Tobacco building sold

viroqua couple weighs plans for theater, offices, cafe

Four years ago, tobacco still reigned supreme in Vernon
County. And the cash crop that many families used to finance
their homes, their cars, their kids’ college educations, needed a headquarters befitting its importance in the community.

The tobacco warehouse, standing tall and proud on the corners of East Street and Decker has filled that need for about a century. But with the federal government buyout of most local tobacco farmers a few years back, king tobacco is stepping down. As the tobacco pool begins to dissolve, they’re selling
off the Viroqua landmark.

But what do you do with a beautiful old building with 24,000 square-feet of space? Who knows how to handle the endless miles of hard-wood floors, the rooms with impossibly-high ceilings,
the trusses that could withstand a falling meteor?

Valorie Schaefer and Richard Bock are up for the challenge. The tobacco pool has accepted the Viroqua couple’s offer on the building and they plan to finalize the deal this month. The pool is
selling the building for $150,000.

Schaefer is starting to hear from people about potential uses. The big, open space lends itself to a performance theater that could supplement the Temple Theatre, accommodating smaller audiences, for example. She’s also heard ideas about a microbrewery, a restaurant, a café, artist studios, artisan production space.

“What are the right pieces and how will they fall into place?” she says. “It’s sort of a puzzle. But we feel very optimistic that there’s sufficient interest and a wealth of good ideas. So it’s about the
discipline of editing. We want it to be a viable long-term proposition. We don’t want to be hasty.”

The Bock/Schaefer family moved to town almost five years ago from Madison. Schaefer, 46, is a writer and producer. She’s the author of the wildly successful American Girl book, The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls. Bock, 50, is an audio/video engineer and a videographer. They often work together on projects, including their two daughters, Maris, 9 and Raina, 7.

Schaefer and Bock said that they’ll do a minimal amount of renovation work so that they can move their marketing and communications agency into the building. And after that—well, they’re open to ideas.

“Then we’ll wait and see what the community asks of the building,” Schaefer says. “We’ll be open to looking at all kinds of business plans. We’ll be looking for things that are appropriate
to the building and that are beneficial to the community.”

One thing they do know is that the building commands a certain kind of respect.

“This building has tremendous historic and cultural significance in this region,” Schaefer says. “New buildings have efficiency and economy, but old buildings have history and stories. When you walk through the sorting room, you can imagine the women who stood here, day in and day out, sharing stories of their lives, complaining about their husbands, talking about their children.”

It’s pretty tough to not be impressed by this mammoth edifice: Yes, it’s on the national and state historical registry. No, they really don’t make ’em like this anymore. But when you walk inside, it’s the vastness that’s startling—the quiet where there were once piles upon piles of tobacco drying. The smoothness of stair railing tells how many hands have grasped it for support over the past 100 years. And much of the ton after ton of tobacco that was sprouted and planted and weeded and picked and dried and bundled in farms all over the county has passed through
these walls, sweated up to the ceiling, pulled back out to the buyers. A lot of life has happened here.

Anyone who has been a part of that life likely knows Sharon Hoyum. As office manager, she sits in the same office that she did when she came to the pool 24 years ago. These days, Hoyum is
busy, not checking on tobacco deals, but packing up all the tobacco paraphernalia, clearing the clutter out of corners,
readying the rooms for the new owners, readying herself for the move out.

“It’s going to be strange,” she says, “working in a new office.”

Hoyum is even busier because George Nettum isn’t the fixture that he has been at the office. Nettum, 86, the general manager of the pool for the past 50 years and a familiar face in many circles
in the region, fell and broke his hip last year. He’s been recovering down nearMadison. He hopes to get back soon and
help finish up the business of the pool.

Nettum says that after spending 50 years of his life in the building, planning to leave is a sorrowful time for him. The building has been like a second home and its history has blended with his own. Nettum said the building was built in 1906 by an independent tobacco buyer, E. M. Bekkedal from Westby.
Nettum’s heard the story that the building cost a million dollars to build, but he doesn’t believe it.

“Things weren’t so expensive back then,” he says.

He says the beams that span the entire width of the building were shipped in from the old forests up in Lac Courte Oreilles, WI. And although he thinks the original price tag has been exaggerated, Nettum acknowledges the quality of the workmanship and the materials used in the building is unheard of these days.

When the board started thinking about unloading all the various properties that the pool has to sell in order to dissolve, they figured that this building—because of its enormity and specialized use—would be the last to go. Instead, it’s the first. The pool still has to sell the building behind the tobacco warehouse, the long warehouse where the flea market currently rents space,
and several other warehouses in the industrial park.

Hoyum, too, is struggling with taking all the steps that will spell the end of the tobacco pool. She hears the stories of how tough it is for farmers to make the transition from life in the fields into
other kinds of jobs. It’s hard to watch the end of the era. But she’s happy that the building will be used for something new. She thinks the Bock/Schaefers have the energy and enthusiasm to do something that will benefit the community.

“I’m really excited to see what they’re going to do with it,” Hoyum says. “I’m definitely interested in coming back and watching the progress on it. It sounds like they have a lot of good ideas, so I
hope it works out for them.” Schaefer says that as the good ideas come, they’ll develop the spaces. They won’t renovate the entire
building and try to draw tenants, but create a space when the specific need arises. Whatever happens, Schaefer says, it will be
something that helps preserve the spirit of the men and women who worked in the building.

“We really want to make it an asset to the community,” she says. “We’d like to make it something that everyone can be very pleased with and proud of. We love this area. We have this notion, too, that it can be just one more thing that continues to bring energy to this area and helps revitalize the area. perhaps it will help draw people here to see all that we have to offer.”