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Water Hazards

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:49:14 GMT

By Kevin Crowe

BY THE TIME golfers tee off in the morning
at Sycamore Creek Golf Course at Osage
Beach, Steven and Pete Kahrs have been working
for hours on the water hazards. They turn
on oxygen and water pumps, adjust water
levels, and collect some of the golf balls that
end up in the drink. While many golf courses
make a few modest bucks off the resale of the
balls that come out of water hazards, the Kahrs
have perfected the art of cashing in on
lakes and ponds on golf courses.

What golfers view as water hazards
are the breeding grounds for a business
on the brink of an explosion.
In private lakes and ponds across
Missouri and also Kansas, an unwitting
crop of gentle giants quickly and
quietly grows fat with buttery eggs
that will never hatch.

Every week, Steven and Pete Kahrs, the
owners of Osage Catfisheries at Osage Beach,
deal with another set of orders for a product
they have not yet started to harvest in bulk—
paddlefish caviar.

This past spring, the Kahrs harvested only
about one hundred pounds of paddlefish roe,
scraping a minimal profit. They’ll harvest a bit
more for the holiday season, but they are looking
to plunge into the business in late 2008.

“Production could reach two to three tons
if demand for our product continues and we
are able to retain more bodies of water into the
program,” Steven says.

The caviar label, Osage Catfisheries, L’Osage,
reaped a slim ten thousand dollars in sales in
2005. Steven thinks sales could be between
five hundred thousand and one million dollars
within a few years of mass production.

Osage Catfisheries is a family business. The
late Jim Kahrs, Steven and Pete’s dad, opened

Osage Catfisheries in 1953
and started selling paddlefish, a cousin of the
sturgeon and named for its long snout, about
thirty years ago, mainly to aquariums. But an
unanticipated shift in global politics catapulted
Kahrs’ company into new territory: ranching.

Historically, the world’s best caviar has come
from the Caspian Sea and other homes of the
beluga sturgeon. Lack of government regulation
and over-fishing in the Caspian region led
to a 2005 U.S. ban on imported beluga caviar.
The prices of imported caviar soared, and dealers
clamored for domestic caviar.

In the mid-1980s, the Kahrs started a paddlefish
ranching program, through which they
place paddlefish in private lakes and ponds. The
fish grow to maturity over a period of seven to
ten years. In the late fall and early spring, the
Kahrs harvest the females for their eggs; each
fish yields between eight and nine pounds.

The Kahrs didn’t have enough space on
their Ozark farms to house the project, so Jim
Kahrs enlisted private landowners and golf
courses, such as Tan-Tar-A resort at Osage
Beach, in the ranching program, paying them
per pound for fish at harvest time. Pete Kahrs
says that, thanks to his father’s smooth talking,
there are about forty-four thousand paddlefish
in the ranching program.

But Jim Kahrs’ notion of ranching wasn’t
embraced as genius at its outset.

“Everyone thought they were crazy,” says
Rachel Collins, co-owner of Collins Caviar in
Michigan City, Indiana. She has known the Kahrs
for years as they brushed elbows in the growing
circle of domestic caviar dealers. And, according
to Rachel, the Kahrs have put themselves in an
enviable position in the caviar market and have
reason to expect a flood of orders, and cash.

Visit www.osagecatfisheries.com for more
information.

October 2007

Let There Be Light

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 19:22:35 GMT

By Dawn Kingensmith

HOMEOWNERS WHO ARE renovating grand, old homes in the St. Louis area sometimes shed light on the impact a century-old company has had on the city’s history and architecture.

“To this day, in historic houses in and around St. Louis, people will pull out an old lighting fixture from their porch or their dining room and see a Gross Chandelier Company label on it,” says Nicholas Gross, president of G Lighting, formerly known as Gross Chandelier Company, whose business celebrates its hundredth anniversary in 2008. Back when his grandfather, Edward Linton Gross, founded the electrical and gas lighting company, its ornate chandeliers were destined for
the city’s finest homes.

“The focus was on opulence,” Nicholas says. That focus persisted into the 1920s, when Gross Chandelier Co. started manufacturing awe-inspiring light fixtures for churches.

Today, the family-owned and -operated company focuses exclusively on high-end light fixtures for commercial spaces, such as hotels, casinos, and office buildings. Architects, electrical engineers, or lighting professionals choose from G Lighting’s standard products or work with inhouse designers to create custom fixtures.

One custom project was installed in the Majestic Star, a riverboat casino at Gary, Indiana. It’s a star-shaped chandelier with a twenty-foot diameter, more than five hundred incandescent lights, and Italian, colored crystals. Weighing thousands of pounds, the chandelier cost one hundred thousand dollars. Nicholas’s cousin, Edward Linton Gross III, vice president and chief designer, came up with the design.

