Bringing back the finer parts of history

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Jim Prugh, the Lakewood, Colo., investor who brings

new life to old buildings in downtown Lindsborg, has begun

another renovation – this one at 118 South Main. Prugh pur-
chased the building recently from Mark Esping, of Kansas

City, Mo., a former Lindsborg resident with long ties to the

community.

The renovation promises yet another of Prugh’s gems,

the craft, as he calls it, of “building a new house in an old

In a recent e-mail, Prugh noted work that’s been done so

“We removed the indoor/outdoor parrot cage at the rear of

the building. A few decades ago, a wall was built along the

east-west center line of the building to separate it into two

stores. The wall has been removed and the facade has been

returned with a single door. The floor has been repaired and

refinished. The facade’s old termite damage was removed.

The old (front) windows were replaced with huge double-
pane windows. A new bathroom was built at the rear of the

The place was once known as the P.J. Lindquist Building,

and is among ten sites in Kansas recently nominated for the

National Register of Historic Places by the Kansas Historic

Sites Board of Review.

Four of Prugh’s other Lindsborg properties are now on the

Kansas and National Registers, a designation that, after a

complicated process, allows much of the renovation expense

to be reimbursed in the form of federal and Kansas state tax

credits. The economics (savings) are eventually returned

to the owner in lower overall costs and to the community

through lower rental rates when the building is leased.

Having created commercial space on the ground floor at

118 S. Main, Prugh plans a one- or two-bedroom apartment

(13⁄4 baths) for the second floor. A personal elevator will be

installed for access at the rear of the building, in addition to

the staircase at the front, on Main Street. Refurbishing will

include the “green” energy-saving features of Prugh’s other

properties.

As with other Prugh projects, the construction and main-
tenance are the work of contractor Brian Freeman, whose

wife Vicki manages Prugh’s vacation rental properties. The

Freemans live in Lindsborg.

“Brian and Vicki are my right arm and my eyes and ears,”

Prugh said recently in a telephone interview. “I brainstorm

all the time with Brian, who can make miracles happen at a

construction site.”

Freeman said restoration of the ground floor commercial

space in the Lindquist building should be finished in two or

three weeks, and that the space is already committed to a

With that ground-floor work finished, Freeman then

returns to another Prugh property, at 113 North Main (The

Old Grind), to finish construction of a two-bedroom, two-
bath apartment above that business with rear access to the

apartment again by elevator. When that work is finished,

he said, he will return to the former Lindquist Building to

complete the apartment above that business.

When told that Prugh considered him and Vicki his right

hand and eyes and ears, Freeman grinned. “That’s great,” he

said, “because he’s right-handed.”

ACCORDING to the Kansas State Historical Society, the

Lindquist building was commissioned at 118 S. Main by

Swedish immigrant P.J. Lindquist in 1901 to house his tailor

shop and an upper-floor living space.

“That year, Lindsborg led other McPherson County towns

in investment in new commercial and residential building.

Although the tailor shop was short-lived, the Lindquist

family owned the building for 39 years,” the Society said

in a report about the building’s nomination for the National

“The family lived in the second-floor apartment for many

years, apparently after closing the tailor shop,” the Society

said. “Other businesses, such as the Tea Cup Inn, subse-
quently occupied the commercial space. The Malm Brothers

Painting Company reportedly packed and shipped stencils

from this building…”

“The building is an excellent example of an early 20th

century commercial building distinguished by Italianate-
style details including the cast-iron storefront and tall

second-story windows with ornate metal hoods. Although

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the building has housed multiple tenants on both floors over

the years, it retains a high degree of integrity.”

PRUGH’S interest in Lindsborg began several years ago

during a family trip from Denver to Oklahoma City. The

Prughs had stopped in Lindsborg.

“It was eight or ten years ago,” he said, “and I thought

Lindsborg was absolutely charming and had a lot going

for it – the look of the place, its attraction to famous visi-
tors like Mikhail Gorbachev, Karpov and the Chess School,

Garrison Keillor and Ken Burns, the good things happening

at Bethany, such a vigorous college. And now, all the activ-
ity, the town planning a future for 5,000 residents.”

Prugh, then a chemical engineer (natural gas processing

plants), said he was “looking to reinvent myself. I did have

some strong Swedish roots, with my mother’s mother an

Olson and my father’s grandfather a Nyquist. I thought, ‘I

could buy an old building, fix it up, see how that goes.’ Well,

one thing led to another and now I have five.”

Prugh’s first acquisition was about eight years ago, at 105

N. Main, originally the Berquist & Nelson Drugstore. When

Prugh bought it Main Street Toys had closed and after refur-
bishing it was reopened as a winery outlet store. It’s now

“Sarahndipity,” an attractive, eclectic variety store.

Other properties followed:

110-112 N. Main, location for Elizabeth’s and Reminiscent,

with a large apartment above both stores; 113 N. Main,

now The Old Grind; 122 N. Main, The Blacksmith Coffee

Roastery; and 124 N. Main, Ye Old Clocksmith, which Prugh

includes with the Blacksmith as one property.

Each of the buildings, built roughly at the turn of the last

century, is rich in local history and significant to the develop-
ment of Lindsborg as a thriving commercial and retail center,

its business district alive with eye-catching storefronts –

ornate second-story windows and hoods, stepped parapets,

central sliding doors, window grills, sculpted iron works,

intricate tiles, stencils and mosaics.

PRUGH has also created “vacation rental” properties,

small, well-appointed apartments for the “temporary” visi-
tor. His first, in 2011, began with the simple plan to build a

garage for renters of the apartment above 110-112 N. Main,

behind the apartment. Prugh thought, “After going through

all the trouble of building a garage, why not add an apart-
ment?” Thus, a garage at ground level, apartment on top – a

kind of carriage house in the tradition of another time, when

carriages were housed at ground level and stable hands or

liverymen lived above.

The carriage house would cozy up to large oak trees on the

north side of the lot, so Prugh named the place Trädhus, for

tree house, but one with a full kitchen and laundry. It’s an

all-electric place, a 550 sq-ft studio apartment with sleeping

area open to an outside deck above a carport, and all of it

earth-friendly.

A second vacation rental, Vetehuset, is above The Old

Grind and is a studio apartment in the same style and well-
turned furnishing as Trädhuset.

THE TAX credits have been crucial to Prugh’s plan, which

is for the investment to pay off for both the renter and the

landlord. But the creativity in his plan has been equally criti-
cal, the notion to refurbish history, to build high-end apart-
ments and vacation rentals in an area where there had been

none, and to re-make landmark buildings and open them to

shopkeepers at affordable rates, were risks that, in another

town perhaps would not have been possible.

This community holds a deep appreciation for its history,

for the arts that are so much a part of it, the beauty that is so

often its result. In turn, Prugh’s work has, as he says, “cre-
ated a positive reputation, perhaps my biggest accomplish-
ment. But it’s because the people appreciate fine things, and

they have been very receptive to my ideas.

“It’s worked out very well.”

NOTE: Other Lindsborg buildings on the state register of

historic places: City Hall, site of the former Farmers State

Bank; the U.S. Post Offi ce; The Smoky Valley Roller Mill,

the Johnson home, 226 W. Lincoln (home of Lee and Susie

Ruggles), the Teichgraeber-Runbeck House at 116 Mill, and

the Swedish Pavilion in Heritage Square.

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– JOHN MARSHALL

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