Meetings of the Spearfish Area Historical Society are the first Tuesday of every month, September through May, at the Spearfish Senior Citizens Center. Sessions begin at 7:30 p.m.

March 2010 Program
VINTAGE HOUSE REBORN

For people tired of old man winter and wanting change, this was an uplifting presentation. It really was about change -- a metamorphosis, in fact -- for a two-story frame home in Spearfish.

The house is located at 717 East Grant Street.

This was an excellent presentation that offered three key elements: a nifty slide presentation showing the long process of remodeling and adding on to a century-old home; a table display of artifacts that were uncovered during work on the home; and inter-action with the audience during and following the presentation.

The home is owned by Arnie and Zana Hartman. Zana, who has a background in interior decorating and design, opened the program with a brief overview of the project. A native of Sioux Falls, Zana (shown here) and her husband met in Alaska, and that's where they lived for some 28 years. But they returned to the "lower 48" to pursue a dream -- remodeling an old home to Zana's specifications.

Here, Zana shows an old hand-drawn, illustrated map of the town of Spearfish. It appears to provide additional evidence that their house -- now at 717 East Grant -- existed on 8th Street in 1885 when the illustration was created.

The man who served as general contractor for the project was Joel Darling, who came from Salt Lake City about 10 years ago. He works for West River Masonry, but has also done considerable other work in construction and remodeling.

Joel provided a detailed description of the process for renovating the house, starting with the early discovery that there were no footings to the foundation.

"It started out as a basic remodel job, but it ended up snowballing on us...we really worked hard to preserve the character of the old structure," said Darling.

The house itself was once located in the parking lot of what is now the Fidler-Isburg Funeral Chapel near downtown Spearfish. Many in the audience remembered the house at that location. Nadine Fidler noted that the home was owned for many years by Earl and Ruth Simon.

Sometime in the 1970s, the house was re-located to its present site at 717 East Grant Street. Early on, it was decided that the remodeling and renovation would include excavation for a basement, and this is a photograph of early work on that aspect of the renovation. Forms for the new foundation footings can be seen in the foreground

By the way, most of these photos were provided by Zana Hartman, and we understand that a neighbor also contributed to the collection. Our thanks for their sharing them for this site.

It's easy to see the massive scope of this project when you see the great pains taken to ensure a safe and solid structure. Here, preparations were being made to eventually move the house on to the basement. Of course, lots needed to be done before that could happen!

Eventually, the foundation was in place, the blocks were set, and the house finally began to nest on its former perch.

Don't forget that you can get a closer look by clicking on the photo and selecting a larger size image from the menu at the top of the page.

Owner Arnie Hartman takes a breather. You can see Hartman's previous home (2000-2008) in the background (it's the two-story house behind the pickup). They remodeled that old "Sears & Roebuck" house, too. It was once owned by Homestake Mining Company.

After the house was put back on the new foundation, interior work began in earnest. Removal of wallpaper, plaster, lathes -- everything down to studs -- provided some surprises. They found all kinds of old artifacts: books, newspapers, square nails, bottles, and even human hair. Particularly memorable for Joel Darling was the "Paris Green" incident.

Darling said they were tearing out the ceiling of the old bathroom, when a large chunk of plaster fell and -- instead of normal gray dust -- a huge plume of eerie green dust filled the room. "We knew that wasn't normal, and we hightailed it out of there."

They then found a cannister of highly toxic "Paris Green," which was used throughout much of the 19th century as a pigment in paint and wallpaper.

"It was 95 percent arsenic. Naturally, we were kind of anxious to know if we were going to live to see another day."

The booklet shown here, from the 1880s, described the availability of "galvanic medicine shields and aids." It was one of numerous historic publications tucked away in the walls and ceilings of the old home.