G Lighting also designed and manufactured fixtures for the American Queen, a steamboat offering recreational cruises along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The riverboat needed light fixtures to complement its Victorian interior, so architects pored over hundreds of G Lighting’s drawings, archived since 1900. The design process had some scintillating results: Surrounding two colossal chandeliers in the ballroom is an arrangement of low-voltage halogen lamps recessed into gold stars to simulate the night sky.

Interior designers at Atlanta also turned to G Lighting to capture the grace and charm of the Old South, which they envisioned for the ritzy Westin Lenox Hotel. The elegant wall sconces and chandelier they selected and installed would have pleased the likes of Scarlett O’Hara.

“That’s my cousin’s forte—between his love of history and the training he received from an old-time lighting designer, who’d been with our company for about forty years,” Nicholas says.. “Taking on these types of traditional projects has really become his cup of tea.”

Within the company, Nicholas and Linton are third generation. The fourth generation includes Linton’s children, Michael and Rachel.

Call 800-331-2425 or visit www.glighting.com
for more information.

December 2007

The Chips are Up

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 17:14:01 GMT

*MARIONVILLE’S TRINITY TABLES CASHES IN ON THE POKER CRAZE* *By Dawn Klingensmith* Like any entrepreneur, Jerold Hulsizer took a gamble nine years ago when he started his own business. Fortunately, Lady Luck seems to have taken a liking to Jerold. Business is booming, and Jerold’s Trinity Tables is raking in the chips. Jerold crafts convertible tables with solid cherry or oak tops that slide off to reveal professional-quality poker tables. The tables are square or octagonal and are covered in durable billiard felt. The traditional Tournament Green, along with wine and black, lead in popularity among the thirty felt colors available. Jerold, a selfdescribed perfectionist with an eye for detail, also incorporated recessed chip wells and stainless steel, brass, or black cup holders into his design. With the recent explosion in poker’s popularity, Jerold’s Marionville-based company has grown considerably since its inception as a part-time side job in 1996. That was the year Jerold, a cabinetmaker, designed his first poker table. His father, Doug, was so impressed with the elegance and functionality of the design that he put up the money to start the business. A number of design features set Trinity tables apart from others on the market, Jerold says. Most other convertible gaming tables have single-unit tops that unscrew and flip over, but his design features a slide-off top that requires minimal effort and no tools to convert. In addition, his large octagonal tables measure sixty inches across and accommodate eight armchairs more comfortably than standardsize poker tables. On a standard casino-type table, “each sitting space is nineteen inches wide,” Jerold says. “Unless you’re really good buddies with the people next to you, that’s pretty tight. Our large tables have twenty-five-inch sitting spaces, so there’s plenty of elbow room.” Although Jerold and Doug believed they had a superior, saleable design, for the first five years, neither partner gave up his day job. When a friend of the family designed a web site for free, business gradually started to pick up as people discovered Trinity Tables on the Internet. Then, television coverage of the World Series of Poker, along with televised celebrity showdowns, caused poker’s popularity to skyrocket. In its fourth year of operation, Trinity Tables saw a 113 percent surge in sales. In poker parlance, Jerold and Doug decided to “go all in” in 2001 and turn Trinity Tables into their full-time occupation. It was a smart bet: The company’s gross earnings have grown an average of sixty percent every year since. Relying solely on Internet sales, Trinity Tables has shipped tables as far away as Puerto Rico, Korea, London, and Australia. Most domestic orders pour in from the Chicago area, as well as the East and West coasts. The tables were designed with home use in mind, but their quality is so high that country clubs, hotels, and other swank establishments often place orders, Jerold says. To keep up with increasing demand, Jerold — now the sole owner following Doug’s retirement — hired three employees. No shortcuts are taken to save time or cost; Jerold says it takes fifteen hundred steps to complete each table — he’s counted. Even with several components cut ahead of time, it takes three or four workers three full days to make one table. Jerold has added a ten-seater Texas Hold ’Em table to his online catalog, which also features square and standard- and largesize octagonal tables with optional matching faux-leather chairs. Customizable tables start at $1,395 for a square four-seater. Despite the company’s phenomenal growth, for the time being Jerold continues to operate Trinity Tables out of a small shop in back of his parents’ home. The house sits across the street from Queen of Heaven Solitude, a Catholic retreat center. Jerold says that’s how the business got its name: from Catholicism’s Holy Trinity. And he’s not so sure that Lady Luck is solely responsible for his success. In their first few years in business, for every table sold, he and Doug donated one hundred dollars to the neighboring sanctuary. So, Lady Madonna might have played the bigger part, Jerold says. “It never hurts to have God on your side,” he says. _For more information, call 417-744-4167 or visit www.trinitytables.com._ December 2005

