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Mellen Hotel being restored
When asked about his recent purchase of the Mellen Hotel on the corner of East Second and East Jackson Streets, San Diego businessman Larry Rogers said, "To tell you the truth, the real reason I bought the building was to take down those ugly awnings and simply make the place look nicer."
"I have some really fond memories growing up in Mountain Home and that building was the hub of the entire downtown back then," said Mellen, who graduated from MHHS in 1962.
"I went to school here from first grade until I graduated and everyday I would walk by the hotel," he continued. "It was the place to be when I was a boy."
"When I visited here a couple month's ago, I thought to myself, 'Why can't it be again?'"
Rogers, whose parents built and maintained The Highlander Hotel in the late 1950s and early 1960s, said property management has always been a part of his family.
"My family stopped operating that hotel right around the same time this place (Mellen Hotel) shut its doors for the final time," he said.
Rogers purchased the hotel in May and has been using all of his free time to work on restoring the 114-year-old structure.
"It is a very long process because so much of the original fixtures are still in place," said Rogers. "I'm talking original plumbing, wiring and the enormous furnace in the basement too."
"All from 1892."
That was the year W. J. Turner constructed the original Turner House in the tiny, rural community of Mountain Home.
A sign out front says the bricks used for the outside of the building were even made locally in Turner's Brickyard.
The sign also explains that the building was purchased by Thomas Mellen and the name changed to the Mellen Hotel in 1913.
"For the next 50 years, the Mellens and their family took great care to maintain the building," said Rogers. "I can name you all the different businesses that occupied the space downstairs too."
Right now, Rogers' building leases space to several businesses, including House of Flowers, a shop that has been operating out of the first floor of the building for more than 20 years.
"I have four tenants downstairs who lease space," he said. "Which is nice because their rent covers all the utility bills and property taxes for the entire building."
"That frees up a lot of money to sink into restoring the rest of the hotel."
A hotel, however, is something Rogers said the upper area of the building will never be again.
"We aren't trying to remake it into some kind of a working hotel," Rogers explained. "What I'd really like to do is fix up the area that used to be hotel rooms and turn them into offices."
According to Rogers and his sister, long-time Mountain Home resident Cheryl Barker, one person has already contacted him about leasing space for an art studio.
"Hopefully once we get everything restored, we can find a few small businesses that want to lease space upstairs," said Barker, who will oversee management of the building until Rogers relocates to Mountain Home permanently.
Currently, Rogers owns a dirt removal and transportation business in San Diego but he said this project is something he is looking forward to working on throughout his retirement.
"It is definitely a lot of work," he said. "But I knew I would come back here someday and do what I could to help the community."
"Restoring this building is my way of doing that."
The upper floors of the building, which were used by tenants at some point to raise pigeons, are in need of complete restoration as much of the flooring and walls were covered with pigeon excrement and feathers when Rogers first began working on the project.
"You should have seen how much bird poop there was," Rogers said. "Someone even made little, tiny doors and windows that the pigeons could fly in and out of."
"Someone had quite a little operation going on here."
And although much of the original woodwork and piping will have to be replaced, Rogers said he will try to keep as much from the original building as possible.
"The grand staircase is something that will definitely be staying," he said. "I've never seen another one like it and once we clean it up, it should look as spectacular as it used to."
Rogers also added that the laundry room, which is lighted from the top by a natural skylight, was another section from the hotel that he would like to preserve.
However, a 19th Century furnace that sits in the basement is probably something that will not be able to be saved, said Rogers.
"That furnace and the old coal room in the basement are basically in the same state as they were 100 years ago," he said. "It will be hard to restore those."
Rogers said that he and Barker still had a lot of cleaning and restoration to do before the building started looking like he wants it to.
"Still, if I could get these rooms wired and plumbed (which he had scheduled to do sometime this week), I could rent 10 offices right now," he said. "We are open to anyone who wants to come in and take a look at what we've done and our lease rates are pretty good for the space available, too."
Space is something the building has, as it is easily the tallest building in the downtown area. Several floors of windows look out over what used to be the only major highway in Southern Idaho, State Highway 30.
"I had planned on plunking away on this project for several years but I had to get those awnings taken care of first," Rogers said. "Once I did that, I began concentrating on the inside of the building."
Rogers said the restoration of the new Turner House, which he is renaming the building in honor of the original owners, is constantly a work in progress but urged community members to drop by and see how far they've come.
"This is my new passion," he said. "I want to help make this area booming again, like it was when I was a kid."
"Honestly, if I had more money to throw away, I'd buy more property downtown and do the same thing to it."