Please select the story you wish to read
 "Ladora, Iowa. - Ladora sits on a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 6 about 25 miles east of Grinnell, its 290 residents served by a single gas station in the shadow of a crumbling grain tower. Brad Erickson slowed his motorcycle, however, when he saw the empty bank. The substantial classic structure with giant pillars announced its place in the community with a grandiose maxim etched in stone, high above the entrance: "The wealth of this community embodies the richness of her soil, the integrity, frugality and diligence of her people." He peeked inside the old Ladora Savings Bank and saw the brass light fixtures, the tellers' windows and all that wonderful marble. "It looked untouched by time," Erickson said. "Everything has changed all around us; this place hasn't." The town's main street buildings, which numbered a dozen or so in the 1940s, are largely gone. The bank has stood since it opened in 1920. Five years after Erickson's weekend ride, one can also find this scene inside the old Ladora Savings Bank, as described by Colleen Klainert, Erickson's fiancee: 
Four big guys, fresh out of the field, their thick fingers holding fine stemware, sipping wine and talking about farm prices. "It's the funniest thing I've ever seen," she said. Erickson and Klainert have turned the old bank into a wine bar called the Ladora Bank Bistro. Its transformation is a tale of unlikely dreams: That one of Iowa's sturdiest survivors of rural decline, a historic bank building, could become a trendy wine bar. That a couple who has watched America become fast, cheap and disposable would ditch their city careers to offer the slow, costly and time-honored. That a farmer suddenly taken by viognier would say this one late afternoon: 
"I'll take a splash of wine. Then I've got to get back in the fields." Erickson quickly learned the history and ways of the small town after he bought the bank in 2004 from Lois Randolph, who ran a drapery business in the basement. The bank, he learned, had been a point of pride when it opened in 1920, proclaimed by a newspaper as the finest in Iowa. A thousand people attended its opening. But 11 years later, the doors closed during the Depression. Many a citizen's life savings were lost. A vault holding safe deposit boxes, where customers once kept valuables, now holds kitchen supplies. Turning the bank into a bistro took four years of work. It opened in May. During the years, the bank continued to reflect the times: During World War II, it was a place to wrap bandages for injured soldiers. After the war, it became a civil defense shelter and then a voting station. Truckers slept there before Interstate Highway 80 diverted traffic and business out of town. Antiques and drapery shops followed in the 1980s when rural Iowa tried anything to survive. The building began aging. Erickson, 45, saw a vision, though, a quiet place for a single father to raise his teenagers heading into high school, away from the big schools in Cedar Rapids. He set to work, thinking the bank could be a home. As he began restoration inside the bank, people would wander in. "Can I help you?" he would yell down from the scaffolding, puzzled. "To them, it was theirs. There was no way I could make it a home. I'd have no privacy." He moved to Grinnell, and not long after discovered a funky city woman from St. Paul, Minn., on Match.com. 
Erickson and Klainert were truly a match. Each worked for corporations, and that began to trouble them. After 20 years in the cell phone business, Erickson saw how quickly Americans disposed of possessions. "Buy a cell phone and three months later throw it in the garbage," he said. Klainert became disenchanted in her role as a representative for a large wine distributor whose dictated choices squelched creativity and freedom. Each had the yearning at the beginning of middle age to take a chance. Klainert, an artistic sort who some days will don cat's-eye glasses and combat boots just for the fun of it, moved to Iowa and marveled at what Erickson had on his hands at the bank. Erickson had teetered on scaffolding for 18 months to repair and paint the ceiling 24 feet off the floor. Near the ceiling, he restored the lettering of four maxims on each wall: - Frugality - the parent of fortune. - Integrity - companion of success. - Wealth - achievement of thrift. - Diligence - mother of virtue. He shivered through the winters in a heavy coat, and when Klainert would call to ask what he was doing, he'd say, "I'm working on diligence." Despite its years of wear, the bank maintained many fine qualities. The marble tellers' counter, original wood floors, the heavy vault doors and even small details such as the brass clips where tellers hung their visors were all still there. Dozens of Iowa's old banks are on the National Historic Register. Also, several old banks are being used for other businesses in Iowa, including two in Valley Junction in West Des Moines. They aren't buildings that easily crumble. 
