Renovation for Preservation

Perry White has translated his love of Red Oak into a project to save part of its downtown heritage. 

The owner of the double-front building at 416 and 418 E. Coolbaugh St. has poured himself into renovations that will offer people a place to live and work for decades to come, and put a new face on it that matches the community’s Victorian theme.

 

Out of necessity

White’s venture began about eight years ago, basically out of necessity.

“My main intention in buying this building was saving it. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but I had the building next door (the Masonic Lodge) and they share a wall and the wall was leaking water. I couldn’t get that building to quit leaking water until I repaired the roof on this one.”

White managed to acquire the building from the previous owner and “ended up buying it pretty cheap.”

His “new” property came with history.

“It was originally built as the first office in Red Oak,” White said of the building a half block southeast of Fountain Square. “There have been several different entities that have been in there since.”

The building is divided down the middle, with 416 Coolbaugh on the west side and 418 Coolbaugh on the east. 

“Everything on the west half is a mirror image of the west half. The apartments upstairs are identical, too. The stairway on one side is 6 inches narrower than the other side. One of the bedrooms is 6 inches narrower than the one on the other side because of that. That’s the only difference in the whole building.”

Things are no longer as they were when he began renovating it.

He made the initial roof repairs to stabilize the water problem. 

“It had an A-frame roof on it. I took that off and put a flat roof back on with a rubber membrane,” he explained.

It was a couple of years before he started the rest of the project.

 “I had another building here in town over by the post office. I got it finished first, and then I started on this one. I worked on this one about three years.”

The work was extensive.

“The whole building has been totally gutted,” White explained. “We had to put a whole new back wall in because it was falling out. We dug it down to the footings and put a new (insulated concrete form) ICF wall in the back. So the whole thing is ICF from footings to eaves. The wall is about 11 ½ inches wide, so it’s really stable.”

On the interior, an original feature wasn’t salvageable.

“It had a neat skylight in the middle of it. But the skylight engineering was not too good, I don’t think. It was kind of in a shaft and the glass in it was clear down to the first floor. The people in the upstairs could look out the windows that looked into that skylight and they could see it snowing into that skylight. But it also rained a lot into that skylight and that rain didn’t have enough places to go. It didn’t have a big enough gutter to take the water away, and so I think that skylight leaked probably ever since it was new. So I had to take that out.”

The apartments have been remodeled, and they are occupied. Each has its own new heat pump. Also, the two sides of the lower level have their own new heat pumps. 

“Everything is up to code,” he explained. It’s got a new central fire alarm system.”

The lower level remains open to the studs. White said he didn’t want to finish it more than that so a buyer has options to finish one side, or both sides, into the form he or she wants without having to remove walls. “It can be finished to suit the type of business that goes into it,” he said.

 

Facelift

White said he did much of the work himself. He had him setting the new trusses under the second floor and hired others to finish the sheet rock. And, he had help with the most noticeable part of the building – painting the front.

“We tried to preserve the looks of the front to the way it was. It was originally only painted one color. It was a sand color. I don’t think ever had second coat of pain on the second floor since it was new. 

“We hired a company out of Lincoln, Neb., to bead blast it. They used glass – pulverized beer bottles is what he said it was – and they mixed that with water and about 60 pounds of pressure. It took all of that old paint off there and dumped everything onto the ground in piles, and we just swept it up while it was still wet. It takes away all the lead-based paint problems when you do it when it’s wet.

“Then we painted the whole front. I put a primer on it, then sprayed two coats of top coat – red – and then we went back and filled in all the details by hand. “Actually, I can’t take much credit for that front paint scheme because Ann Iverson – she used to be a school teacher and also owns one of the painted ladies up on Broad Street – she has a knack for colors, and she’s into Victorian. She came down and told me what colors it needed to be. I took the colors and I tweaked them a bit to the colors I wanted and the ones I wanted, and that’s how we did it. She was also up on the lift with me – she helped me paint it. She showed me how to paint all those details. She was up there for a week maybe. Not all day long, but she was up there helping for a week. She rode that lift clear the top.”

Other help came in the form of grants, including a Downtown Urban Renewal grant for the façade from the city of Red Oak. “It was a pretty substantial amount,” he said.

He hopes others will see the project and consider doing one, too.

“I guess what I like about Red Oak is that it has the fountain square. It has the Victorian theme.  There’s only one other place in the United States that I’ve found that has a Victorian theme and instead of having a big courthouse in the middle of the square it has a fountain. It makes the whole thing open and makes it a nice place for people to enjoy. I would like to see more of the buildings around the square put back to the way they used to look like and preserve that part of the heritage.” 

 

Open house

The building renovated, it’s now for sale, and there will be an open house Sunday, June 12, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The property is listed for sale with Dan Bullington Real Estate in Red Oak. White said he may not get his money out of the project, but more than part of the reason he took it on was his love of the community.

“I’ve lived in Red Oak since 1973. We raised our family here, and we had a good life here,” said White, who delivered UPS packages for 34 years before retiring. The town has been home for his wife, Sara, and their children, daughter Dani, who works in the cardiac rehab center at Creighton Health Initiatives, and son Jesse who is a tech teacher in Charles City. White grins widely when talking about his four grandchildren and a family gathering at their home in Red Oak that included those generations as well as his siblings. 

“Charlie Wilson once said ‘Red Oak was good to me and now I want to give back to Red Oak.’ So, I want to leave it a better place than I found it,” White said. “I just wanted to preserve a piece of Red Oak.”

 

The double front building at 416-418 E. Coolbaugh St. in downtown Red Oak has been called home by businesses throughout the years. Perry White was able to come up with this list:

416 E. Coolbaugh:

- L.F. Nelson Groceries

- Bon Ton Dry Cleaning Co.

418 E. Coolbaugh:

- Miss Lillian Stover Beauty Parlor

- O.W. Sandell Shoes

- Anderson & Butler Grocery

- Butler Grocery

 

 

The Red Oak Express

2012 Commerce Drive
P.O. Box 377
Red Oak, IA 51566
Phone: 712-623-2566 Fax: 712-623-2568

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