Healthy Sustainable Holistic Design by Architect Bruce Millard in Sandpoint - Idaho Smart Growth Award

RECYCLED BUILDINGS

SANDPOINT

M A G A Z I N E

PAST. PRESENT.

EVERYWHERE

IN OUR LIVES

Interview with Songwriter Charley Packard, In the Footsteps of Photographer Dorothea

Lange, End of the Coldwater Creek Era, On the Pacific Northwest Trail, Artist Karen Robinson,

Ethan’s Treehouse, Alpacas, Calendars, Dining, Real Estate ... and a trainload more

Recycled buildings

Labors of love add up to good stewardship

BY SANDY COMPTON

oss Hall once climbed the J.C.

Penney building at First and

Cedar - now Snow River - and

made a picture of downtown Sandpoint.

It was 1955 and (maybe) before a Fourth

Inset, Sandpoint, as Ross Hall captured it in 1955, and the modern-day, reclaimed corner of Oak

of July parade - there are no flags to

and Sixth, above, featuring the Heartwood Center. PHOTO BY DOUG FLUCKIGER

be seen. Nonetheless, Sandpoint’s

entire population appears to be on the

Kubiak turned the building into an art

In the old CO-OP Farm Store at

sidewalks. I find myself looking for fam-

studio and a home for Sandpoint Arts

the corner of Sixth and Church, once

ily in the clumps of folks visiting in

Alliance for a time.

stocked with barbed wire, fence posts,

front of businesses, a localized version

East on Oak is Foster’s Crossing, a

corral panels and watering troughs,

of “Where’s Waldo?” Knowing Ross

railroad warehouse rescued years ago

Evans Brothers Coffee has found a

Hall, maybe he invited his friends and

by Dick and Betsy Foster and turned

home. In the elevator east of Evans

acquaintances - which was the populace

into Sandpoint’s first antique mall. On

Brothers, rolled oats, chicken scratch,

of Sandpoint - to come stand around

the east side of Fifth, Domino’s makes

horse pellets, and bales of alfalfa once

while he made a couple of exposures.

pizza in the former Alpine Motors sales

waited in dark, dusty rooms for a ride to

“You can all go home now! Thanks.”

room - which explains the big windows.

the farm and farmers brought grain to be

Comparing this picture to now, I find

The attached Quonset-hut shop building

stored and sifted into trucks or rail cars

that nearly all the buildings are original,

once contained Alpine’s service area but

for a ride to market. Now, the Sandpoint

but most of them have been repur-

now houses an auto detailing shop.

Climbing Gym occupies part of the

posed. The only businesses on First

Kitty-corner across Fifth, the Army

building. But not the tall part.

from earlier times are Larson’s Clothing

Surplus Store was Sandpoint Ice and

Continuing north along Sixth toward

and the Panida Theater. If you look

Fuel for decades, even after they quit

the point of beginning, we come to a

west on Cedar, the only survivors are

selling ice. To the south, the Pie Hut

cross-street dichotomy where two dispa-

Connie’s Café and the Tam O’Shanter,

occupies what were offices for Cenex

rate buildings are being “saved,” one of

also known as the Tervan.

CO-OP Gas and Supply, renamed the

humble beginnings and the other with a

Sandpoint has become a recycled city.

CO-OP Country Store and moved to

more glorious past.

Ponderay in 1996. The CO-OP, where a

kid could get lost in long aisles of every

A recycled block

Shibusa Studios: An architec-

sort of hardware, smelled of new tires

tural lump reborn

In fact, the corner of Sixth and Oak

and petroleum and occupied the space

could be recycle central. Face north in

that is now Marketplace Antiques.

At the southeast corner - 525 Oak,

that intersection and rotate clockwise.

