Cottonwood eyes rural renaissance

COTTONWOOD — A new housing project is underway here in hopes of tying together parts of Cottonwood’s sacred and secular past with a new vision of the future.

Ryan and Heather Uhlenkott, who also own Advanced Welding in Grangeville and a number of other small businesses in Cottonwood, are converting the old St. Joseph’s convent into upscale apartments. A second as-yet-undetermined phase of the project aims to remodel the former Prairie Elementary School into usable community space — possibly an assisted living center.

“We’re always having a need for people moving in,” Ryan Uhlenkott said recently. “There’s not enough housing, realistically, overall.”

The new apartments, “they’re not the Ritz, but they’re going to be decent for somebody that wants to move into town and retire. They’re going to have nice furnishings.”

Although the population sign at Cottonwood’s entrance claims 900 people, Uhlenkott said his businesses alone employ about 100 people. Pacific Cabinets at Ferdinand and the Idaho Forest Group mill in Grangeville also contribute to a gradual population growth. Uhlenkott estimates those businesses together employ about 300 people. And new people moving in for those jobs often have difficulty finding places to rent.

Uhlenkott said he recently remodeled 18 houses at the north end of Cottonwood that formerly housed Bureau of Land Management employees. Those homes are constantly filled with renters.

Why this sudden growth spurt?

“People realize what they have. You live here for a reason,” Uhlenkott said. “You enjoy the culture and everything else that’s around here.”

Valuing the rural lifestyle is the main reason the Uhlenkotts and their eight children moved back to their hometown after living a few years in San Diego.

“We knew the kids our kids would go to school with and their parents,” Uhlenkott said. “We knew the culture that was around here and the values. ... Your kids get deprived of some (urban cultural) things, but overall our kids have the opportunity to get brought up with the values we believe strongly in. We’re very involved in our church, and we want the kids to have that ability to see that and the values that are associated with that.”

The 2,000-plus-square-foot convent was built in the 1950s, originally to house the Benedictine sisters from the Monastery of St. Gertrude who taught at the adjoining elementary school, then called St. Joseph’s Elementary School and owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise.

Rhonda Wemhoff, the Cottonwood architect who is designing the remodel of the building, said the convent was attached to the school by a walkway. The two-story brick building with a full basement had 12 bedrooms for the sisters and one guest room on the main floor. The convent included a kitchen, a dining room, a chapel and a community room.

Each bedroom measured 10-feet by 14-feet and included a closet and a small sink. Two rooms shared a toilet and there was a communal bathroom with showers on the upper floor, Wemhoff said.

The main floor also had a parlor and a couple of music rooms.

The diocese sold the convent and elementary school to the Cottonwood School District in the 1960s, and the convent was converted into a cafeteria for the elementary school and offices for the district staff.

The school originally had six classrooms, and two more were added at a later date. There also is an adjoining gymnasium.

When the district closed the school in 2010, moving elementary classes to the middle school building, it put the complex up for sale with an asking price of $1.5 million. There were a few lookers, Uhlenkott said, but nobody made a serious bid.

Then earlier this year, the Uhlenkotts and their partners, Tom and Barbara Mannschreck of Lewiston, made an offer on the old convent and elementary school — minus the gymnasium — and bought it for $201,000.

The construction, which began a few weeks ago, has included demolition of the old walkway and parts of the interior of the old convent.

The bones of the building, Uhlenkott said, show it was solidly-made. Bids for a general contractor are expected to be open soon, and the plan is to have four apartments on both floors, along with a studio apartment on the main floor, ready for occupation by late spring 2019. Wemhoff is the architect for the project.

Plans are still being developed for remodeling the old elementary school. The question was recently put to the community about how best to use it and suggestions, including building a swimming pool, were received.

By far, Uhlenkott said, people favored turning the old school into an assisted living center. He has already begun talks with the staff of St. Mary’s Hospital next door about possibly partnering for some services if an assisted living center is opened.

Whatever the ultimate design will be, Uhlenkott said it will show his and others’ commitment to keeping this small community strong and a good place to live.

“It’s something that, if we’re going to better the community, we’re going to need things like that going on, because if you’re not building, you’re dying; you’re going backwards,” he said.

“You hope people say, `Hey, that makes sense; let’s do it as well.’ You take a leap, and everybody needs to take those leaps in life, whatever they are. Because these little towns are tough to keep going if you don’t have people taking chances and moving along.”

Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.