HOMEFRONT: Old home stays in good hands
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By Alma Gaul | Friday, July 11, 2008 |
Being an old-house lover, I was concerned to read recently that St. Ambrose University in Davenport is closing the Bishop’s House Inn as a bed and breakfast.
This is a wonderful, circa-1871, red brick, Italianate-style house at the corner of Brady Street and Kirkwood Boulevard that has some of the best stained-glass in the Q-C.
It’s called the Bishop’s House because it once was home to Roman Catholic bishops, but by the time I moved to Davenport in the late 1970s, it had become an apartment building.
It was restored about 1990 and St. Ambrose bought it in 1995. I feared that with the inn closing, the house’s future might be in doubt, but not to worry.
The university is keeping the house for another use.
The main rooms on the ground floor will be retained for functions, and the second and third floors will be converted into offices for the alumni and advancement (fundraising) departments that currently are in the Professional Arts Building at Brady and Locust streets.
So the place will remain in good hands.
Figge store, restaurant
Speaking of new uses, I also have wondered about the gift shop and restaurant in the Figge Art Museum, both now closed.
Executive director Sean O’Harrow says the Design Ranch shop that closed at the end of May will be replaced as soon as possible with a store that will sell “museum-related items at a price point museum-goers can afford.”
As such, the new business will be more like the store patrons remember from the museum’s old location next to the Putnam.
There also may be works by local artists for sale, O’Harrow said.
As for a restaurant replacing the two that have opened and closed in the past three years, that will not happen for a while because traffic in the downtown does not justify it, he says.
“The future of any restaurant is directly linked to downtown Davenport,” he says. “Unfortunately, we can’t do it on our own. We need the rest of the city.”
Carrying a torch for gnats
Under the headline “the very last thing I will ever write about gnats!” Quad-City Times columnist Bill Wundram vowed last week to never write another word about the little pests. So I guess it’s up to me.
We received lots of response last week regarding Aaron Osborne’s suggestion about McNess Formula 1046, an antiseptic formerly made by Furst-McNess of Freeport, Ill., and discontinued about 10 years ago.
Numerous people responded by saying that, yes, McNess is the best.
Rustee Crawford of Bettendorf was typical in proclaiming that she is the “proud owner of a bottle, and I guard it with my life.”
Because of the remedy’s popularity, we called Furst-McNess to see whether the company might bring it back into production. Customer service representative Kelly Monigold said she has received “a couple of hundred” phone calls about the product since the beginning of the gnat season, but, no, she knows of no plans for a return.
She suggests that if people feel strongly about it, they write a letter to the company’s president, Martha Furst, at Furst-McNess, 120 E. Clark St., Freeport, IL, 61032.
Meanwhile, other readers have found similar products on the Internet by typing in the word “dettol” in a search engine.
Failing that, my neighbor, Ken Danielsen, says he’s had great luck with Vanilla Cologne, which is sold by the Watkins Co. This is not the vanilla used in baking but rather a different kind of product. He uses it while fishing and mowing the lawn. He buys it from a local distributor, but it also may be purchased online, he says. (www.watkinsonline.com).
Now, on to the earwigs. Ugh!
Alma Gaul can be contacted at (563) 383-2324 or agaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.
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