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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 2020)
Enterprise, Oregon Wallowa.com 134th Year, No. 44 Wednesday, February 12, 2020 Bill Bradshaw The iconic, century-old Edelweiss Inn at Wallowa Lake Village is no longer able to be used for events such as the Oregon Alpenfest. The building is in need of a major restoration and its owners believe would cost far too much money. Edelweiss Inn’s future looking bleak Bill Bradshaw Students disembark their bus while teachers and staff direct them on which way to go Monday, Feb. 10, at Joseph Charter School. Monday was the fi rst day the K-4 students returned to the Joseph campus after a Jan. 16 fi re at the school and spending several weeks in makeshift classrooms at the Wallowa County Professional Building in Enterprise. BACK TO SCHOOL Joseph K-4 students return to campus Cleaning, painting will make other classrooms available By Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain JOSEPH — The kindergarten through fourth-grade students dis- placed from their classrooms after the Jan. 16 fi re will return to the Joseph Charter School campus Monday, Feb. 10. The students have been hold- ing classes in space rented at the Wallowa County Professional Building in Enterprise occupied by the Wallowa County Educa- tion Service District and Viridian Management. Lance Homan, K-4 principal and district superintendent, said the students and teachers have done well in the borrowed space. “It’s been a great space for what we needed,” he said. The ESD and Viridian have been very welcoming.” Lance Homan, through a school bulletin to parents, noted on Sunday that the staff at Joseph Charter School has worked hard over the weekend to set class- rooms back up, put some fi nishing Bill Bradshaw Teacher aide Melissa Hoff man rounds up grade school students Monday, Feb. 10, after they got off the bus and prior to leading them on a roundabout way to their freshly cleaned classrooms. Monday was the fi rst day the K-4 students returned to the Joseph campus after a Jan. 16 fi re at the school and spending several weeks in makeshift classrooms at the Wallowa County Professional Building in Enterprise. touches on some cleaning, and get schedules worked out for the rest of the year. “We have completed air qual- ity tests over the weekend and the air is clean. We will continue to test as a precautionary measure,” he said. Homan also noted that the school will be utilizing a fi re watch each day that students are in school because the fi re alarm sys- tem that the school thought could be fi xed cannot. “These watches will be frequent and logged,” he said. “We have been working hand and hand with the fi re mar- shal with this.” LITCH BUILDING HEALS FROM THE INSIDE OUT By Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain The Litch Building is a tall and once-stately pres- ence, built in 1903, on the south-west corner of River Street and West Main Street in Enterprise. Today, some might describe it as an eyesore, but the Bowlby Stone exterior, and its long history, lend an air of dignity to the building. McKee Brothers Invest- ments (Todd and Andy McKee), bought the nearly 20,000-square-foot build- ing in June of 2017 for about $170,000, and many hoped the renovation would brighten up the look of West Main — particularly those with Main Street businesses. McKee decided to buy the building after viewing it from the upstairs of the Burnbaugh Building, just north and across River Street from the Litch Building. “You could see its once glory, that it was once an amazing building in down- town Enterprise, and I just wanted to fi x it,” he said. See Litch , Page A7 See School, Page A7 Cost too high to restore century-old building at lake By Bill Bradshaw Wallowa County Chieftain WALLOWA LAKE VIL- LAGE —People in Wallowa County have long hoped that the iconic Edelweiss Inn at Wallowa Lake could be restored. But it’s looking less and less like such a mir- acle will occur. “The cost is what’s mak- ing that thing impossible to restore. It would be a virtual rebuild,” co-owner Mike Lockhart said. “It would be a fairly major job.” He said work is needed on the century-old build- ing’s foundation, roof, fl oor- ing and nearly everything in between. Lockhart and co-owner Bill Whittemore even looked into grants offered by the Oregon State Historic Preservation Offi ce for work on historic properties and archaeology projects. The annual Preserving Oregon grants provide up to $20,000 in matching funds. But they require that build- ings be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Such a listing would be too restrictive for the partners’ liking, Lockhart said. Ten years ago, Lock- hart and Whittemore had a construction company look at fully restoring the Edel- weiss. The estimated cost was around $1.5 million. “There just isn’t enough business to fund that kind of development of the build- ing,” Lockhart said. “We’d need a lump sum of $3 mil- lion to re-do that building.” “I can’t say we would turn down a very large grant, but that’s what it would take,” he said. He and Whittemore have owned the Edelweiss and the adjacent Wallowa Lake Tramway since 1984, along with the 14 acres they’re sit- uated upon. Lockhart and Whittemore have considered other alter- natives that they can’t dis- cuss right now, but will know more sometime next month. They’ve been working with possible partners in the proj- ect for a couple of years. One possibility is to dis- mantle the current Edelweiss and use its unique materials in something smaller. “We’d like to take lot of the materials in that build- ing to build something like a replica,” he said. ‘I CAN’T SAY WE WOULD TURN DOWN A VERY LARGE GRANT, BUT THAT’S WHAT IT WOULD TAKE.’ Co-owner Mike Lockhart Chuck Anderson, alpen- meister of the annual Ore- gon Alpenfest looks favor- ably on the idea of a new venue that includes at least some historic vestiges of the old building. Until last fall the Alpenfest had taken place in the Edelweiss, and on it grounds. The Oregon State Parks Department has a revised comprehensive plan that calls for a new event center to be built on part of the Wal- lowa Lake Marina parking lot, where the 2019 Alpen- fest was held under rented tents. But it just won’t be the same, Anderson said Anderson and Lockhart agreed there’s a need for an events center at the lake such as the Edelweiss has been. In addition to the Alpenfest, it’s also served as a venue for weddings, meetings and a variety of gatherings. See Edelweiss , Page A7 These fi ve steel posts were recently installed in the Litch Building in Enterprise to stabilize a sagging second fl oor. Building owner, Andy McKee, said the destabilized fl oor could have possibly collapsed and caused injury. Courtesy photo
