It Started with the Professional Building.
On the Square, a block from the Country Place Hotel, past what was John Cufr’s Store and is now the Fayetteville Museum, is the building we call the Professional Building. Clovis and I bought it in the late 1980’s, and I converted the upstairs into my stained glass studio.
Professional Building stained glass studio pictures go here.
The upstairs had been used for storage, and was very dark. We replaced the metal roof panels with fiberglass skylights, and that was very successful. (Later, Dick Bour took over the space for his stained glass studio, and built a number of windows for our architectural clients., before he moved across the Square to the Onken’s Store building, where John has his ACM Logistics office today).
Next door to the Professional Building was a little white house, where for years we would see an elderly couple sitting on the front porch, smiling and waving to anyone who walked by and greeted them. Then, one day, we saw that the house was being rented. The renter was using the wood stove, in a way that made us worried about fire safety. If that little white house were ever to catch on fire, the Professional Building would be at risk. We did not want to take that chance. So, when the little white house was vacant again, we bought it.
When we bought this little white house, which Sherman would always call “the Casita”, the parcel we purchased from the Spaceks extended all the way to the corner. We subdivided the property, with the intent of moving a house onto the lot next door to the Casita. Clovis found an old house in the country that was being used as pig sty. We bought the house and had it moved onto the lot on the corner. It later became Clovis’s art studio and also our guest house, but at that time our idea was that we could sell it.
PICTURE OF HOUSE BEING MOVED GOES HERE.
There was a man who wanted a house on the Square, and we sold it to him. He wanted to run a boot and shoe repair shop, and his wife wanted a New Mexico craft shop, but then something changed and they didn’t want to use it for a shop. They simply moved out, and the wife said she didn’t want it anymore. She didn’t want her husband either — and that took care of that. The husband asked if we would buy it back from him, and we did.
We wanted to rent the Casita to someone who would appreciate this little house on the Square. A woman answered the listing, and she rented it, but she never actually moved in. Well she moved in all her furniture, like Trunks and stuff, and boxes, but she herself never moved in.
And so she just left all her stuff sitting there and I couldn’t do anything with the property because it was full of her things. Finally I called her family — I called everybody I knew, who might be related to her. She said she couldn’t do anything for work so then she did not have the money to pay rent. I wanted to go through the steps for her to be legally evicted and whatever paper I had I have no idea so they had to come get her stuff because otherwise you can throw it all in the trash again so then after that what happened after that it was just sitting there empty. Clovis used it a little bit for painting and we used it kind of as a guest house for family to come stay, when the guest rooms at the farm were full. We had not plans to move into the Casita, because we were living in Austin and at the farm, going back and forth.
A woman named Jane approached us, who wanted to open a flower shop. We rented it to her, and she created “Jane’s Joy.” It was very successful.
Fayetteville – Casita – In 2008 we rented the building for use as a florist – Jane’s Flower Shop, which she called “Jane’s Joy” When we sold the farm and moved into the casita, Jane closed her flower shop. She still lives in the area, and when they have events in the square she brings a bunch of plants and she sells them.
The Decision to move from the country into town, to live on the Square fulltime
We were driving back and forth between Austin and Fayetteville every week for a number of years. Gradually Clovis was transitioning leadership of the firm to Ben, but Clovis remained the lead designer. I had been assisting with stained glass and liturgical interiors and helping with administrative tasks.
Running the hotel, keeping track of all the reservations, was becoming more of a focus for me. We had hired a young woman who was handling all of that, but things changed, and it made sense for me to take care of it myself. I had two big three-ring binders I kept with me all the time, to manage the reservations. At one point I was carrying two iPhones, one for the office and one for the hotel. When I answered a call I had to remember how to answer the phone.
Picture of Maryann with the Country Place Hotel reservation binders and talking on the phone to a hotel guest
As Clovis and I reduced the number of days we spent in Austin each week, we invested in technology at the farm to be able to work from the second floor of the barn – it was now air-conditioned – and we could transfer work from our computers back and forth to the office in Austin using the Internet – something new.
