Ten Mile Lake Association

Arthur's Restaurant on Ten Mile Lake - Page 12

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These photos were submitted by Tom Cox in June of 2015

Construction Update as of June 7

On the first weekend in May, Steve Erickson, Jim Krotzman, Steve's brother-in-law, and I brushed out the lawn around the north end of the building where mostly aspen saplings had encroached over the thirteen years since the former Arthur's ceased operations. Here Jim Krotzman carries a load of brush to Jim Graves' and Steve's Ranger pickup for transport to the county landfill.

As of May 1, these specially-built trusses lay in the parking lot, ready for installation to support the attractive "barrel ceiling" in the porte cochere (not to be confused with the barrel ceiling in the "off sale" just inside the building entrance, of which, more to come).

By Saturday, May 2nd, Anderson Brothers had arranged for the delivery of this monster asphalt reclaiming machine. As it passes over asphalt (in this case our old parking lot), it scarfs up the solid asphalt, grinds it, and lays it down again in a smooth layer to provide a solid, stable base on which to put down new asphalt.

Sunday, May 3: Installation of the Air Make-up Equipment for the kitchen had begun. This equipment provides the huge volume of (heated or cooled) air needed to make up for the air that the range hood exhausts from the kitchen during cooking operations. Without this make-up equipment, the exhaust hood would draw unconditioned air in through the doors and windows and smoky air down the fireplace chimneys - not a good idea! That's the door to the upstairs that you see in the upper right. Soon a new deck will make for easy access to that door.

Tuesday, May 5: Much of the make-up air equipment is now in place.

Also, by early may, the stainless steel beer cooler in the basement had been installed. Here you see the lines that will carry beer from its kegs to the taps on the two bars upstairs. There will be twelve taps on each bar.

By Monday, May 4, work on the deck had begun in earnest. Here the Bobcat with its auger is being prepared to excavate the holes for the sono tubes that will hold the poured concrete deck footings.

Here the sono tubes await the auger; one is already seated in its excavation, as you can see in the foreground in this picture.

Reclaiming began a little after 6:00 AM on Tuesday, May 5th. The sun hasn't yet appeared over the treetops to the east.

Still early in the morning of Tuesday, May 5. Here you see a Bobcat excavating excavating sand from the south end of the old gravel septic filter. The new septic filter system occupies a much smaller footprint in the south parking lot than that old, low green-roofed structure that used to occupy the site. Some of the fresh, washed sand from this location will be used to bolster the approach to the new dock at the waterfront.

Reclaiming the asphalt goes pretty rapidly. Later in the morning on the 5th, Anderson Bros. was grading the newly created "gravel." It was a dramatic happening on the site, after years of waiting for this to happen.

Tuesday May 5: Grading continues. That's the well-head you see in the upper left, just to the left of the front-end loader.

Once graded, the base is rolled to make it smooth and compact. I hoped the driver of this roller would miss the well-head (he did, of course!)

The dock went in on about April 16, the day of official ice-out on Ten Mile. Here, on May 5th, Tony Scofield of Anderson Brothers delivers two or three buckets-full of sand to fill in the area just off the shoreward end of the dock.

That same day, Tuesday May 5, Brad Edwards was finishing up the facade around the oval window in the building front.

Also on the 5th, Margo Cox (no relation to me), high on a scaffold, was painting the interior window trim in the main dining room.

Meanwhile, Jerry Peterson, also high on a scaffold, was putting the finishing decorative touches on the laminated beams that support the main dining room ceiling.

That afternoon, Brad placed the last rock in the oval window facade.

This ad for staff appeared in the Walker Pilot Independent several times in April and May. The restaurant staff is now nearly complete.

Wednesday, May 6. Roger Schroeder installs decorative trim to the laminated ceiling beams in the interior dining room.

On Tuesday, May 6th, I added a 1/4 yard of red hardwood mulch to the dock approach area to make an attractive and clean access to and from the dock.

Thursday, May 7 about 11:30 AM: More stainless steel kitchen equipment arrives by semi-truck and trailer.

Thursday, May 7: The stainless steel shelving and sink in the yard, awaiting installation.

Thursday, May 7. GC Carl Peterson delivers a lengthy stack of lumber through the window into the large dining room.

Friday May 8: Much of the equipment for the front kitchen had been unwrapped and moved into place, and awaited only hooking up to the propane supply.

