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Late boatbuilder’s labors show his love of history

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<i>This post has been corrected, as noted below.</i>

There is a quiet street in Newport Beach where a bright red barn stands as an eye-catching oddity, wedged between a small beige house and a small yellow one.

Behind the white double doors, a man’s collection of broken history awaits.

Here, renowned boatbuilder Dennis Holland began repairing a sailboat called Shawnee in 2006. Many of its 98-year-old disassembled pieces remain.

Holland died of cancer in May at age 68. The boat was not his only unfinished business. There is a 1913 Pierce-Arrow that lacks a coat of paint, an old wooden kayak that needs freshening, a 1929 Ford pickup that is still in pieces.

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The barn — itself one of Holland’s restorations — is filled with a lifetime of projects, perhaps more than one man could ever complete. The dream of finishing them kept him young, his son says. The draw was in the challenge, no matter how big or small.

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Eleven classic cars are arranged side by side, bumper to bumper on the barn’s concrete floor.

Holland hadn’t kept them just to admire. They were pieces of history that needed a helping hand to function again.

Toward the front and center of the arrangement is Holland’s favorite vehicle to drive: a sparkling, dark beige Ford Model A from 1931, with dark accents and a cream-colored top.

Then there is the two-toned cream and burgundy 1927 Buick that Holland and his son, Dennis Holland Jr., found in Colorado not long ago. Nearby is the last car that father and son purchased together: a black, red and rusty 1914 Model T.

“It was a good find,” Holland Jr. said. “It’s complete. It just needs to be restored.”

The two had planned to fix up the vehicle together, with Holland Jr. attending to the mechanics and his father fixing the woodwork.

Instead, Holland Jr. plans to go it alone, picking up the remaining projects where his dad left off.

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As a kid, Holland Jr. watched his father’s every move. He recalled throwing his homework aside when he got home from school and going to see what his dad had been up to that day.

The schoolboy paid attention to his dad’s patient, cautious work. When the oldies were turned off and classical music played, he knew the elder Holland was particularly focused.

“He’s got his dad’s lust for projects,” said his mother, Betty, who graduated one year after her husband-to-be at Corona del Mar High School.

Holland Jr., 28, is now a finish carpenter with a mustache that looks much like his dad’s did when he was younger.

The rugged 1943 Jeep he has been working on recently is a far cry from Holland Sr.’s 1909 Buick, which gleamed in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through a barn window Wednesday.

Holland bought the vehicle from a resident on Newport’s Back Bay. After he restored it, he drove it across the country five times in The Great Race, an annual speed and endurance rally for vintage cars established in 1983.

Getting the car from start to finish in one piece was no small feat. One year, the wheels caught fire and Holland had to fashion new wooden spokes. Another time, a contender stole a piece from the car’s engine and he had to find a way to make the metal part anew.

Bird-topped trophies from the races are stacked near the Buick. Holland won once (the car could hit 70 mph). He might have won a second time if it weren’t for a traffic citation from the California Highway Patrol. That annoyance is framed on the barn’s wall, its ink fading.

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There are more trophies in the barn, including a first-place award from the 1981 Fish Fry and a 1989 people’s choice award from the Buick Club of America.

Other items lean on the floor, rest on the walls and hang from the ceiling. They weave together experiences from Holland’s life, though not all have a known meaning.

There is a penny-farthing bicycle he rode at least once, its front wheel many times larger than the back.

There is a poster of a monkey eating a banana as it sits on a toilet, a newspaper clipping taped to the glass frame. “Now you see them ... and now you don’t,” the headline reads, typed above a yellowing image of the San Gabriel Mountains shrouded in smog.

While the space has a sense of organization that an owner alone might understand, the barn’s second floor resembles a well-ordered antique shop.

Items have been sorted into a seemingly never-ending number of collections: John Stoddard’s lectures, pewter dishware, wooden chairs, old baby carriages.

A trunk filled with empty mason jars sits on the floor, and wooden ducks peek from crannies near the ceiling.

Holland Jr. said the family has begun sorting through it, marking the items that are crucial to keep. Most will be sold, his mother said.

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When Holland Sr. was in high school, he built a boat in his garage. When he and Betty were dating, they built a 30-foot sailboat, the Molly B.

They married in 1969 and drove the Ford truck that is now in pieces — a Model A Roadster pickup — to Canada for their honeymoon.

He had meant to refurbish it, but the parts are tucked in the “clutter zone” on the barn’s first floor.

“Something else came up, you know,” Holland Jr. explained with a chuckle. “So that got pushed in the corner.”

The Hollands sold Molly B. to buy the lumber for Holland Sr.’s first big project, the construction of a replica 118-foot, Revolutionary War-era tall ship.

He spent 13 years building it in front of the family’s Costa Mesa home, eventually moving his wife and three daughters inside so they could rent out the home for extra income.

“He was unique,” said Holland Jr., who was born after the ship’s completion. “He lived for challenges. If it wasn’t easy, he didn’t want to do it.”

The ship was dubbed the Pilgrim of Newport. Its painted nameplate usually hangs on a rafter in the barn. An old wooden sign also is typically leaning inside, with painted red lettering announcing the time and day in 1983 that the vessel would be moved from the yard (8 p.m. Nov. 12) and launched into Newport Harbor (9 a.m. Nov. 19).

On Friday, the items sat alongside scrapbooks and framed photos on display at the Newport Sea Base as the ship — which Holland sold in 2001 to the Ocean Institute in Dana Point — again bobbed in the harbor during a return visit continuing Saturday.

It’s all part of an event dedicated to sharing Holland’s love for the preservation of history. It’s also a way for Holland Jr. to test the level of interest in his father’s pursuits.

He may not be able to finish all the projects either, but then, his 5- and 7-year-old sons, Noah and Dennis, are there to help.

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If You Go

What: Dennis Holland’s Pilgrim of Newport (now called Spirit of Dana Point)

Where: Newport Sea Base, 1931 W. Coast Highway, Newport Beach

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday

Cost: Free

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(For the record, updated at 10:25 a.m. Sept. 13: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Betty and Dennis Holland graduated from Newport Harbor High School.)

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