BY KATHY VAN MULLEKOM
CREEDS — Marvin Rollins looks right at home in the second-floor offices of Creeds Hardware & Supply Co. House drawings cover the top of a desk and a credenza behind him. Rolled-up plans fill shelves.
The builder is in his comfort zone, doing what he has done for much of his 77 years – scrutinizing detailed construction plans for houses, sheds, barns and other structures, many for the farming community in the rural southern city.
As a toddler, Rollins shadowed his father, Marvin Rollins Sr., who founded the construction company, MM Rollins & Co., in 1946. Rollin’s father left Greer, South Carolina, to work for Virginia Engineering on local military bases and airfields before his son was even born. When the engineering firm became Tidewater Construction and was unionized, the business went to work for the farmers.
“I’ve been around construction and the farmers ever since I was born,” Rollins said. “Mama used to tell me to tell Daddy to get me off the roof. I was always by Daddy’s side, and he would even take a pillow to put in a closet so I could take a nap.
“Daddy headed me in the right direction. The farmers have trusted us to build their homes and facilities for their livestock, as well as their children’s homes. It’s been a good partnership.”
To celebrate that relationship, the Excellence in Agriculture Committee will honor Rollins and his family with the Friend of Agriculture award during the Virginia Beach Excellence in Agriculture banquet Thursday, March 23, at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex.
The event, which had not been held in recent years due to Covid-19 restrictions, celebrates National Agriculture Week from March 21-27 and spotlights farmers in the community. W.R. Malbon Jr., Frank T. Williams and the late R.H. DeFord Jr. will be honored with special recognition during the ceremony, and Frank T. Williams Farms will be recognized with the 2019 Excellence in Agriculture award. The awards originally were scheduled to be given in 2020.
“The Rollins family has lived in the rural area for their entire lives, and have been very helpful to the farmers when they wanted to get shelters and hog houses built,” said Don Horsley, a Blackwater farmer who is a member of the committee and a former Excellence in Agriculture award winner. Horsley’s Land of Promise Farms cultivates about 6,000 acres in corn, wheat, soybeans and hogs.
“They helped us when we added on some buildings at the Creeds Ruritan Community Complex, and they have helped the Ruritan club secure mowers for raffles,” Horsley said. “The family has been very supportive of the 4-H program here, too. They are good friends of agriculture.”
The Rollins construction legacy now includes younger ones in the family. Health issues mean Rollins spends most of his time in the office, peering over construction plans, while son Marty, 51, supervises site crews.
“Marty runs the show,” his father said proudly about Marvin Rollins III.
“I did with him just like my father did with me,” he added. “Marty can run any of the equipment and knows how to get the job done. He’s a hard worker. And now, Marty’s son, Logan, who is 18, is working every day with his dad.”
Rollins smiled while he spoke about the farming years when there were more hogs than people in Virginia Beach. For four years in the 1980s, he said they built more hog houses than anything else. Then, steel buildings became the trend in the early 1990s.
In 1997, Rollins decided it was time that he provided his own supply of building lumber, so he opened Creeds Hardware, and then built the gas station and mini mart across the street. He also sells lawnmowers at the nearby outdoor power equipment shop.
Rollins and wife Gayle, a Bright who comes from a family of farmers, live on the 20-acre family compound on Mill Landing Road, where he grew up. They have been married 58 years. Daughter Pattey, 56, and Marty live in adjacent homes.
A backyard woodshop is where the company used to make all the cabinets and trim used in its custom homes, which have ranged over the years from 1,000 square feet to more than 6,500 square feet. Sisters Julie Cook and Cathy Flynn did his trim work for 30 years, having learned the trade from their father Bill Stutzman, he said. The two sisters recently retired. Rollins’ daughter-in-law, Ashey, who runs the gas station, helps clients pick out interior details and colors.
Today, MM Rollins employs one four-person crew and subcontracts other construction work such as electrical, plumbing and HVAC. Rollins continues to stick build – no prefab rafters or walls – and he still uses copper water pipes because “it’s all I know,” he said.
Rollins said he’s grateful to live in a farming community where everyone is kind, helpful and resourceful.
“Through the years I’ve learned a lot from the farmers,” he said. “People who haven’t lived around farmers have really missed something.”
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