Local contractor hopes to restore old Oddfellows building

May 24—Sometimes circumstances make for odd bedfellows. That appears to be the case for Dusty Davis. Davis has spent the last several years acquiring and improving buildings in downtown Washington, fixing the ground floors for businesses and the upper floors for apartments.

About two years ago he was in the process of turning the top floor of the old J.C. Penney building at the corner of Third and Main into a wedding venue when the project came to an abrupt halt.

"COVID hit," said Davis. "We couldn't have gatherings and people weren't allowed to get together. That put an end to that. We were in the state permitting process at that point and we called that off. We were using an engineering firm from Vincennes and they were still in the investigative portion of that toward what could be grandfathered in to meet state permitting guidelines. At that point I called it off."

Without the wedding venue project, Davis turned his attention to some other downtown projects. That included redoing the former Robert's Furniture building and the Indiana Theater lobby.

Now, Davis has taken a bite out of one of the most challenging projects possible on Main Street, the old Oddfellows Hall.

"Now, I am trying to get through the paperwork for the old Oddfellows Building to get it on the national registry of historic homes," said Davis. "We are looking to get that eligible for grants to restore it."

Davis says that many of the houses on East Main were the homes of prominent community and business leaders in the early to mid-1800s. The old Oddfellows Lodge was no exception.

"This house was built by Matthew Brett in 1850. He was later the treasurer of the state of Indiana," said Davis. "He owned from Seventh Street all the way down to the highway and was friends with Van Trees across the road who had Abe Lincoln and Henry Clay staying over there. There was a lot of stuff going on in that area of East Main in the mid-1800s."

When Brett built the house, he was 21 years old. He later helped found and served as president of the Washington National Bank. He lived there for 20 years before selling the house to a local judge and moving to a house now located at the golf course.

Now Davis wants to turn back the clock on what was once one of the premier homes in the community.

"I don't think we know yet specifically what we are going to do with it. It may depend on the grant dollars that become available," he said. "Right now, the plan is to get historical status on it, then apply for some grants and hopefully restore it to the grand house it once was."

Davis is used to working with older buildings, but nothing like the Brett house. That has forced him to change his approach.

"I've never been through this before," he said. "I have always done private financed projects. You go to the bank, get a loan and make sure the cash flows. This is new territory for me. It would be difficult to do this on my own. The amount of work that it needs would be difficult to finance, unless you have someone that is willing to dump a lot of money into it."

He says the historic designation and grants will be the key to restoring a piece of property that he describes as solid but in need of a lot of work.

"It needs a lot of work," said Davis. "It has a lot of brick. There is not a lot of sagging or rot. They have kept a good roof on it. It is a solid, well-built place it just needs all of the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and all of the surfaces on the inside needs redone, tuck-pointing, windows, facade on the outside."

Davis believes if everything goes right, he could move from paperwork to actual construction on the house in a year. He is still uncertain what will happen with it once the improvements are done.

"We have some ideas," he said. "We want it to be open to the public. We don't intend to turn it into apartments. It could be a restaurant or banquet hall, reception hall. There are a lot of good opportunities for it. It has a good layout where it could be used for several things."

Davis says the house has quite a history and a restoration seems to be in order.

"There was some money and power tied to that house on Main Street in the 1800s" he said. "There is a lot of cool history there that ties back to some of the earliest settlers in our area."

And it is his hope that the old Oddfellows building will not be the only one brought back to its glory days on Main Street.

"That's our plan to keep improving downtown one or two buildings at a time," said Davis. "I would hope to someday see all of Main Street from end to end all redone like new."

And that could include a wedding venue atop the old J.C. Penney building someday.

"I have had a lot of things going on that have kept me from pursuing the wedding venue that probably would have left me broke if we had tried to get it done and open over the last two years," said Davis. "I would like to get that up and running some time."