pm

— Thousands of square feet of marble line the Johnson County Courthouse, and Clay Clemmer is installing or repairing almost every piece.
Clemmer and partner David McCall’s Tyler-based company, Granite Division Inc., are doing the marble work for the courthouse renovation.
“We started in August of last year and plan to finish by the end of July,” he said.
Much of the marble was removed during the renovation because laborers had to cut into the wall to do plumbing and electrical work, Clemmer said. Employees of Granite Division Inc. are reinstalling the marble to its original locations by matching the patterns of plaster on the back of the pieces of marble, he sad.
New marble is being installed from the same Tate, Ga., quarry as the original marble that was installed in the early 1900s, when the courthouse was built. The marble is of the same vein as the original marble, and workers are matching the pieces to form symmetrical patterns, Clemmer said.
“Johnson County ought to be really proud of the courthouse when this is done,” Clemmer said. “This is a tremendous amount of marble.”
Because of the composition and weight of marble, it is installed with plaster and copper wire, he said. Each piece of three-quarter-inch thick marble weighs 12 pounds per square foot but breaks and scratches easily, Clemmer said.
Industrial-strength diamond blades are used to cut and polish the marble. Raw marble has no sheen but begins to look glassy after it has been polished, Clemmer said.
It takes so much time to install and repair marble that the cost of labor can be twice the cost of the marble. Raw material runs about $23 to $24 a square foot, but the labor runs between $30 and $60 a square foot, Clemmer said.
But Clemmer doesn’t mind the work, he said. He enjoys working with his hands and grew up working at his family’s monument business in Abilene. He began doing custom artwork on monuments when he was 14. Since then, he has spent all but nine years of his career working with marble and granite, he said.
Clemmer said he started doing patent searches in his teens, and has always had a dream of patenting a product.
His dream came true when he earned two patents for GraniteLoc, a lighter granite material that is being used for counter tops, showers and fireplaces. GraniteLoc is ideal for mobile homes because it can be installed in smaller sheets and is not as thick and heavy as slab granite, Clemmer said. GraniteLoc weighs eight pounds per square foot, compared with the 12 to 18 pounds a square foot that slab granite weighs. GraniteLoc also costs 15 to 35 percent less than slab granite, he said.
With the patents in place, Clemmer said he hopes Granite Division Inc. will become a national business.
Clemmer is married to Jennifer and they have two children, Trenton, 10, and Tallon, 3.

Misty Shultz can be reached at 817-645-2441, ext. 2336,
or reporter2@trcle.com.

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