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And on weekends we were caring for hotel guests – making them breakfast. We would get up at six in the morning, drive into town from the farm, go into the Country Place Hotel kitchen and start making breakfast. Our friends would come over for coffee in the hotel dining room, and we would visit.
PICTURES GO HERE
Clovis had moved his painting studio into the building behind the Country Place Hotel, which we called “The Honeymoon Cottage.” (Ben and Sandi had actually lived there for the summer right after they were married, until that Fall they moved to Boston for Ben’s architecture studies at Harvard. A quick aside — Ben really got into technology when he was at Harvard. At one point, I remember he had a computer for the office and Clovis and I were visiting Boston, and Ben gave me this computer to take home with me, and I needed to bring it on the airplane. That was a very new experience. Not only did we bring the computer, we brought the dog, Tex. But that is another story).
PICTURES OF THE HONEYMOON COTTAGE EXTERIOR
PICTURES OF CLOVIS AND MIKE CLANN WITH THEIR EASELS
The Red Bathroom Walls at the Farm
At some point, with all the going back and forth, Clovis and I felt we were spread too thin, and decided to try renting the farm. A family (named Duderstadt) rented it for a short time – I think less than a year – and then they bought their own place near LaGrange, I think, and Clovis and I went back to living at the farm on weekends. At that time we had a whirlpool hot tub in the bathroom, in place of the bathtub. We have a client for the architectural firm who were agents for hot tubs, and they gave us one. We thought it was very luxurious. The only change the renters had made to the farm house, is that they painted all the walls of the bathroom nail polish red!
PICTURE GOES HERE
Deciding to Move into Town
Clovis and I were still coming to Fayetteville on weekends, and while the farm was being rented, we had been staying in rooms in the Country Place Hotel. That made it easier to take care of the hotel guests, but we really felt like we needed a home in town. At that point the idea was that in the future, we would live in the Casita full time. But it was a few years before we actually made the transition.
The Process of deciding to sell the Farm, then renovate and move into the Casita, then Sell the Professional Building and the Hotel and move Clovis’s art studio:
When we decided it was time to sell the farm, renovate and move into the Casita, sell the hotel and move Clovis’s art studio down the street – we already owned the property on the Square, so it was not difficult to make the change.
Dick Bour was still using the Professional Building for his stained glass workshop during the time Jane had her flower shop in the Casita. We were working with him closely on several church architecture projects where he was doing the stained glass windows, and so we got to be very good friends.
Renovating the Casita:
Alvin Minarcik’s firm did the renovations of the Casita. That is when they extended the kitchen and added the back porch. We had a large stained glass window that he installed in the bedroom, so that we would have light but still have privacy, since the bedroom looked directly into the walkway that ran between the Casita and the Professional Building.
PICTURES GO HERE
Building the Workshop:
I wanted to buy a little portable building for my workshop, and Alvin said, “That’s ridiculous, I can make one.” And he did.
PICTURE GOES HERE.
Selling the Farm:
We made a brochure for the real estate agent to show the farm to potential buyers. It took almost two years before someone was interested in buying it for what we were asking. It seemed the realtors were mainly interested in selling “acreage” that could be used for grazing cattle. When I think about the farm, you couldn’t say it was the next step and the next step after that, but from the time Clovis drove up the gravel driveway and discovered the farm, to now when we were trying to find a buyer, it was all one piece, it was all together, it wasn’t separate chapter, it all happened at once. One thing just ran into the next.
Clovis’s studio – moving from the Country Place Hotel annex to the house on the corner, next to the Casita
Selling the Hotel:
Kitchen
You can see the door to the screen porch, and the double doors to the bedroom, and behind Catherine the refrigerator. I am holding a cup of coffee in my favorite coffee cup, it was made by Mallory, and is microwave and dishwasher safe.
The Garden
