It's just a specific newspaper rack, but it would mean so much to Roy Rose.
Rose needs the rack to complete his restoration of the Last Chance Gas Station, a building that provided the pivotal setting in the 1974 horror classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. At great personal expense, Rose is turning the nondescript building that's lain dormant off County Road 304 in rural Bastrop County into a resort for fans of the movie.
Talk about a labor of love, even if it is creepy.
Since Rose bought the building nearly two years ago, he's been refurbishing it and adding finer touches by referencing screen shots from the Tobe Hooper film. Rose estimated the final cost of his project to be about $400,000.
"I got the exact gas pumps, the exact replica Coke machine, the same model of the chairs you see [in the movie], the same stool that window washer is sitting on, the same kind of mop bucket he uses to pull the rag out of ..." he said.
"I'm just missing one thing, and it's a newspaper rack. It's called a K-22 newspaper rack, from back in the '60s and '70s. That's the last thing I need. And then, it's going to complete."
In the movie, the gas station was where the macabre Sawyer family, a clan of cannibals, lured in customers and served them up to their next unsuspecting victims. If they weren't being terrorized in the gas station, Leatherface was chasing victims around the old Franklin farm house with his chainsaw.
In Rose's vision, his gas station will front as a B&B for Chain Saw fans. Behind the station, he's built four cabins outfitted with big-screen TVs and DVD players with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre playing at all times in air-conditioned comfort. The gas station will feature movie memorabilia. In addition, Rose constructed an entertainment area. The barbecue joint will follow and, like the sign says, will be named We Slaughter Barbecue.
Rose has scheduled the grand opening for mid-July, possibly as early as July 10, pending weather and construction issues. Judging by fans' reactions on the gas station's Facebook page, finding guests should be easy.
At the grand opening, Rose will bring in Rowlett resident Edwin Neal, who played the deranged hitchhiker in the film, to freak out guests.
Rose, 42, grew up in Cleveland and became a Chain Saw fan at 10 when his mom rented the R-rated movie. His fascination with the gas station continued into adulthood before he finally looked up the owner a few years ago. Rose said he offered to buy the building, but the owner wasn't interested. On his 40th birthday, he said the owner called to say that she had a change in heart and wanted to sell.
William Terry Sanders, whose mother formerly owned the building, told Time Warner Cable News that he's OK with the way Rose wants to use the building. "I wish them all the success in the world," Sanders said.
As soon as the owner told him she wanted to sell, Rose said he caught the next flight out of Cleveland. He bought the building, moved his wife, two kids and dog to rural Bastrop, bought a house for the family and went about restoring the building. All the while, he and his wife are still operating a group of head shops and a tattoo supply business in Ohio.
Earlier reports had Ari Lehman, the actor who played Jason Voorhes in the original Friday the 13th, as an investor, but Rose said that's not the case.
The movie's main sets, the farm houses, are no longer around. One, near Austin, burned to the ground in the late 1970s, Neal said. The other was broken into pieces and relocated from Round Rock to more than 90 miles in Kingsland where it's a restaurant.
"No one is taking care of these old horror iconic landmarks at all," Rose said. "Friday the 13th, the cabins are burned down. Evil Dead, that cabin burned down. To me, this is a historical landmark and it should be treated like one."
When Rose first laid eyes on the gas station last year, he said he was in awe, then disbelief at the damage and neglect.
"I was kinda disgusted because it just made me mad how somebody could let that building fall apart and get destroyed by termites," he said. "It was a disaster."
Neal said Rose's timing couldn't have been better.
"He got there 20 minutes before it fell down -- his timing was excellent," Neal said. "It takes someone dedicated like he is to make this happen. He willed it to happen. He went through zoning changes and all kinds of stuff. He went through about 25 hoops, one by one, until he got what he wanted.
"My hat's off to him."
