Rising from the ashes
Photo by CHANSE WATSON The top floor of Patrick’s Steakhouse was damaged during the McConnell Hotel fire in August 2017. Silver Mountain is working to restore the building and convert it into living quarters.
KELLOGG — Silver Mountain Resort is in the process of returning the Patrick’s Steakhouse building in uptown Kellogg to its former glory, following the fire that ripped through its upper floors in August 2017.
The fire at the Steakhouse building was one of many that was sparked by falling embers coming from the McConnell Hotel fire — but Patrick’s took the worst damage.
Silver Mountain had purchased the building a few months prior to the fire in spring 2017, with plans of turning the former steakhouse into a 10-unit living residence that would be available on a month-to-month basis.
During the fire, thousands of gallons of water were pumped into the building. This water did put out the fire, but it also caused extensive structural damage to the non-affected parts of the building.
“The building had an old wooden shake roof,” said Silver Mountain general manager Jeff Colburn. “That’s good and bad because basically the building burned from the top down, so the only damage from the fire was on the top floor. But there’s obviously a lot of water damage throughout from all the water they used to put the fire out.”
Silver Mountain’s plans are to strip the existing structure to the studs, repair the parts that were damaged in the fire, and rebuild the building to the same specifications as the original Patrick’s Steakhouse.
“The decision was to put the building back up the way it was because we feel that it is a historic building,” Colburn said. “It is part of Kellogg’s history and we want to make sure that we remember — preserve as much of it as possible.”
From a reconstructing perspective, the building would have been easier to completely tear down according to Colburn, but as he said, the goal is to preserve history as best as possible.
Over the years the building had been used as a steakhouse, a bed and breakfast, and as a halfway house of sorts where miners could stay.
With the hopes of getting the top floor rebuilt before winter, Silver Mountain will be working diligently over the next few months to make sure they don’t have to worry about winter damage.
At this time, Silver Mountain still plans to convert the building into the originally planned lodging facility after they’ve finished their remodel.
There is no timetable on when the building will be finished.