"They had to exude trust," said Jack Porter, preservation consultant with the State Historical Society of Iowa. "Many times, they were architectural statements. The bank in Ladora is almost like a Greek temple; it's very classic." Nearly four years after Erickson bought it, the temple was ready to become a bistro. When the doors opened in May, Erickson and Klainert watched with glee as local residents entered. They saw the old bank with all its grand features, supplemented by whimsical touches from Klainert. "Classic revival meets Dr. Seuss," she said. Colorful, modern chairs grace the bar area, complimenting the heavy grays and tans of the natural materials. The ladies' parlor became a colorful seating area, as did a vault. The safe deposit vault became the kitchen, where Klainert stirred a small-plate menu of "substantial appetizers" such as stromboli rosso, mushroom tarts and baked Brie. The upstairs boardroom became a dining area with chairs covered in wool suits and ties. Photos of the board of directors include Mr. Spacely from "The Jetsons" cartoon, J.P. Morgan and a dour-faced man, a photo they found in the basement. One of the first diners recognized the man. Turns out, he was a relative of the diner and had worked on the construction of the building. The connections with local history continued. Diners glanced through original bank ledgers and found relatives. They bought gift certificates made from the original Ladora Savings Bank checks. "One man told me that his grandfather lost $4,000 here," Erickson said. "I told him, hell, I've lost more than that." But something else happened. The practical, Busch Light-loving people of the community who at first thought the couple crazy to try this, began to embrace the bistro. The couple worked on them to try something new, fine wines from all over the world ranging from $18 a bottle to $190; or an appetizer of Iowa's own La Quercia prosciutto served with capers and cold-pressed olive oil for $8.50. It wasn't cheap, and it wasn't fast. "Hopefully, you don't come here for a 20-minute meal," Erickson said. "We encourage people to share." Klainert used her expertise from her former business and from living in Italy to create wine pairings. The building helped, they said. People, impressed with the aura of the building, suddenly came in to try new things. Klainert schooled inexperienced women on fine wine. They later brought their friends back and schooled them. Older residents brought their big-city children in with pride. Of course, it continues to be a tough sell, as some local residents cast a wary eye on big-city dreamers. "Are people really going there to try different things or are they going there because they can take the gravel road home after drinking?" said Diane Forsyth, owner of the Ladora Stora convenience store in town. "But I will say this: The people in town are happy to see the place not deteriorating. People like having a place to get a refreshment." Nothing was as delightful as the interactions with working men and farmers. Erickson and Klainert even keep a journal of what they see and hear. One day, they saw the chief executive of an Iowa company sitting next to a sleeveless laborer with a tattoo. They were talking the futures market. A farmer came in, not convinced about the whole wine thing. But after heavy lobbying, and on his own time, he sat one day and proclaimed in the hypothetical common to such occasions: "Maybe a guy ought to start drinking a little wine." The couple introduced him to viognier. He's now committed to it. Another laborer can't get enough of the mushroom tarts, a paper-thin pastry baked to conceal the wild mushroom filling with a hint of Tuscan white truffle oil. One day, a man pulled up and parked outside on his tractor. He sat at a table and took a troubling call from his wife. Afterward, he asked what the bistro could offer to smooth it over. How about a $190 bottle of Dom Perignon? He ran out and got his farm bucket off the tractor and asked for ice. Klainert substituted it with a wine bucket. The next day, he returned the bucket with a smile. "Worked like a charm," he said. Now, the man is one of three members of the Ladora Dom Society. They bought T-shirts and printed the name on the back. What started as a love affair with an old bank building became a relationship with the town. Erickson and Klainert expected explorers to drive to Ladora for the experience of discovering this off-the-beaten-path bistro - and they have, from Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. What the couple didn't expect was how they would be embraced by a farmer with a taste for white wine." -Des Moines Register 2008
|
