RAMONA - Guy Woodward may have collected the artifacts and created the museum that is central to the Ramona Pioneer Historical Society. But in many ways, it has been Adrian Woodhall who has made the exhibits of old-time country life what it is today.

For nearly two decades, Woodhall has helped the Woodward family restore, build and maintain the wooden barns, bunk houses and other replicas and originals of 1800s California that characterize the museum.

"It's quite easy," said the 70-year-old of his restoration work. "You find a beat-up piece of wood and you attach it. You can't make a mistake."

Woodhall, a retired handyman, began helping build and restore the barns and other structures that make up the museum's campus on a semi-regular basis in 1985, usually for a modest fee.

Over the last decade he has continued to volunteer his time building exhibits and maintaining the museum's facilities, as well as giving docent tours of the site on weekends.

Woodhall's commitment is not just a matter of community. It's also one of family. Woodhall's wife, Otila Woodward, is the youngest sister of Guy Woodward, a local history buff who in the 1960s founded the museum that surrounds the historical society.

"She's very happy about it, because it's family stuff," Woodhall said.

Alice Frank, the society's secretary, said Woodhall has been invaluable in keeping the facility up to snuff.

"He makes sure everything is okay," Frank said. "He's our handyman. Our Johnny-on-the-spot."

Recreating historical California is no problem for the Birmingham, England, transplant. Never does he use blue prints or other formal designs when building a new facility. Woodhall goes with what's in his head and inspirations from the things he reads and sees.

The brick wishing well he built at the front of the museum is based on a British nursery rhyme. The details of the one-room schoolhouse he completed last year, from its wooden porch to bell tower, were modeled on pictures of Spencer Valley School in Wynola, near Julian.

Woodhall also takes advantage of what materials are available, often melding the old and new by incorporating fragments of history into his recreations. For example, the 1888 above the doorway of the school was the original number for the Wynola academy.

Besides, Woodhall seems to be in his element darting through the museum's musty, wooden buildings and handling the many aging tools, pictures, furniture and machinery that decorate the museum.

"To me, this is much more fascinating than all that electronic stuff," Woodhall said, as he spun the crank of a rusty mechanical cabbage chopper stashed in the museum's tool house.

And making it look like it's all original is never an issue, he adds.

"If you have a few hammer marks, it adds to the ambiance," he said.

- Contact staff writer David Fried at (760) 740-5416 or dfried@nctimes.