Bizarre Bazaar is in the former CO-OP

an address a numerologist could love -

You encounter first Redtail Gallery,

Auto Center, where once tires were sold

the nondescript red-and-gray cube that

formerly the Episcopal Church. Mark

and oil was changed.

housed Darigold is being transformed

SUMMER 2014

SANDPOINT MAGAZINE

107

Before and after: Pine and Florence. PHOTO ABOVE BY

by artist Kevin Watson into Shibusa

DOUG FLUCKIGER. PHOTO AT RIGHT, COURTESY CHRIS HECHT

Studios. Shibusa is a Japanese aes-

thetic featuring “an enriched, subdued

appearance or experience of intrinsi-

Saving the corner: The

cally fine quality with economy of form,

Heartwood Center

line and effort.” Watson and his build-

Oleson’s work outside is elegant and

ing mate, interior designer, painter and

Across the street from Shibusa is the

effective. “Karen not only designed the

sculptor Dion Williams, are enamored of

Heartwood Center, formerly known as St.

landscaping, she built it,” Millard said.

the shibusa style, evident in the display

Joseph’s Catholic Church, and the inspi-

“It’s all native plants that will take a lot of

room and Williams’ office. “We share

ration of Susie and Mark Kubiak.

water or a little. And we solved the storm

the same sense of design,” Watson

“It started with wanting to save the

water management in an ecological way.”

said, “abstract, simple, clean lines. Our

integrity of this corner,” said Susie. “We

The building is “green” inside,

art will show well together.”

wanted to restore the building as well as

too, with LED or LE fluorescent lights

But behind door No. 2, Watson’s per-

save the trees and preserve the park-like

throughout and a zoned heat and cool

sonal studio is forming, featuring dark

setting.” With the help of architect Bruce

system designed to maximize energy

purple, Moroccan décor accented by

Millard, landscape architect Karen Oleson

conservation.

canvas-covered walls, a creative solu-

and general contractor Jim Dustman, the

From Darigold to Shibusa, it’s a long step to

tion to what was once a walk-in cooler

Kubiaks have achieved their goal.

Kevin Watson’s vision. PHOTO COURTESY KEVIN WATSON

(the evaporators are still in place).

“It will look like an upscale wall tent,”

Watson said.

The building itself, built as a dairy

warehouse with loading docks, indus-

trial roll-up doors and three walk-in

coolers, is an architectural lump.

Cement block walls support two mas-

sive steel girders salvaged from a

railroad bridge holding up a flat roof. It

could have been designed as a jail.

Which begs the question, “Why this

building, Kevin?”

“I walked by this building on my way

to work for eight years,” he said, “and the

first time I saw it, I wanted it.” Now he’s

got it and is following his vision.

108

SANDPOINT MAGAZINE

SUMMER 2014

Wildflower Day Spa leases space from Chris

said, “is that it should feel like you’re

Sweating the details: Pine and

Hecht for its new location. PHOTOS BY DOUG FLUCKIGER

living in the country.”

Florence

The church itself has been restored

Chris Hecht, whose recycling project

A view to a school: Northside

to its original configuration. Gone with

is at the corner of Pine and Florence, has

School Bed and Breakfast

the Stations of the Cross and the stained

taken another lump of a structure - the

glass windows is the balcony that was

former school administration headquar-

Our last example of a building saved

added to the north end of the nave. At

ters and maintenance shop - and turned

is not in Sandpoint, but on a hill above

the other end, under the brick arch that

it into great architecture.

the Kootenai River in Bonners Ferry:

once rose above the chancel, is a stage

“One reason I bought such a head-

Northside School Bed and Breakfast. I

with professional-grade lighting, a back

ache,” he said, “was the grandfathered

hate to be prejudicial, but the old school

stage dressing room, side curtains and

wood shop.” Hecht has been teaching

transformed is my favorite. Gene and

a large stage front curving into a room

woodworking to Waldorf students for 15

Ruth Perry have created something new -

that will seat 170 theater style.

years. It used to be necessary for them to

and lovely - while holding on to the origi-

The arch and condition of the 1960s

travel to Garfield Bay for classes. “Now,

nal essence of the building that houses it.

add-on at the south end of the building

the kids can walk here.”

Ruth herself went to school in the

were the big challenges. A crack com-

The building is a mixed-use dream:

building, as did her father and aunt. Put

pletely through the arch required special

semi-industrial classroom; garden space;

into service 100 years ago in 1914, the

engineering to repair. Except for that,

living quarters; a sod roof that gathers

school taught generations of kids. In

Millard said, “the original 1908 part was

irrigation water to a cistern; and 1,000

1992, it became a private residence, but it

just fine. But anything added later, we

square feet of commercial space occupied

wasn’t until 2005, when the Perrys bought

had to do a major rebuild.”

by Wildflower Day Spa.

it, that true transformation began.

