Trading in timeless treasures: Colfax entrepreneurs revive old buildings & rescue vintage goods
Jun. 18—COLFAX — Bright sunshine streamed through the windows of a three-story, turret-shaped tower at Colfax's St. Ignatius Hospital, a place believed by many to be inhabited by ghosts.
Up a staircase, natural light filled a rectangular room with windows on three sides that looked out over a wildflower-speckled, green hillside with a stone staircase.
The hallway floors leading to the rooms were constructed from a mix of concrete and colorful rocks, buffed by decades of being brushed by the hems of nuns' habits.
Outside, voices of children playing mix with bird song and a breeze rustling leaves.
Completed in 1892, the five-story, 40,000-square-foot former hospital on a 4 1/2 -acre lot with its affiliated and also defunct nursing school and steam plant belongs to Austin and Laura Storm of Colfax.
Motivated by its rich history and architecture, the Storms are in the early stages of restoring the property into what they anticipate could be a hotel with a restaurant, event center and artists' studios.
Ghost and photo tours, as well as tax-deductible donations through a partnership with the Whitman County Historical Society are financing the work.
"We're going at the speed we're able to bring the money in," Laura said. "We're not doing anything crazy."
Reviving St. Ignatius is the most ambitious project yet of a husband and wife known for their bold style, mixing modern and vintage elements.
The economic upheaval of the Great Recession turned them into entrepreneurs who are playing an important role in the bustling downtowns of Moscow and Colfax.
Their first business, a store named Storm Cellar, opened in 2009. It began as a carefully curated secondhand, men's and women's clothing store on Main Street in Moscow and has since added deeply-discounted, name-brand garments to the mix.
In 2017, they introduced Bully For You, a similar retailer with clothing, furniture and home decor that's now in a three-level storefront on Colfax's Main Street. Both ventures are thriving.
Haunting beauty
The long-neglected hospital edifice became one of their holdings in 2021, an extension of their work of finding the value and beauty in things others might relegate to waste.
"I think we're drawn to the romance of the way things were," Laura said.
Their stance on ghost sightings at the hospital is nuanced. They haven't had any encounters and believe what many experience is linked largely to the time after the hospital left. The building served as a nursing home for adults with developmental disabilities and later as a low-income apartment complex.
"So many people have had paranormal experiences, I cannot possibly dismiss that," Austin said.
The Storms do sense a "soul ache" from the period from 1893 to 1968 when the building was a hospital where moms gave birth and patients healed from injuries and illnesses, Laura said.
"You feel the echoes of what once was and there's a sense of grief in that," she said.
What individuals experience at St. Ignatius depends largely on their backgrounds, they say.
For architects, it's one of the about 29 hospitals and schools in the Northwest designed by Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, in a 24-year period before she succumbed to cancer.
Joseph would jump up and down on beams when they were delivered for her buildings and reject them if they had too much give. The Storms credit her for constructing St. Ignatius so solidly it has survived massive neglect and an internal flood about 20 years ago when the pipes burst one winter.
Her work, which also included Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, earned her the honor of being one of two people represented by the state of Washington in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C.
"She was, by all accounts, a force to be reckoned with," Laura said.
For physicians and nurses, it's a building that once housed a hospital known for innovative practices, reflected in what others might mistakenly think are only decorative features.
The design of the curved, turret tower, for example, had a utilitarian purpose. Before electricity, the three operating rooms it housed provided physicians the maximum possible amount of light while they were doing surgeries.
The rectangular room with the view gave highly contagious tuberculosis patients an opportunity to bask in sunlight and breathe fresh air without unnecessarily exposing patients or staff to the often fatal illness.
The floors were constructed to be sturdy and easy to clean, which helped prevent the spread of germs.
For many natives of Whitman County, St. Ignatius is where they took their first breath. Until Pullman's hospital opened, the Storms believe, St. Ignatius had the only maternity ward in Whitman County.
And for others, it's a place where they seek a connection with people no longer on this earth, especially in the former nuns' quarters on the fifth floor. Religious pictures are painted on the walls of the rooms, which are reached by a narrow, navy blue staircase decorated with fleur-de-lis.
Much to do
For all those reasons, the Storms want to save St. Ignatius in a process they describe as playing the deferred maintenance version of whack-a-mole. They've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars so far and expect it will take millions more before it's complete.
One priority was removing, recycling and tossing dozens of truckloads of possessions of former residents, such as moldy suitcases, broken furniture and household appliances that were beyond repair.
Another was repairing the roof, something that wasn't possible until each of the four floors underneath it had been stabilized. The second story had to be raised 18 inches. Every engineer they consulted had different advice.
"It's exciting to see everything drooping be righted again," Laura said.
They still have a long way to go. One section of the building has a hole that extends four stories.
Peeling paint, rotting lath and plaster are visible from almost every vantage point of the building, which has the feeling of a time capsule assembled in different eras.
A mannequin's hand extends from an interior wall near the entrance. The Storms give it a high five after productive days of restoration. Dusty wheelchairs upholstered in brown-orange faux leather are parked vacant in halls.
Curtains with a green floral pattern on a white background frame a window a few feet from a bare metal bed frame with hand cranks at the base. A mural with an orange sun, rainbow and blue clouds seems as if it could be from the 1970s.
Old charm, new life
The Storms are plotting next steps such as figuring out where electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems will go in concepts so preliminary they aren't ready for investors.
"I have faith it will happen, but it will be on a timetable known only to God," Austin said.
Their work at St. Ignatius builds on skills they developed in other ventures starting in 2009 with the Storm Cellar.
They already were considering a second-hand shop with an atmosphere inspired by the Anthropologie chain that would help college students and others on budgets afford fashionable clothing. Then he lost a job in information technology during the Great Recession.
In that economic climate, an owner of a former restaurant space in Moscow agreed to let them have a yearlong lease, vastly shorter than common practice.
The original inventory was comprised largely of garments contributed on consignment by friends of the couple, many of whom were moving after finishing college. They have since shifted to giving cash or credit for clothing.
Laura kept her job formatting books as a financial buffer, and they promised each other they would assess the store's performance in one year to decide if it was worth continuing.
At the annual evaluation, it was so successful they chose to move and expand to the present site at 504 Main St., located on a lot adjacent to the Moscow Food Co-op, one of the biggest draws in Moscow's downtown commercial district.
The store's performance has consistently gotten stronger. The Storm Cellar brand is so distinct, that when Caleb Warner, a former Storm Cellar manager, and his wife, Lydia Warner, chose to open a business in downtown Lewiston this year, they entered a licensing agreement with the Storms. The arrangement allows the Warners to use the Storm Cellar name.
Bully For You expands on the concept of the Storm Cellar, carrying new and previously used clothing with the addition of home decor, something Austin admits to resisting at first because he didn't want to have to move around heavy furniture.
"Our stores have the same spirit, which is finding undervalued used things and giving them new life," Austin said. "We love the possibilities of secondhand to inspire self-expression through a richer, more layered aesthetic than you might get if you only shop what is currently available new."
Colfax made a good place to grow because of its relatively inexpensive property prices and the 10,000 motorists that pass through the town of 2,400 residents each day heading to Washington State University, Spokane and Seattle, Laura said.
Bully For You occupies a building that might have gone vacant had the Storms not identified a purpose for it.
They hope Bully For You and their revival of St. Ignatius helps Colfax lose its distinction as one of eastern Washington's most renowned speed traps in favor of a reputation as a destination to dine, shop and recreate.
"Colfax is really cute and it has tons of potential," Laura said.
Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
