Written by MICK HOLIEN - The Missoulian - 03/07/04

PHILIPSBURG — After teetering on the brink of ruin, a downtown hotel here has undergone a tasteful restoration that has returned it to its elegant roots.

It was a long road back for the Broadway Hotel, having been out of the nightly rental lodging business for some 100 years.

Located at the heart of this quaint old silver mining town, the Broadway Hotel occupies the second story of the J.K. Merrell Building.

Jim and Sue Jenner, documentary producers from Washington state who have been visiting the area for years, bought the immense building in the late 1980s, intending to restore it to its former prominence. The project finally began last summer.

‘‘Creating the Broadway has been a dream of ours for many years,'' said Jim Jenner, 54. ‘‘We believe so much in the future of Philipsburg and feel that comfortable lodgings are sorely needed here.''

The ground floor of the 12,000-square-foot building has been home to the H&R Auxiliary Thrift Store for more than a decade, but the second story has been in disrepair since it served as apartments more than 20 years ago.

‘‘This is one of the largest buildings certainly between Missoula and Butte,'' he said. ‘‘This thing is enormous. That's what attracted me years ago.''

The Freyschlay-Huffman Company originally started a store at the location in January 1893, but by July they were in trouble, probably because of the silver crash, said Jenner, and liquidated more than $100,000 in inventory from stores at Granite, Combination (near Black Pine) and Philipsburg.

According to county records, Merrell, Patton and Hyde then bought the building.

The hotel is 25 stairs off the town's main street but because it is built into the side of a hill for ease in offloading products, access also can be gained from behind the structure where a small parking lot sits a few steps from the entrance.

For several years during the silver boom, the building was used as a general store and once served as the company store for the Bi-Metallic Mine. In the 1930s when it was a J.C. Penney's store, J.C. Penney himself actually served customers in the downstairs space, said Jenner. The second story was converted to lodging around the turn of the century to house hundreds of workers who flocked to the area.

The hotel's nine rooms, which feature private bathrooms, are situated in a circle around the beautiful library but separated by a hallway. The lounge and library, which even features high-speed Internet, offers ample space for reading, playing a board game or just relaxing in casual conversation around a cozy stove.

The impressive 900-square-foot room is cozy, yet could seat 50 people for a meal, 60 theater-style for a seminar or handle 125 people for a reception.

‘‘This area was originally the lounge and dining hall and we re-created it so it can be a multipurpose space. That's one of the things we haven't had in town,'' he said. ‘‘We put in a large skylight where one was years ago and restored the old beams.''

Nostalgic music emanates from four speakers which surround the room and an eclectic selection of hardback books line a double set of shelves circling one side of the room.

The Jenners, who have a bit of renovation experience themselves, used mostly local craftsmen for this job. They didn't have any original plans but learned as much about the building's history as they could from locals before they started the restoration. Included in the work was the removal of a variety of walls and spaces that had been added over time.

The rebirth of the original floor plan required about 9 tons of sheetrock.

The decor was selected specifically to accent the building's character.

‘‘We tried to make it a historic renovation, not a remodel. We tried to get it back to pretty much what it was,'' said Jenner. ‘‘This building had a skylight in every room which was not unusual before central heating and electric light.''

After the floor was stripped of decades of accumulation, the 6,000-square-foot of old-growth fir revealed burns, indentations and chop marks from a time when miners customarily split their firewood in front of potbelly stoves, which typically were lined by their wet clothing.

‘‘We were really excited when we got the paint off here and saw what those floors looked like,'' said Jim.

‘‘The character of it,'' added Sue Jenner, ‘‘people love it.''

Four of the nine rooms are suites with double queen beds and private sitting rooms. Modern amenities like cable television, VCRs, telephone and electric alarm clocks contrast sharply to the decor which is a reflection both of local history and the Jenners' years as documentary film producers.

From the Discovery Room, which is handicap accessible and decorated with a stack of sleds and antique skis, a visitor is beckoned to the slopes of the nearby Discovery Basin ski area.

The furnishings in the hotel's honeymoon suite, the ‘‘Los Palomas'' (the doves), is drawn from the three international award-winning films Jim Jenner has made. It features a king-size bed, two-person whirlpool tub, and the room is punctuated by natural light.

‘‘The place always had big rooms up in the front here,'' he said while peering out the huge windows to the east.

The Wrangler, Crosscut and Hard Rock rooms feature a flavor of the area's rich ranching, logging and mining history, while the Sportsman's Club is a suite with its own poker table in a private sitting room.

The Britannia Suite claims its name and furnishings from Sue's birthplace in England, where her father was an antique dealer.

‘‘This is one of my favorites because it is so cozy.'' said Jim while closing the door to a sitting area which contains a pull-out couch.