Big Fizzy Bath Balls

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:10:35 GMT

*St. Louis Firm Creates Love in the Tub* *By Dawn Klingensmith* What gift besides roses brings pleasure to noses? Fizzy bath balls from Love in the Tub will surround your sweetheart with mood-enhancing aromas, including rose petal — the company’s best-selling fragrance — jasmine, honeysuckle, and orange blossom. Simply draw your Valentine a bath and drop an effervescent bath ball under the stream of running water for a spa-like pampering experience. The ball dissolves to release almondoil moisturizers and fragrances that leave skin feeling silky and smelling delicious, according to the product’s St. Louis creators. Love in the Tub bath balls come in two varieties: Tub Fizzers and Tub Bubblers. A fizzer effervesces in bath water “like a big Alka-Seltzer,” says Lori Alstat, director of marketing for the online retailer. A bubbler effervesces in the same manner but offers a sensory bonus: a tub full of cushiony suds. Both types of bath balls are available in the company’s extensive Love Line of fragrances, featuring twenty scents, and in four aromatherapy blends formulated to increase vitality, induce tranquility, or heighten feelings of harmony and romance. Romance aromatherapy bath balls combine rose, jasmine, and neroli essential oils, which synergistically escalate affection and boost confidence, Lori says. Buyers may mix and match bath balls for a quantity discount ($14.25 for three, $26 for six, or $47 for twelve). Valentine’s Day is Love in the Tub’s busiest season of the year, which is appropriate, as the business is strictly a labor of love. The company’s parent company, Nomax Inc. of St. Louis, manufactures drugs and medical devices. Nutritional supplements and antacids that effervesce in water are two of their principal products. Effervescent tablets have been on the market for a long time as denture cleaners and antacids. The owner of Nomax, a chemist by the name of Charles Voellinger, was puzzled that no one had thought of a merrier, non-medicinal application for the tablets’ fizzproducing reaction with water. It dawned on Charles that the tablets could be plopped into the bathtub for some good, clean fun. Today, fizzy bath balls abound, but when Nomax spun off Love in the Tub in 1999, few other manufacturers were making them. The ones that were available were each “the size of a large gum ball,” Lori says, so Love in the Tub distinguished its product from the getgo by turning out effervescent spheres the size of baseballs. “We had all the ingredients already,” Lori says. “All we needed was a mold to form the balls and some packaging to put them in.” Lori believes Love in the Tub’s bath balls are still among the largest ones on the market. Love in the Tub’s offerings have expanded to include moisturizer- infused body washes and multi-tasking aromatherapy fragrance spritzers that function as perfume, room fresheners, or linen sprays. Bath and body gift sets also are available. For Valentine’s Day, Lori recommends the Romance Aromatherapy Experience Gift Set ($27), which comes with a Tub Bubbler, a Tub Fizzer, body wash (which doubles as bubble bath), Spritzer, and a body puff. Love in the Tub also offers bath balls with personalized, customprinted packaging for wedding favors and other events. The minimum order for custom imprints is one hundred bath balls. _For more information, call 1-877-793-LOVE or visit www.loveinthetub.com._ February 2006

JPs Boots

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 21:37:00 GMT

Master boot-maker Joe Patrickus, owner of JP’s Custom Handmade Boots in Camdenton, has been making boots for more than twenty-five years. The simple Western-style building that houses his shop and studio features natural woods and glass display cases of beautifully crafted footwear. Wooden shoe forms hang from the rafters, and antique sewing machines fill one side of the room. Joe makes a great effort to create the perfect boot for each client. He enthusiastically describes the myriad of surprising options for creating a pair of custom boots, from embellishing with gold, silver, or jewels, or including an image of a favorite horse, cow, or even a car. His work has been showcased in museum exhibits across the country and featured in two books written by Tyler Beard, _The Cowboy Boot Book_ and _The Art of the Boot._ He’s a fifth generation boot-maker. “I avoided the family business for years, but it’s in my genes. It’s my heritage, and I’m proud of that,” Joe says. He also passes on his skills through apprenticeship programs. His son, JP III, has joined the family business, becoming the sixth generation to make boots. _Visit jpsboots.com or call 573-346-7711. Boots start at $900._ *-By Diane Huneke* April 2006

