Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Justin and Lindsay Brown, owners of the St. Elmo’s building in Palouse, appeared before the city council Feb. 12 to discuss plans for the 1888 former hotel on Main Street.
The Browns bought the building last year with plans to refurbish it.
At the meeting, they told the city council, representatives of the Palouse Chamber of Commerce and an estimated 20 more residents, that the project is too big.
Last summer, they hired workers to strip out plaster surfaces on the inside.
“The more they stripped out, the more structural deficiencies he began to find,” said Michael Echanove, Palouse mayor.
Justin Brown said he does not have the money to address the building’s problems.
His options now are to sell it, tear it down or leave it for the time being.
“He’s the owner. He can tear it down anytime he wants. He doesn’t need to ask anyone. But he’s a very community-minded person,” Echanove told the Gazette this week.
Echanove is waiting to hear back from the Washington Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation.
An 1888 former railroad-boom hotel, St. Elmo’s Inn was built on metal pilings which were pounded into the ground by a steam machine. The original hotel’s bar remained open into the 1980s.
“I’m advocating learning more,” Echanove said, suggesting the possibility of preservation grants.
Last January, Seth Anawalt of Pullman sold the building to the Browns for $185,000.
The couple also own Osage Woodworking, the Moscow-based company which opened a Palouse showroom in 2017 in a street-level corner of St. Elmo’s .
Anawalt bought the property in 2011.
Brown and wife Lindsay moved to Moscow eight years ago after she was hired as Director of Sports Nutrition at WSU.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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