They have been successful. The for-

“I sweat details,” Hecht said, and they

Gene spent a career in California as

mer parish hall next door is turned into

are everywhere. He used doors saved

an architect. He was tasked with creat-

the Grove Room, meeting space with

from the Cedar Street Bridge, timbers left

ing what Ruth envisioned. “In my mind,”

lots of light from big windows and a

over from the bypass construction and

Ruth said, “I divided up the classrooms,”

small serving kitchen for catered events.

much metal siding, some salvaged, some

and where there were four big classrooms

The connection between buildings,

not. Hecht distressed new siding at the

and a principal’s office, now are a dining

street level simply because he didn’t want

room large enough to seat a full house;

and gives the impression of being out-

it to be reflective and distract drivers. One

nine themed rooms, each decorated dif-

side. In the real outside are touches that

of the most unique uses of salvaged mate-

ferently and each beautiful in its own

add beauty and functionality simultane-

rials hangs from the eaves: snow-stops

right; and the private suite the Perrys live

ously, like the rock slab “waterfall” that

made of old band saws. A genius mount-

in. Cloakrooms that divided the class-

slows runoff from the Grove Room roof

ing system, which Hecht came up with,

rooms are now hallways. Instead of three

and channels it into the landscape.

serves without penetrating the roof.

bathrooms (which were in the basement)

The project has taken over two

It cost thousands of dollars to bury the

there are 15.

years and included disheartening

power lines servicing the building, but “I

“We didn’t intend to create a B&B in

moments - like discovering the crack

didn’t ever want to see that over here,” he

Idaho,” said Ruth, “but we were looking

in the arch - but Susie Kubiak is

said, pointing across Pine at trees topped

for one to buy in California. We came

completely happy they have seen it

or oddly pruned to provide relief from

home to visit and saw this for sale, and

through to completion. “For a long

overhead lines.

said, ‘This would make a great bed and

time, I’ve wanted to restore an old

A building tour reveals it to be a

breakfast.’ ”

building,” she said. “That’s what

compilation of structures tied together

And it does, with preserved touches

towns should be doing instead of

by the metal theme and the idea of mul-

that hearken back to the building’s past:

building out, especially with their

tiple use, “new urbanism,” Hecht calls

bird’s-eye maple floors on the main level;

great architecture.”