Missouris Motoring Past

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:51:39 GMT

*Thank a Missouri Manufacturer for the Steering Wheel* *By Tracy Powell* Before Detroit claimed its fame as America’s Motor City, more than a hundred Missouri manufacturers made cars from the mid-1890s through 1929. The vast majority produced just one to five running models, but a handful of firms became mainstay manufacturers in Missouri — for a time. As in other parts of the nation, electrically powered autos in Missouri preceded those with gasoline engines. The first to appear was in St. Louis, a crude model that reached eight miles per hour, created by J.D. Perry Lewis in 1893. A second effort allowed twelve miles per hour on St. Louis streets, impressing editors of _The Horseless Age_ to comment in November 1895 that Lewis “conducted around the streets of that city with considerable éclat.” Although considered state-of-the-art, the construction cost, fifteen hundred dollars, was too high for manufacture. Lewis went on to sell others’ creations at local dealerships. Lewis was just one of many such flashes in the pan. Yet a few men, such as George Preston Dorris, enjoyed a longer term. *"Rigs That Run"* Nashville native George Dorris built a two-cylinder engine that powered a steam launch while at an engineering school there. In 1893, Dorris and his friend John French operated the launch as a cruise boat on the Cumberland River. Two years later, _Scientific American_ articles about French and German experiments inspired Dorris to build his own horseless carriage. By then, John French had returned home to St. Louis to work at his father’s piano and organ company, but he had the horseless-carriage fever. He enticed Dorris to come to St. Louis to build them, and Dorris arrived on Thanksgiving Day in 1898. French became president of the St. Louis Motor Carriage Company, known for its slogan “Rigs That Run,” and Dorris soon held the title of chief engineer and led the construction department for seventy-five dollars a month. The new company advertised its first car in the August 30, 1899, issue of _The Horseless Age._ It became the first successful automobile company west of the Mississippi. In its first year of business, the St. Louis Motor Carriage Company produced 130 cars. Dorris patented a sliding-gear transmission in 1899, and the company was among the first to offer steering wheels in September 1901. Most automakers still equipped their carriages with a tiller. Dorris received sixteen automobile patents from 1900 to 1940. In 1903, John French died from internal injuries resulting from a driving accident the year before. The company survived but relocated to Peoria, Illinois, in 1905. After building 710 cars between 1899 and 1904, the company declared bankruptcy in 1907. *“Built Up to a Standard”* Many of the company’s woes were due to the absence of Dorris, who stayed in St. Louis to build his own car. He produced some of the most technologically advanced models of the era, and his cars, “Built to Last” and “Built Up to a Standard — Not Down to a Price,” lived up to the slogans. In 1920, Dorris bought another St. Louis automaker, Astra, and the company continued to grow. Trouble began in 1922 when competitors lured executives away, and large price cuts, intended to boost sales, undermined the company stock. Already, larger, better-funded car companies like Ford and General Motors ruled the market. After building 3,100 cars and 900 trucks, the company switched to buses in 1923. But the death knell came from a long court battle that pitted a board director, anxious for his overdue dividends, against the company. Dorris Motors declared bankruptcy in October 1926. *First Automobile Parts* At the turn of the century, St. Louis resident Andrew Lee Dyke made a fortune in the industry. First came his establishment of the first automobile supply business in America in 1899, the St. Louis Automobile Supply & Parts Company, from which was produced the first automobile supply catalog. Because the industry had yet to create a demand for parts, Dyke designed and produced all the various parts needed for a complete automobile — in short, a kit car. Running models were constructed for demonstration purposes, leading Dyke to be the first to produce a car with a canopy top. Dyke also dabbled with building complete cars, organizing the St. Louis Electric Automobile Company in 1899, and producing assembled models. These were the first electric vehicles in production west of the Mississippi, attractive enough to sell to the Scott Automotive Company, another St. Louis firm, in 1901. As Dyke’s auto supply business prospered, he continued to build full-size cars. In 1904, he built a twenty-horsepower, four-cylinder gasoline touring car; three years later came a six-cylinder. *A Carburetor Float* Both Dyke and Dorris claimed the American introduction of the float-feed carburetor. The carburetor played a critical role in the early automotive era. A float inside the gas-feed mechanism automatically interrupted the flow of fuel, thus maintaining a constant level of gas inside the carburetor. Without a float, operators were forced to constantly adjust a gas-metering valve. Regardless of the rightful claim, the Dyke version is the floatfeed model that the Smithsonian Institute acquired in 1926. Yet Dyke’s interest was in sales and promotion more than manufacturing. Evidence suggests that with his undisputed clout as an auto supply magnate, Dyke took wide liberty in buying engines and parts from French’s St. Louis Motor Carriage Company and marketing them as his own. Despite the competitive environment in St. Louis, Dorris and Dyke together wrote an automotive textbook in 1903, “Diseases of a Gasoline Automobile and How to Cure Them.” Dyke would go on to author two more detailed manuals. *“The Ideal Car”* Joseph Moon was another astute entrepreneur based in St. Louis. After riding with friend Richard Sears of Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 1903 in Sears’s Benz, Moon bought a St. Louis model. By 1905, Moon was building his own horseless carriage inside his buggy company. In December 1905, a Moon prototype was shown at a New York auto show. But it was the Model C, built in 1906, that wooed the automotive press. At thirty-five hundred dollars, the model’s chassis was topped with an aluminum touring body “of the latest French type.” The editors of _Motor Age_ crowed, “It is difficult to find another car combining so many of the late products of engineering skill and yet passing as a machine so bereft of radicalism.” The Moon car, called “The Ideal American Car,” sold as the finest medium-priced car of the time. And they were popular: all told, Moon production was close to fifty thousand cars. The last year of the Moon Motor Car Company was 1929, a tumultuous year when it began building the Ruxton. A sly promoter, Archie Andrews, was behind the new model. Andrews connived his way into control, eventually causing so much unrest that the old guard barricaded themselves in the factory. The new regime broke in and took over. That was the end of Moon cars. *“The Last Word”* Andrews was also in contract talks with another St. Louis-based company, Gardner Motor Company, to build the Ruxton. Gardner had made a fortune making bodies for Chevrolet before World War I. In 1920, Gardner made forty-three thousand of its first model, “The Last Word in Motordom.” Gardner was counting on the contract to build the Ruxton, as well as a mail-order model for Sears, Roebuck and Company. But plans came to a halt as repercussions were felt from Wall Street’s crash in 1929. Fittingly, the last model to come from Gardner’s factory was a funeral car, just as one of the region’s longest lived and most proliferate producers died out. Gardner closed its doors in 1931. That proved to be the swan song of Missouri-based automakers of the early twentieth century. *MOTORING MUSEUMS *Auto World Car Museum* 1920 N. Business U.S. 54, Fulton, Missouri Number of vehicles: 100 Featured exhibits: a 1931 16-cylinder Marmon; a 1924 Stanley Steamer; a 1909 Black; a Studebaker Wagon, and replicas of a 1902 Olds and Olds pickup. Hours: 10 AM-4 PM Mondays through Saturdays; 12:30-4 PM Sundays Admission: Adults, $5.50; seniors, $4.50; children ages 6-12, $2; children under 6, free. Telephone: 573-642-2080 Web site: www.autoworldmuseum.com *Memoryville, USA, Autos of Yesteryear* 2220 N. Bishop Avenue, Rolla, Missouri Number of vehicles: 40 classics in the museum and more than 40 in the restoration shop. Featured exhibits: Paul Harvey’s 1938 Nash; a 1902 Holsman with rope-driven engine; plus access to the auto restoration facility. Hours: 8 AM-6 PM Mondays through Fridays; 9 AM- 6 PM Saturdays; 9 AM-5:30 PM Sundays. Admission: Seniors, $3; adults, $3.50; children ages 6-12, $1.35; children under 6, free. Telephone: 573-364-1810 Web site: www.memoryvilleusa.com *National Museum of Transportation* 3015 Barrett Station Road, St. Louis Number of vehicles: 20 Featured exhibits: a 1901 St. Louis Automobile; a 1906 Ford Model N; a 1908 Galloway Express Truck; a 1915 Model T “Tin Lizzie,” a 1963 Chrysler turbine car; also 70 locomotives, trains, aircraft, trucks, buses, and street cars. Open daily 9 AM-5 PM; closed New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Admission: Adults, $4; children and seniors, $2. Telephone: 314-965-7998 Web site: www.museumoftransport.org April 2006

