Family renovating former Gordonville saloon into home

Pulling the doorbell cord on the home at 875 Highway Z in Gordonville produces the mad clanging from a bell that once summoned students to class in the nearby town formerly called Fornfelt, now Scott City. The two front doors came from a Cape Girardeau bank. Inside, the thermometer on the wall once hung in the Eggimann Feed Store in Cape Girardeau. The railing on the stairs to the second-floor living quarters belonged to a Baptist church in Jackson. The bedroom doors upstairs were salvaged before the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Cape Girardeau was razed.

One of the tables in the kitchen originally served patrons of the now-defunct Mule Lip Saloon in Cape Girardeau.

"It's everything from every place," said Les Lindy Jr.

He and his wife, Helen, and their teenage daughters, Sylvia and Sara, have lived here for nine years. Back when they bought it, the two-story building was a leaky-roofed fright.

"Birds could fly through the place," said Helen.

The wiring was antiquated and the building had no plumbing. The family had an outhouse at first. They found dead animals in the ceiling. But the foot-and-a-half-thick yellow and white poplar support beams in the basement and the foundation were solid. A friend computed that there are 888,000 bricks in the building, and they're all holding up.

Les's detailed descriptions of removing ceiling joists, propping up the front of the building with a telephone pole, replacing the stairwell and trap door that led to the second floor with a real staircase, and the innumerable other projects required to make the building usable hint at the sweat and dollars that have been poured in by the Lindy family, who tick off the names of many friends who have helped out.

Another project awaits around every corner. "It's a money pit," Les said, not seeming to mind.

The Siemers Building is named for the original owner, George Frederick Siemers, who built it in 1899 to house a saloon before he became the county recorder and treasurer. The second-story facade sports pilasters, decorative columns that project from the wall.

Neighbors who are longtime Gordonville residents provided the Lindys with information about the building's history. They say racy burlesque shows were presented on a stage that once ran across the back of the big room on the main floor.

Through the years the building also has been home to a furrier, the Gordonville Fire Department, a bank, a post office, a barbershop and a radio repair shop.

'There's an entity'

Fifteen-year-old Sylvia was afraid to go downstairs by herself when they first moved in, certain they were sharing the building with ghosts from all that history. Les thinks she's right. "There's an entity," he said.

Sylvia still has 13-year-old Sara accompany her whenever she needs to go downstairs at night.

The Lindys bought the building so they could put in the antique store Leslie operated for five years. He has a background in construction, but renovation work was new for Helen, a painter at Southeast Missouri State University. "I asked him, 'Can we do this?'" she said. But she didn't balk.

Helen tuck-pointed one of the living room walls and spent a whole summer building a stone wall around her garden in the back yard.

Now Les is turning the first floor with its 14-foot ceiling into a play room that already has air hockey and foosball tables and that eventually will be equipped with a bar and a stage. Les is a musician who plans to use the space for rehearsals and private parties.

A Bunny Bread sign, a pair of pants with a 62-inch waist and a size 10X shirt, a collection of meat saws and a Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus poster are among the hundreds of items mounted on walls throughout the building, all from Les's antique dealer days. Many cabinets upstairs are jammed with collectibles.

"Nothing is junk," he said.

The basement lodges 44 pedestal sinks Les bought from the historic Marquette Hotel in Cape Girardeau before renovators went to work on that building.

At one time, a front porch swing hung in the living room.

Sylvia's friends marvel at everything there is to look at in the house. "They go, 'Wow, there's a lot of stuff,'" she said.

Sara's friends at first thought the 5,500-square-foot building she lives in was an apartment building.

"They think it's cool that I live in such a big house," she said.

The Lindys don't plan to see the day when the renovation will be complete. "It'll never be done unless we win the lottery," said Les.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182