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Stone faces, other Villa items for sale at ReStore

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By Alma Gaul | Monday, May 12, 2008 12:01 PM CDT | () comments

Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES This face from the front of the Villa’s Lewis Hall is now for sale at Habitat ReStore, Davenport, for a minimum bid of $250. Buy this Photo

You can own a piece of the Villa.

The historic Villa de Chantal convent/school in Rock Island will be demolished any day now, but pieces of salvage are for sale, including the four stone faces that greeted visitors at the front of Lewis Hall, the Villa’s east classroom wing.

Volunteers for Habitat ReStore, a nonprofit Davenport business that sells new or gently used building materials at a discount, spent 12 days tearing salvage out of Lewis.

The faces were among the last items volunteers removed, and they will be sold through sealed bids beginning at a minimum of $250. The auction ends Friday, May 17.

Each face is about a foot square and weighs 32 pounds. Using a mini-jackhammer, volunteers also chipped out the school crest above the Lewis Hall door; it weighs 51 pounds and also will be auctioned, said Diane Schreiner, a ReStore employee.

“We don’t know exactly what they are made of or if they were carved or cast,” she added.

The 14-acre Villa property at 2101 16th Ave. was the site of a school run by the Sisters of Visitation from 1900 to 1978. The sisters left in the early 1990s, and the property was purchased in 1996 by Joe Seng, a veterinarian and state legislator from Davenport. The buildings had various uses until 2004, when the complex was purchased by Quad-City developer Chris Ales for conversion into housing for the elderly.

A devastating fire in July 2005 destroyed the original portion of the Villa, although rehab work on the virtually untouched Lewis Hall continued until November 2006, when it was derailed by financial difficulties.

The Rock Island-Milan School District purchased the property in October 2007 and expects to begin work in June to build a new, $9.1 million magnet elementary school on the site.

Other items salvaged from Lewis include old cabinet doors, classroom doors, desks and pieces of roof slate.

Those and new items such as electrical boxes and shower controls that were part of the senior housing project are on sale at ReStore. Volunteers also salvaged scrap metal, particularly copper, raising thousands of dollars for ReStore. Profits go to Habitat for Humanity, an ecumenical housing group.

Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.