Storm Shelter

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 15:01:09 GMT

*Concrete Stairways Made in Independence Offer a Safe Haven* *By Dawn Kligensmith* If amy Burnett's customers are blessed, the product she sells them will never do anything more remarkable than get them in and out of their houses. But if a tornado strikes, her product will get them out of harm’s way. Through her Independence-based company called Storm Defender, Amy sells Life Shield Step Shelters, which serve as double-duty additions to manufactured houses. The doors of these dwellings are a few feet off the ground and, therefore, require entry steps; Amy’s product functions as a sturdy stairway. Its real purpose, though, is to provide emergency shelter against severe storms. Made of pre-cast concrete, the patented step shelters, which are hollow and have a heavy-gauge steel door built into one side, protect four to six people and their pets and can withstand wind speeds of up to three hundred miles per hour without budging, she says. Her assertion is backed by rigorous testing. As required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Storm Defender, which Amy co-founded, hired researchers to hurl debris at the shelter at speeds of 250 miles per hour. The shelter survived with hardly a dent, according to the report by Texas Tech University’s Wind Science and Engineering Center. _For more information, call 866-251-4874, or visit www.stormdefender.net._ April 2006

Fiddling with Puzzles

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 22:08:31 GMT

All the tourists have the same look on their faces when they walk up to the columned front porch of Ravenswood House. "Like this," 12-year-old Jamey Leonard demonstrates. He tilts his blond head back as far as it will go, widens his eyes, and lets his mouth hang open. You'll do it, too. When you stand on the porch's dainty rust-colored mosaic tile, your eyes travel from the base of the tall white columns, move up past the ornate scrollwork on the second-floor balcony, and look up-up-up until your neck is straining and you can see the rusty white tin ceiling. Yes, your mouth is open. Jamey can see you from the library window. The huge two-story brick house on Route 5 near Bunceton looks like something from Gone With the Wind, but in fact the antebellum-style house was built after the Civil War and completed in 1880. If the sign on the iron gate says "Open," take the curving driveway to the front of the house where you'll find a crumbling steppingstone fitted with an "R" made from the same pieces of tile that are on the porch. When you finally ring the doorbell, you will meet Jamey, the owner's grandson, if he's not in school. The sixth-grader will be your tour guide. This is your first clue that this won't be an ordinary tour. The next is that there are no ropes to keep you from getting a close-up look at the turn-of-the-century furnishings. Everything is not in pristine mint-museum condition. That thick artichoke-green wallpaper is peeling. The stuffing is coming out of that carved chair. There is a tear in that portrait, a chip on that bookcase and that statue, an etched glass panel missing from that door. The furnishings may not be perfect, but they are all still there. The Leonard family has kept the house much the same for more than 100 years. Jamey explains how. "When Nadine first lived here, she left everything how it was, and the next people, they left everything how it was, and then they left everything how it was." Jamey belongs to the sixth generation of Leonards at Ravenswood, and everything is still left how it was. Right now the family still lives, delicately, in the house. Today's copy of The Kansas City Star rests on an oversized, high-backed, uncomfortable-looking Victorian couch, open to the funny pages Jamey was reading before he heard the doorbell and swung open the thick, carved oak front door. Some people remain skeptical that Jamey can give them a good tour. They'll ask to be shown around by someone older. Others will look over the beige pamphlet he gives them and quiz him about the history of Ravenswood. Don't bother. He knows more about this house than you can imagine. Wait until he stands next to the portraits of earlier generations that line the main hall. Compare the dignified bearded men to the blond boy. Some say he looks like Nathaniel Leonard, who founded the Missouri cattle farm in 1825 and named it Ravenswood after a character in a Sir Walter Scott novel. Jamey likes it when people think he looks like the captain, Nathaniel's son and the original Charles E. Leonard, who was in the Civil War. But most think he resembles his namesake, James Nelson, the Boonville banker whose money built the 30-room house for his daughter Nadine and the captain. Jamey learned the family history from Pop, his grandfather Charles W. Leonard. He heard Pop tell the stories to strangers who paid to walk through the house and take pictures of Missouri's famous Bingham paintings and Jamey's great-great-grandmother Nadine's wedding dress. When Pop became too feeble to make it up the 83 or was it 84 steps to the second floor and the attic, he sent the tour groups up the curving staircase to Jamey. Then Pop was too weak even to do the first floor, and Jamey took over the whole tour. The tours used to cost $1.50 when they started 42 years ago. Now it's $5. Some people think the tour is too expensive and turn away at the front door without ever seeing what's inside. Don't make that mistake. You'll get your money's worth. Jamey will lead you through most of the rooms in the house and even show you Nadine's wedding dress. Then he'll show you his favorite, the blue and tan dress Nadine wore to Grover Cleveland's inaugural ball. He'll point out the wire bustle Nadine strapped on under her dress and explain why ladies needed the long fainting couch that sits nearby. He'll lead you through the dimly lit attic and up an even narrower staircase to the roof. He'll go first and hold open the trap door while you climb into the widow's walk that crowns the columned house and delivers the best view of Pop's 2,000-acre farm. Jamey is a good guide. In the dining room, he knows the use for each gold-etched glass that sits above the hand-painted Limoges china on the table Nadine bought at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. "Brandy, wine, water, sherbet," he says, tapping the rim of each glass. He knows how to find the secret drawer in the library