The future storefront at the Anthe building. There is a long way to go before it will be operational.
Our customer service lines are buzzing with customers asking what will happen to the 837 Willard St. storefront when the Anthe building comes on line. Will people still be able to visit the Willard Street shop? Where will the books, tools and apparel be sold? What about the woodworking classes?
Here’s the plan as of now.
Nothing will change at Willard Street for at least two years. The first phase of construction at the Anthe building is to build and perfect our fulfillment center. That requires money and work and cleaning and infrastructure. This phase is the most important to us. It will allow flexibility and a more personal touch when filling orders. And it will save us a load of money.
The second phase is to get the storefront up and running at the Anthe building, which is at 407 Madison Ave. (a short walk from Willard Street that I make every day). People want to visit and buy our stuff in person, and a dedicated storefront allows this.
The third phase is to build new editorial offices, photography studios and workshop spaces on the second floor. It’s important to me that all of us work together. Help each other. Try to make the company better and the Anthe building a better place to work. Megan and I will help fill boxes with orders at peak times. At slow times, the fulfillment people will help us in the workshops and creating content.
I do not like hierarchy.
The Willard Street storefront isn’t going anywhere.
Through all this, the Willard Street storefront will carry on as a classroom and storefront for Lost Art Press and Crucible. People can visit both places if they want – though there’s no guarantee who will be at Willard Street at any particular time.
We don’t have any plans beyond what I’ve written above. So any questions beyond this post have this answer: We don’t know.
So if you are planning on visiting our Willard Street storefront this summer, please do. We are there typically from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday through Saturday (we are closed on Sunday). As always, knock on the front door, and we will be happy to let you in and give you a tour.
When I purchased our storefront here on Willard Street in Covington in 2015, I was certain of two things: 1) It was the final old building that I was going to bring back to life; 2) It would be the final resting place of Lost Art Press.
Until this month, I’ve never given more than 2 seconds of thought about what will happen to this company after John and I die. We’ll be dead, so we won’t care.
But this month, it looks like everything I wrote in the first sentence of this blog entry is incorrect. We have just purchased an old woodworking tool factory at 407 Madison Ave. in downtown Covington. This building housed the Anthe Machine Works, which made woodworking cutters from the time the company started in 1897 until it closed in 2019.
The first floor of the Anthe building behind the office. Note the lineshaft, which powers the elevator.
The building is a time capsule, with few modern improvements. Original floors, mouldings, elevator, windows, lineshaft and (yikes) toilets. It is a gorgeous space that is flooded with light. And it has no modern amenities.
The Anthe building has more than 5,000 square feet of space that is in need of preservation and restoration. And it is big enough that it now helps us see Lost Art Press as a multi-generational enterprise.
This building will allow us to bring our fulfillment operations here to Covington and have room to grow (if we want to). By June, all of our inventory will be on the floor of the Anthe building. And we will be able to mail out orders to customers with the same personal touch we bring to everything else we do.
We are thrilled by all this. But we are also a bit terrified.
In order to buy the building, we agreed to take on debt for the first time in our history. It’s not a huge loan. In fact, we will save money by transferring our inventory to Covington. But it is a debt.
More important is that we have taken on an obligation to this building, which is a historic structure with virtually no alterations. The storefront is all frame-and-panel woodwork surrounded by cast iron. The doors – all original. The trim around the windows? The original Greek key steel trim.
Though the building is in decent shape, it needs an almost endless amount of love. It needs a plan for its sensitive restoration. And it needs a lot of skilled help.
So this is the part of the blog entry where I do something I never wanted to do: show my ass.
The purchase of a huge building is something we’ve never done. And here is the other thing we’ve never done: ask for your help to restore it.
The first stage of restoring the Anthe building is to make the first floor a safe and comfortable working space. Plus maintain humidity levels to protect our books in inventory. That means we need to:
Add HVAC to the first floor (with plans for systems on the other two floors).
Pave the gravel drive to our loading dock to allow us to receive and send shipments.
Provide basic amenities. Offer a working bathroom. Add locks on doors that work. Fix the original stairs. Remove some modern “improvements” to the front office.
Get the freight elevator running.
The gravel drive that allows us to load in and out. This needs to be paved.
The building’s original freight elevator. We love it.
To help pay for these initial projects, we are asking for your help. We have four tiers of support, and each tier offers something useful or beautiful in return. You can purchase any of these tiers in our store now. Links below and here.