it. “My thing about living in town,” he

vertical grain Douglas fir stair treads 14

SUMMER 2014

SANDPOINT MAGAZINE

109


PREVIOUS	RECYCLED BUILDINGS
	SANDPOINT M A G A Z I N E PAST. PRESENT. EVERYWHERE IN OUR LIVES Interview with Songwriter Charley Packard, In the Footsteps of Photographer Dorothea Lange, End of the Coldwater Creek Era, On the Pacific Northwest Trail, Artist Karen Robinson, Ethan’s Treehouse, Alpacas, Calendars, Dining, Real Estate ... and a trainload more & Recycled buildings Labors of love add up to good stewardship BY SANDY COMPTON oss Hall once climbed the J.C. Penney building at First and Cedar - now Snow River - and R made a picture of downtown Sandpoint. It was 1955 and (maybe) before a Fourth Inset, Sandpoint, as Ross Hall captured it in 1955, and the modern-day, reclaimed corner of Oak of July parade - there are no flags to and Sixth, above, featuring the Heartwood Center. PHOTO BY DOUG FLUCKIGER be seen. Nonetheless, Sandpoint’s entire population appears to be on the Kubiak turned the building into an art In the old CO-OP Farm Store at sidewalks. I find myself looking for fam- studio and a home for Sandpoint Arts the corner of Sixth and Church, once ily in the clumps of folks visiting in Alliance for a time. stocked with barbed wire, fence posts, front of businesses, a localized version East on Oak is Foster’s Crossing, a corral panels and watering troughs, of “Where’s Waldo?” Knowing Ross railroad warehouse rescued years ago Evans Brothers Coffee has found a Hall, maybe he invited his friends and by Dick and Betsy Foster and turned home. In the elevator east of Evans acquaintances - which was the populace into Sandpoint’s first antique mall. On Brothers, rolled oats, chicken scratch, of Sandpoint - to come stand around the east side of Fifth, Domino’s makes horse pellets, and bales of alfalfa once while he made a couple of exposures. pizza in the former Alpine Motors sales waited in dark, dusty rooms for a ride to “You can all go home now! Thanks.” room - which explains the big windows. the farm and farmers brought grain to be Comparing this picture to now, I find The attached Quonset-hut shop building stored and sifted into trucks or rail cars that nearly all the buildings are original, once contained Alpine’s service area but for a ride to market. Now, the Sandpoint but most of them have been repur- now houses an auto detailing shop. Climbing Gym occupies part of the posed. The only businesses on First Kitty-corner across Fifth, the Army building. But not the tall part. from earlier times are Larson’s Clothing Surplus Store was Sandpoint Ice and Continuing north along Sixth toward and the Panida Theater. If you look Fuel for decades, even after they quit the point of beginning, we come to a _ west on Cedar, the only survivors are selling ice. To the south, the Pie Hut cross-street dichotomy where two dispa- Connie’s Café and the Tam O’Shanter, occupies what were offices for Cenex rate buildings are being “saved,” one of E also known as the Tervan. CO-OP Gas and Supply, renamed the humble beginnings and the other with a Sandpoint has become a recycled city. CO-OP Country Store and moved to more glorious past. Ponderay in 1996. The CO-OP, where a kid could get lost in long aisles of every A recycled block Shibusa Studios: An architec- sort of hardware, smelled of new tires tural lump reborn In fact, the corner of Sixth and Oak and petroleum and occupied the space could be recycle central. Face north in that is now Marketplace Antiques. At the southeast corner - 525 Oak, that intersection and rotate clockwise. Bizarre Bazaar is in the former CO-OP an address a numerologist could love - You encounter first Redtail Gallery, Auto Center, where once tires were sold the nondescript red-and-gray cube that formerly the Episcopal Church. Mark and oil was changed. housed Darigold is being transformed SUMMER 2014 SANDPOINT MAGAZINE 107 R E Before and after: Pine and Florence. PHOTO ABOVE BY by artist Kevin Watson into Shibusa DOUG FLUCKIGER. PHOTO AT RIGHT, COURTESY CHRIS HECHT Studios. Shibusa is a Japanese aes- thetic featuring “an enriched, subdued appearance or experience of intrinsi- Saving the corner: The cally fine quality with economy of form, Heartwood Center line and effort.” Watson and his build- Oleson’s work outside is elegant and ing mate, interior designer, painter and Across the street from Shibusa is the effective. “Karen not only designed the sculptor Dion Williams, are enamored of Heartwood Center, formerly known as St. landscaping, she built it,” Millard said. the shibusa style, evident in the display Joseph’s Catholic Church, and the inspi- “It’s all native plants that will take a lot of room and Williams’ office. “We share ration of Susie and Mark Kubiak. water or a little. And we solved the storm the same sense of design,” Watson “It started with wanting to save the water management in an ecological way.” said, “abstract, simple, clean lines. Our integrity of this corner,” said Susie. “We The building is “green” inside, art will show well together.” wanted to restore the building as well as too, with LED or LE fluorescent lights But behind door No. 2, Watson’s per- save the trees and preserve the park-like throughout and a zoned heat and cool sonal studio is forming, featuring dark setting.” With the help of architect Bruce system designed to maximize energy purple, Moroccan décor accented by Millard, landscape architect Karen Oleson conservation. canvas-covered walls, a creative solu- and general contractor Jim Dustman, the From Darigold to Shibusa, it’s a long step to tion to what was once a walk-in cooler Kubiaks have achieved their goal. Kevin Watson’s vision. PHOTO COURTESY KEVIN WATSON (the evaporators are still in place). “It will look like an upscale wall tent,” Watson said. The building itself, built as a dairy warehouse with loading docks, indus- trial roll-up doors and three walk-in coolers, is an architectural lump. Cement block walls support two mas- sive steel girders salvaged from a railroad bridge holding up a flat roof. It could have been designed as a jail. Which begs the question, “Why this building, Kevin?” “I walked by this building on my way to work for eight years,” he said, “and the first time I saw it, I wanted it.” Now he’s got it and is following his vision. 