desk. He'll show you the grandfather clock that came to Missouri by covered wagon, the music box that creaks out a cacophony of bells when Jamey winds it, and the breezy sleeping porch that overlooks the barn where cob-web-covered carriages are stored. While you're taking the tour, the owner of Ravenswood is in a hospital bed in the brick servants quarters out back. Pop, Nadine's grandson, born in 1912, can see the back of the main house from his window. He talks about moving back up there, to the room he and his wife, Mary Ellen, shared. But he hasn't been in the house for two years. He barely has enough strength to take hold of the walker next to the bed and move around the small one-story house. So he sits in bed and reads magazines, plays chess with Jamey, and tells stories about Ravenswood to those who come to visit: My great-grandfather Nathaniel, you know about him? His older brother persuaded him to come to Missouri. He arrived in Boonville after walking to St. Louis with one dollar in his pocket. When he died, he had over 12,000 acres in Missouri. He was famous for his Shorthorn cattle. He'll talk about Ravenswood in his raspy voice until he's almost out of breath, one story after another, as if he's afraid he won't get to tell them all. And just when you think he's done, he thinks of another one. "One more story, and I'll let you go ..." "Something else you should know ..." "One more thing I thought of ..." He worries about what will happen to Ravenswood when he is gone. It won't be long. Living on borrowed time, he says. He already has a headstone with his name engraved on it in the family cemetery. You probably won't notice the cemetery. It's across the street buried in the woods. Most of the gravestones hug the ground and hide from visitors. Only one tall monument is visible from the front porch. Pop wants his funeral in the dark library. They will move the room's center table that holds the postcards and brochures and replace it with his coffin. He has it all worked out. All except for his house. He flirts with the idea of leaving the house to a public organization so that people could still have tours. He loves the tours. He started them in 1957 to raise money to buy the beautiful stained-glass windows that depict the Last Supper and other biblical scenes for the Bellair Methodist Church just up the road. More than a thousand people came to see Pop's house when he opened it the first day. And they have never stopped coming. He can't imagine Ravenswood without the tours, but he can't decide what to do. He's not worried about the present. His son Charles E., Jamey's father, does a good job taking care of the house and cattle farm. Charles E. has run the cattle farm since 1969. "I was the first Leonard to actually work on the farm," says Charles E. And if you think the house looks pretty good, thank Charles E. Bit by bit, he is restoring it. He used extra cream-colored wallpaper he found in the attic to repair the textured parlor ceiling. He had Jamey and a friend peel several layers of mildewed wallpaper off the walls in Pop's old bathroom upstairs. They painted it a beautiful ice blue. An old bedroom adjoining the bathroom is also now ice blue. A new mattress for the antique bed waits in the hall. Pop never expected Charles E. to be so interested in the house. When the family took trips to historic places, he would stay in the car and listen to baseball games on the radio. It was his younger son, Jamie, who was the history buff, who was excited about the possibility of slave tunnels at Monticello. But Jamie was killed in a car accident. And Charles W. was left with one son, one heir. Charles E. wasn't planning to stay at Ravenswood and be a farmer, either, until he met Sarah, a pretty redhead who lived on the farm down the road. Now, he is intrigued by Ravenswood history. The railroad that used to run along the back of the property and take away the Leonard cattle fascinates him. The heating system that was installed in the house in the early 1900s was brought to Ravenswood by train. "They say it took 29 wagonloads to move the radiators," he says. Unlike his father, Charles E. isn't worried about the future of Ravenswood: Jamey has three older brothers and one sister. "We're blessed because there are five heirs after me," he says cheerfully. Jamey, the youngest, has been the most interested in Ravenswood. He enjoys giving tours most of the time, but sometimes he gets bored. He used to slide down the banister until he worried he might kick off the light on the newel post. He and a friend have sword fights in the foyer. Jamey does battle with the captain's Civil War sword. Sometimes the tourists are interesting, like two college freshmen who stopped. They asked all the right questions. "Hey, you ever jump on the beds?" They teased Jamey when he showed them the chair believed to have belonged to President Andrew Jackson. "Does he know you have it?" But some tourists are not as nice. Some interrupt his stories. Some touch things. Jamey doesn't want them touching Nadine's fragile Limoges china. He is especially protective of the elaborate table settings Pop set out for the tours. Some ask questions he can't answer, such as the exact date of a painting of his great-grandmother Roselia, Pop's mom. She died of an epidemic. He knew it was the late 1800s but not the exact date. Once Jamey had to round up another group of tourists that kept opening the closed doors and walking into parts of the house that were off-limits. The Great Cattle Drive, he called it. Tours like that, Jamey could do without. But he has a job to do. "Dad's in charge of the farm," he explains. "I'm in charge of the house." Someday, he may be in charge of both. He doesn't know if he wants to be a farmer. Right now he's got his hands full taking care of his three goats. His Dad might teach him to drive a tractor next year. He might like it. He might not. He might want to stay. He might not. What would happen to Ravenswood if he doesn't want to farm? He thinks about Pop. Pop lived at Ravenswood but hired someone to oversee the farm. "I'd probably have someone else take care of the farm," he decides. "You can do both. My Grandpa did." Ravenswood is nine miles south of Interstate 70 at Boonville on Route 5. The home is open for tours on weekends and occasional weekdays through November. It will reopen next spring. Hours are irregular. To be certain to get a tour, call ahead to arrange a time: (660) 882-7143.

