Category: Anthe Building

Our fulfillment center at the Anthe (pronounced Ann-thee) Building is now fully operational. The material lift has been repaired, the new roof is on, the skylight has been replaced, the back wall masonry has been rebuilt, and we have dehumidifiers on every floor – plus extra heating capacity to deal with the occasional cold snap.

The price: in$ane. Thank goodness John and I both have other ways to make money. Because Lost Art Press has primarily been paying contractors for the last 11 months.

Next month, John and his fulfillment crew will move the last of our inventory from storage units in Cincinnati and Latonia into the Anthe Building. If all goes well with that, we’ll have an opening day party for y’all (I hope you like Milwaukee’s Best and oyster crackers). 

Now John and I can finally start looking ahead to what to do with the space. What is the next project? Restoring the exterior storefront? Getting a retail store up and running? Building a break room for fulfillment employees (probably this one).

This project has been the most stressful and difficult thing John and I have ever done together. If we could do it all over again, we’d probably do something different (a pole barn in unincorporated Kenton County would have been faster and cheaper). But for now, we’re just happy that the place is running and running well. John, Mark and Gabe have been getting orders out faster than our fulfillment house ever has. And we’re able to offer some signed editions and other niceties for customers that were once impossible.

So thanks to everyone who helped. Whether you bought a hammer, a class, a book or a bandana. Every penny helped.

— Christopher Schwarz

When we started fundraising last year to help repair the Anthe Building (the location of our warehouse in downtown Covington), we thought that surely, we would be ready to show it to the public in early 2024.

Unfortunately, old buildings don’t care about our plans.

Right now the back wall is being rebuilt and mortared. The roof needs its new skylight. And the material lift, which moves books from floor to floor, is being repaired. As a result, all our books and tools are crowded into the first floor, plus the planned storefront and the second floor. Until we can get the material lift functioning, there is little room for employees to move.

So as soon as we get the place functioning and safe for the public, we will notify everyone who donated about the Opening Day. Right now, we are shooting – with confidence – for June.

Even though I know the building is laughing at us right now (and leaking gas, which plumbers are fixing this minute).

Thanks for your patience!

— Christopher Schwarz

On Sept. 29, 2023 (last Friday, for those of you reading in real time), the last Lost Art Press order shipped out of the Indiana warehouse. Today, a semi brought the first load of our books and tools from that third-party warehouse to our new warehouse in Covington, the Anthe Building. And there are two more truckloads to come, tomorrow and Wednesday.

John Hoffman, the business side of Lost Art Press, is on hand to oversee the changeover, and our shipping team, Mark Gilsdorf and Gabe Gavre, are loading all the books and tools into the warehouse, and keeping it all organized. They’ll do their best to also get orders out while the changeover happens, but there might be a delay of a day or two this week; we beg your patience and understanding.

Also, the new warehouse is our shipping operation only (for now); it is not open to the public. So if you’re planning to visit Lost Art Press (and we welcome all visitors!), please continue to come to the storefront at 837 Willard, Covington, Ky. 41011. We remain fully stocked at the storefront with all our book and tools. And if you don’t see us up front in the bench room, please knock – we’re likely around the corner at our computers.

– Fitz

As Nancy Hiller famously said, “It’s all problems.”

We will move the remainder of our inventory into the Anthe building during the first week in October. The three semis have been scheduled. We have a plan.

But until that moment the first truck arrives on Oct. 2, we have to move a few mountains.

It began when our walk-behind forklift was delivered. It was about 8” too tall to fit through our new $6,000 roll-up door. Yes, everyone measured the opening, including the salesman for Crown. Someone somewhere made a mistake.

So to fix that problem, we had to remove the new door, rip out the $400 plastic flaps that kept the AC in the building and hire a mason to remove three courses of bricks ($500) and rebuild the opening. Then order additional parts for the roll-up door ($1,900). 

So last week, we rolled our brand-new fork truck through the new opening and we heard a quiet but terrible noise. Some of the old floorboards crumbed under the wheels of the truck. 

Yes, a structural engineer inspected the building and green-lighted our plan. 

But some of the floorboards were unexpectedly worn (some were 1/4” thick ) and fragile from 130 years of heavy use. (The joists were holding more-than-fine.) So we added felt and a thick tongue-and-groove OSB floor. The floor is designed to be removed by future generations if they want to return to the old floor.

We also added the OSB to the second floor to allow us to move pallets around more easily (there will not be a fork truck on the second floor – just a manual pallet jack).

Despite all this, we are making it, one unexpected problem at a time.

Note: Please do me a favor and don’t take potshots at our efforts here. These decisions were arrived at by professionals (not us) with decades of experience with old buildings. This blog entry cannot possibly give you all the information you need to have an opinion of what is happening on-site. If you’re gonna be a jerk, I’m not going to respond; I’m just going to delete your comment.

— Christopher Schwarz