108 SANDPOINT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2014 Wildflower Day Spa leases space from Chris said, “is that it should feel like you’re Sweating the details: Pine and Hecht for its new location. PHOTOS BY DOUG FLUCKIGER living in the country.” Florence The church itself has been restored Chris Hecht, whose recycling project A view to a school: Northside to its original configuration. Gone with is at the corner of Pine and Florence, has School Bed and Breakfast the Stations of the Cross and the stained taken another lump of a structure - the glass windows is the balcony that was former school administration headquar- Our last example of a building saved added to the north end of the nave. At ters and maintenance shop - and turned is not in Sandpoint, but on a hill above the other end, under the brick arch that it into great architecture. the Kootenai River in Bonners Ferry: once rose above the chancel, is a stage “One reason I bought such a head- Northside School Bed and Breakfast. I with professional-grade lighting, a back ache,” he said, “was the grandfathered hate to be prejudicial, but the old school stage dressing room, side curtains and wood shop.” Hecht has been teaching transformed is my favorite. Gene and a large stage front curving into a room woodworking to Waldorf students for 15 Ruth Perry have created something new - that will seat 170 theater style. years. It used to be necessary for them to and lovely - while holding on to the origi- The arch and condition of the 1960s travel to Garfield Bay for classes. “Now, nal essence of the building that houses it. add-on at the south end of the building the kids can walk here.” Ruth herself went to school in the were the big challenges. A crack com- The building is a mixed-use dream: building, as did her father and aunt. Put pletely through the arch required special semi-industrial classroom; garden space; into service 100 years ago in 1914, the engineering to repair. Except for that, living quarters; a sod roof that gathers school taught generations of kids. In Millard said, “the original 1908 part was irrigation water to a cistern; and 1,000 1992, it became a private residence, but it just fine. But anything added later, we square feet of commercial space occupied wasn’t until 2005, when the Perrys bought had to do a major rebuild.” by Wildflower Day Spa. it, that true transformation began. They have been successful. The for- “I sweat details,” Hecht said, and they Gene spent a career in California as mer parish hall next door is turned into are everywhere. He used doors saved an architect. He was tasked with creat- the Grove Room, meeting space with from the Cedar Street Bridge, timbers left ing what Ruth envisioned. “In my mind,” lots of light from big windows and a over from the bypass construction and Ruth said, “I divided up the classrooms,” small serving kitchen for catered events. much metal siding, some salvaged, some and where there were four big classrooms The connection between buildings, not. Hecht distressed new siding at the and a principal’s office, now are a dining designed by Millard, is graceful and airy street level simply because he didn’t want room large enough to seat a full house; and gives the impression of being out- it to be reflective and distract drivers. One nine themed rooms, each decorated dif- side. In the real outside are touches that of the most unique uses of salvaged mate- ferently and each beautiful in its own add beauty and functionality simultane- rials hangs from the eaves: snow-stops right; and the private suite the Perrys live ously, like the rock slab “waterfall” that made of old band saws. A genius mount- in. Cloakrooms that divided the class- slows runoff from the Grove Room roof ing system, which Hecht came up with, rooms are now hallways. Instead of three _ and channels it into the landscape. serves without penetrating the roof. bathrooms (which were in the basement) The project has taken over two It cost thousands of dollars to bury the there are 15. E years and included disheartening power lines servicing the building, but “I “We didn’t intend to create a B&B in moments - like discovering the crack didn’t ever want to see that over here,” he Idaho,” said Ruth, “but we were looking in the arch - but Susie Kubiak is said, pointing across Pine at trees topped for one to buy in California. We came completely happy they have seen it or oddly pruned to provide relief from home to visit and saw this for sale, and through to completion. “For a long overhead lines. said, ‘This would make a great bed and time, I’ve wanted to restore an old A building tour reveals it to be a breakfast.’ ” building,” she said. “That’s what compilation of structures tied together And it does, with preserved touches towns should be doing instead of by the metal theme and the idea of mul- that hearken back to the building’s past: building out, especially with their tiple use, “new urbanism,” Hecht calls bird’s-eye maple floors on the main level; great architecture.” it. “My thing about living in town,” he vertical grain Douglas fir stair treads 14 SUMMER 2014 SANDPOINT MAGAZINE 109