Got Junk

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:05:58 GMT

The full service junk removal company, 1-800-GOTJUNK, donates or recycles up to sixty percent of the items collected. The team that arrives will remove your junk from where it sits, so there is no need to haul it to the curb. They also clean up the entire site afterward. Although prices vary depending on the volume and location of the item, the minimum charge is about eighty-eight dollars. The fee covers sorting, loading, cleanup, disposal or relocation, and item weight. Clay McGee boasts four quality focus areas that set his Springfield branch of 1-800-GOT-JUNK apart from other junk removal services: Prompt service, up-front rates, shiny trucks, and friendly uniformed drivers. Catering to the elderly, those preparing to move, working women as well as stay-at-home moms, and commercial businesses, Clay shares a few experiences from his branch. The oddest item collected: “We helped to get rid of a woman’s child’s baby crib, baby books, baby toys, baby everything … her baby was fifty-something years old!” The largest item collected: An early 1900s cast iron, four-person tub. “It was so big that it would not fit through any of the doors, nor would it fit down the stairs. We had to buy all of these power tools so we could chop it into pieces and carry it out. It weighed over eight-hundred pounds.” The smallest item collected: “One time a woman was getting rid of her very first microwave. She eally loved it and wanted it to be recycled. We went all the way out to her house to get her precious microwave.” The most common item collected: “People throw tons of books away, and there are lots of places to take them.” _Schedule junk removal online at www.1800gotjunk.com or call 1-800-GOT-JUNK. In addition to Clay’s Springfield branch, there are two franchises in Kansas City and one in St. Louis._ *—Kate Gilliam* June 2006

