Threshold Moment
The architect on the Lesmeister Guesthouse project, Tommy Jameson, has commented in the past that he wonders where the original cast iron door thresholds of the building went. At some time in the past the original store fronts were replaced with “modern” glass and aluminum windows and doors, but we know that the building must have had metal thresholds like the door to the building next door to the Lesmeister, which has the same style brick work and was surely built at the same time.
Yesterday Tommy brought his engineer to town to study the recently discovered Lesmeister cistern. They looked up under the concrete cap that currently covers the old cistern, and found the cast iron thresholds! In the long ago they were used to span the cistern and cap it! I’m hoping we can retrieve them and use them as door thresholds again!
2 Replies to “Threshold Moment”
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Rather than refurbish this building maybe you should tear it down and look for the hidden gold in the walls or the jewels that the jewelery store owner stuffed in the floor as a hedge against bad times.
Believe me, I’ve mentioned looking for Confederate gold more than once regarding both the Lesmeister Building and the St. Charles. But I can assure you, Mr. Lesmeister and his family were obviously not the types to leave valuables lying around. In the whole building, which once housed a jewelry store, I’ve found one antique electrical device nobody can identify, and one horseshoe. That’s it. Not a single diamond that hit the floor and got kicked under a baseboard. Not a single dime that hit the floor and rolled into a corner. Nothing but the old building herself, and her cistern.