* A special one-week stick chair class in February 2024 here in Covington. This will also be a food tour as all your meals and drinks will be included. Together we’ll each make a stick chair (you’ll get to pick the design) from some premium wood (not bog oak – I don’t have enough; think maple, white oak, walnut). We’ll have nice lunches brought in to the shop. And we’ll go out every night to one of our favorite places in Cincinnati or Covington. Oh, and there will be a Sunday bluegrass night the evening before. The exact date will be decided by the six students, so it is a little flexible.
* Signed copy of “The American Peasant” made out to you when it is released in December
* Invitation to our Opening Day Party in early 2024
* Signed copy of “The American Peasant” made out to you when it is released in December
* Invitation to our Opening Day Party in early 2024
If you can help, thank you. If you cannot, we totally understand. Simply being a customer of Lost Art Press helps support and sustain our work.
In the coming weeks I’ll write more about the building and our plans for the future of Lost Art Press – beyond this current generation. I can tell you one thing right now: We would sooner give it away than sell it to a venture capital firm.
So if you have children, start feeding them a steady diet of Roy Underhill and Charles Hayward. We might need them here in Covington.
— Christopher Schwarz
The top floor of the Anthe building. Everything is original. And everything needs love.
This building, which is not for sale or lease, is similar to what we are looking for in Covington. The city has a proud industrial past, so we are hopeful.
After many months of study and research, John and I have decided to take a big and overdue step with Lost Art Press. We are now planning to bring fulfillment in-house and do it here in Covington, Kentucky.
For the first six years of Lost Art Press, our families fulfilled every order placed by individuals or bookstores. We stored inventory under beds, in closets and in my sunroom. By 2013, we were out of room, and our order volume was still increasing. So for the last 10 years we’ve been using fulfillment centers (this industry is called 3PL) to ship out your orders.
Our current 3PL company does a great job. But we are well past the point where we should be doing this ourselves. Why? It will be cheaper and give us much more flexibility.
Because all the 3PL services are a la carte, doing things such as offering signed editions, including stickers, fliers or extra personal touches in orders is not possible. Well, it’s possible, but it’s not a good idea financially. Everything costs money. Dropping a sticker in a box? Cha-ching. Pulling inventory to sign it? Several big cha-chings. Experimenting with different boxes and packaging? So many cha-chings. Writing short notes to customers we know personally? Impossible.
We have hired an experienced fulfillment manager, who should start in June. And we are looking for a building in Covington. We want it to be big enough to accommodate other future dreams of ours, such as having a dedicated retail storefront with regular hours. Able to store a lot more wood. To have enough room for Naked Woodworking Yoga (just kidding).
We aren’t abandoning our offices on Willard Street. This building belongs to me and will remain the center of our editorial and research efforts. And where Megan and I will offer classes.
Bringing fulfillment in-house is going to be expensive and difficult. But we have good people who know how to set up a warehouse, a friendly city government that is helping us with our property search and good relations with our bank and creditors.
In the coming weeks and months, there might even be some opportunities for y’all to lend a hand (any tuckpointers out there?). So stay tuned.
Typically when we announce an open house I get three or four complaints along the lines of “why didn’t you let us know sooner.” So for those three or four people:
The 2023 Summer Open House at the Lost Art Press storefront is on July 29. We’ll open the doors at 10 a.m. and lock them behind you at 5 p.m. We will probably have a special gift, guest demonstrations, etc. But I don’t know anything more than the date at this point. (And we will of course let you know more when we figure it out.)
During our open day on Saturday, carver David Bignell delivered this carving of a skep, our dividers and some bees. This will perch upon our company’s sign in the window of our Covington storefront (the sign was also carved by David).
We have several of these emblems that we can swap out depending on our mood.
One reader pointed out that the skep or beehive is a symbol of capitalism and accumulated wealth. And that maybe it’s a poor choice of symbol for our company. I have two thoughts on that.
Early mechanical societies used the skep and bees as a symbol of their membership. Busy bees. Worker bees.
If it is a symbol of accumulated wealth, then the symbol is broken – it’s not working for us. Please open a ticket with the Capitalism Help Desk.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Thanks to David for the gorgeous dingbat. We love it. If you have carving needs for your business, please consider contacting him. He has done some fantastic trade signs.