‘‘When this is closed, it's very quiet,'' he said. ‘‘People can stack kids in here like cordwood if they want.''

The nearby Andes Suite is decorated with items the family brought home after spending a year in Ecuador. The Route 66 Room features items from PBS documentaries Jim Jenner completed in the '90s.

The facility sleeps as many as 40 people.

Loving care was taken to preserve as much of the structure as possible, but the walls were stripped to add insulation and sound board, then replaced with sheetrock.

‘‘The floor to ceiling windows are original,'' said Jim Jenner. ‘‘We tried to keep it as much original as possible.''

In that vein, the doors off the building's 1930 boiler are mounted on the walls near the rear entrance.

Much of the decorations throughout the hotel - including a huge original map of the Bi-Metallic mine - have been brought by area residents for display.

"People keep bringing things. In some ways there are things that wouldn't necessarily make it into a museum," he said. ''I have a hunch we're going to get more and more eclectic things."

Glass-fronted cabinets surrounded by spiffy white appliances and a porcelain double sink accent a modern kitchen that is in stark contrast to the remainder of the hotel. A continental breakfast is put out each morning and the kitchen is available for guests who wish to cook their own meal.

The Jenners deliberately did not go into the Bed and Breakfast trade, instead choosing to encourage guests to sample the eating fares around Philipsburg.

"We'd like people to get out and have breakfast and do other things," said Jim. "This is just a friendly comfortable town to be in. We've been bringing people here for many, many years and I never had anybody who didn't think Philipsburg is special."

A six-generation western family, the Jenners have long been fly fishers. It was the quest for the elusive trout on nearby Rock Creek that first prompted Jim to come to the area years ago after an invitation from his father.

He returned not only because of the fishing and the scenery, but also because he enjoyed the area's residents.

In the late '80s Jim and Sue, who have been married 23 years, not only bought the Merrell Building but also a small house and often sought the solace of the area to complete editing on documentaries.

‘‘It was a great excuse for me to have to come and spend a lot more time in Philipsburg,'' said Jim Jenner. ‘‘We started spending as much time here as we could.''

That familiarity with the area and the people, he believes, has lent credibility to the hotel project

"I'm lucky that I've been here many years and you get to know people," he said. "I think they've taken a certain amount of community pride in what we're doing."

Many area residents have told their friends and acquaintances about the hotel, and brought people down for a quick tour.

"We've been so pleased," said Jenner. "We probably average three to four groups a day," added Sue.

For his part, Jim Jenner realizes the importance of history to the area and is dedicated to preserving it.

"I'm pretty adamant that if you're new to a place or if you care about a place and you don't care about history you're making a huge mistake," he said. "It's important to have a feel for what came before."

With an opera house, a superb museum, Shakespeare in the Park, and the marketing that's been done by businesses like the Sweet Palace and the Sapphire Gallery, Philipsburg has developed a summer season.

Jim Jenner gives Shirley Beck and Dale Siegford (owners of the Sweet Palace and Sapphire Gallery) a lot of credit for the town's resurgence.

"Shirley and Dale had a lot to do with getting the momentum going, especially regionally. They've been so instrumental," he said. "We're so impressed at how so many people around the state have heard about the town and want to come here. It's got so much going for it."

"It's wonderful what's happening in Philipsburg. Almost all of the resurgence in the town is people who started here," said Jim Jenner. "When a town can get 10 years of success under its belt having done it itself, it starts to get a can-do attitude and really nobody came to town and told us how to do it, it's all been homegrown.

"There's not a lot of new dollars coming in and discovering the place. It's mostly neighbors helping neighbors. People really help each other make things happen. I think part of the magic of the place is that it's still small enough when four or five people decide to do something, it gets done.''

Sitting in the midst of a sparsely populated county where diagonal parking is still in vogue, the Granite County seat of Philipsburg and its surrounding area have plenty to offer

‘‘It's far enough away that you feel like you're going away. It's really not on the way to anywhere,'' said Jim Jenner. ‘‘The nice thing is you don't have to fake Philispburg. Nothing here is fake. There's not a false front here anywhere.

‘‘Maybe it attracts a different person,'' he said. ‘‘It doesn't have to do a lot to impress people.''

But there have been few places to spend the night. Now that the hotel's operating again, Jim Jenner hopes there are even brighter times ahead for the area's economy.

‘‘One of the key things is when you get a good lodging place in the center of town, that can have a catalytic effect,'' he said. ‘‘You'd love to see this as a place you can bring 30-40 people in the middle of the week. That sort of regional tourism would be really good for the economy. If we can get a winter season, we'll have a healthier economy without a big dramatic effort.''

Reporter Mick Holien can be reached at 523-5262 or at mholien@missoulian.com.