Fake Rock Guys

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 04:12:45 GMT

*Brothers Manufacture Boulders for Backyard Beautification* *By Dawn Klingensmith* Nature forms new rocks when wind, water, or glaciers deposit layers of sediment, which gradually cement into a solid mass. The process takes thousands of years. At Replications Unlimited, rocks are formed when fast-curing urethane is sprayed into a mold. Once the urethane is solid, the mold is removed, and a fake rock is born. The process takes minutes. The St. Louis company has fabricated thousands of rocks. Why would anyone need fake rocks, you ask? The real ones are too heavy to lug around. Theme parks rely on plastic rocks to design thrill rides like Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure. Filmmakers use them to build sets. Las Vegas casinos use fake rocks in everything from fountains to faux Egyptian tombs. Museums, zoos, and aquariums use them for exhibits. When brothers Jeff and Rodney Jarboe developed a method of producing fake rocks in a jiffy, they sold them to these types of customers. In fifteen years, their patented technology has grown so prevalent that you can see it on display “at pretty much any theme park in the country,” Jeff says. Now, they’re bringing fake boulders to backyards. Four years ago, the brothers sold their commercial business, Futura Coatings, and founded Replications Unlimited for the residential sector. Through the new company, pond and pool contractors as well as suburban homeowners buy fake rocks to build backyard waterfalls and ponds, adding visual appeal to landscaping and poolside decks. Jeff and Rodney use the prior technology, but on a smaller scale. The process starts with real rocks. Flexible molds capture “every nook, crevice, and cranny off the original rock formations,” Jeff says. To create the fakes, a urethane compound is sprayed into the molds. Once the urethane hardens, the reusable molds are peeled away to reveal fake rocks that resemble their originals right down to fine dusting of sand particles on their surfaces. Trained technicians hand-color each rock with a proprietary, weather-resistant coating creating additional depth. If you put a real rock and its copycat side by side, you’d be hard-pressed to tell which is which — that is, until you pick them up, Jeff says. The plastic version of a one-ton boulder would weigh about fifty pounds. Rocks can be ordered straight from the company’s catalog for sixty to six hundred dollars. Custom-made rocks also are available. One of Jeff ’s top sellers is a bubbler rock that functions as a fountain. It consists of a water basin, a pump, and plumbing. Self-contained waterfalls are popular, too. Practically, the company designs hollow cover rocks to conceal utility boxes, septic vent pipes, and other elements that mar residential landscaping. Replications Unlimited produces work for the commercial sector as well, and a recent project turned out to be the mother-of-all cover rocks — a one-and-a-half story miniature mountain used to hide a cell phone tower in California. _For more information or to find a dealer, call 314-524-2040 or visit www.fakerockguys.com._ June 2006

Chic and Modern Prefab Homes

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 04:01:42 GMT

Architect Rocio Romero’s original LV Home rests lightly on a bluff above the Pacific in Laguna Verde, Chile. The house is a rectangular box, sheathed in glass and corrugated steel. One imagines the glowing box inhabited by fabulous people sipping drinks while resting on modern furniture. This has been the stereotype of modern architecture: built for the rich and exotic. Rocio, however, wants you to imagine yourself living in one of these edgy structures. Rocio is now blending modern architectural sensibilities with prefabricated home construction in Missouri. “People who like modern homes usually have to get a custom architect,” Rocio says. “My solution makes it easier to digest.” Drawn to Missouri in 2003 by her husband, San Diego-native Rocio opened a production facility in Perryville, fabricating LV Home kits. The kits take their initials and name from Laguna Verde. Staffed by four local craftsmen, two salespeople, and Rocio, her company is able to produce one kit per week. Sold for $33,900, the kit includes materials, such as prefabricated elements for quick construction and detailed plans and instructions for building the 1,150-square-foot home. By the time the kit is installed, buyers will spend about $135,000, excluding land costs, and depending on added features. The cost of an LV Home is below that of the average new single-family, site-built home, which was $183,371 in 2003, excluding land costs, according to the Missouri Manufactured Housing Association. The cost exceeds the average price of a new manufactured home, which was $59,800 in 2003. Breaking out of the traditional home mold is a slow process for the industry. Rocio knows that her modern design, with its higher price tag, isn’t an easy sell to high-volume manufactured home producers — hence her independent facility. Having developed a larger version (LVL), a mini (LVM), a garage (LVG), and a design that meets code for 150 mile-per-hour wind loads (LV150), and working on two recreational prototypes — the Fish Camp and the Base Camp, she barely has time to consider the implications the LV Home will have on the industry. “Hopefully, the manufactured housing industry will provide more modern-looking homes or collaborate with modern architects,” she says. “Using prefabrication techniques will not only improve the physically built world but will appreciate in value over time, last longer, and have architectural significance.” _For more information, visit www.rocioromero.com._ *—Sarah Magill Mueller* June 2006