Friday, May 8: The back kitchen, with cooler, freezer, dishwasher, etc., in place.

Friday May 8: Jerry Peterson applies the "haymow door" decorative trim to the high south wall of the large dining room.

Friday, May 8: Frank North works on the other barrel ceiling, this on in the "off sale" at the front of the building just off the main entrance.

Friday, May 8: The pad for the condensing units for the beer cooler and the food freezer and food cooler in the basement had just been poured in front of the main dining room.

Friday May 8: Brad Edwards created the forms that will be filled with concrete to make the caps on the pillar foundations of the porte cochere. He will use a narrow rubberized form above this wooden frame to "wrap around" the poured concrete to give the poured cap the look of a natural rock.

Also on the 8th, high on scaffolding Kirk Owen and his colleague Sean install one of the three large chandeliers that now grace the ceiling area of the large dining room.

May 8: Jerry Peterson's "hay mow" door trim is complete except for its "hinges." Tasteful and contrasting but complementary surface colors and textures of the walls, the fireplace and the ceiling in the main dining room provide a strikingly pleasing impression and a lovely appearance.

Saturday, May 9: An exterior view of the building with the reclaimed and newly graded (but as yet unpaved) parking lot in the foreground.

Monday, May 11: Two of the three circular chandeliers now installed in the main dining room.

Monday, May 11: The pillar caps have now been poured. The black material you see above the form is the rubber material wrapped around the wet concrete that will, when peeled away, leave the cap looking like a natural rock.

Friday May 22: Sarah Cox inspects the river rock that has been put down over landscape fabric where the outdoor deck is to be installed around the west (lake) side and north end of the building.

Friday May 22: Another view of the river rock that will be beneath the new deck.

May 22nd: The framework for the deck on the building's south end, which will provide ready access to the kitchen door (standing open in this photo) and to the "back" door leading upstairs.

In about 1999, Sarah and I took a trip to Glacier Park, and on the way home stopped off at the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota, not far from Mount Rushmore. To raise funds, The Crazy Horse Foundation was selling rocks that had been discarded from the mountain in which it was carving the statue of the Lakota leader, Crazy Horse. For $1.00 Sarah picked up a colorful rock, which, while it has decorated her flower garden lo, these past many years, now rests centrally in the first course of rock above the main entrance to Arthur's. You can distinguish it here by its gold-ish blotches; it's the middle rock in the row of seven rocks visible in this photo. It looks even better in real life! Placement here is courtesy of Brad Edwards, our masonry artist and craftsman.

The Crazy Horse Memorial in Crazy Horse, S.D.

May 22: Brad Edwards and Carl Peterson "stamp" the newly poured concrete forming the driveway under the port cochere. The stamping is done by laying rubber forms on the recently poured concrete and then "stamping" the forms into the concrete to leave a particular pattern, in this case, a pattern of wooden antique boards. Note the cap on the newly rocked porte cochere support pillar foundation, the cap the forms for which you may have seen in my previous picture set. In the background on the right you can see the condensers for the beer cooler, the food cooler and the food freezer that are in the basement.

May 22nd: Here's a photo of the newly stamped concrete under the porte cochere.

By May 22nd, the beautiful ceramic tile and the wall hung toilets in the women's room were in place.

May 22nd: At the northeast corner of the basement, a furnace room is chock full of equipment, including this array of beer pumps that will deliver 12 types of beer to the taps on the two bars on the main level above. To the right is a wall-hung boiler that delivers warm fluid to the in-floor heat pipes in the main dining room above. To the left is the conventional dual-fuel furnace and air handler for the main dining room above.

May 22nd: This is the Kinetico Water Filtration System, now fully installed and operational.

May 22nd: Sarah Cox inspects the newly painted stairwell leading from the kitchen to the basement. Note its newly installed, heavy-duty handrail, fabricated by Jason Snodgrass. Food and beer will be carried/rolled/bumped down and up this staircase, to and from storage coolers/freezers in the basement.

By Saturday, May 23, Carl and Shari Peterson had made good progress on the installation of the tin ceiling over the open kitchen in the interior dining room.

Wednesday, May 27: Brad's crew prepared the forms for the concrete steps leading from the front entrance to the parking lot. One person asked whether there would be railings alongside the steps. We realized that railings wouldn't be needed, as passengers can be dropped off under the porte cochere and walk on a level directly into the building, or they may park in the handicapped parking spots at the south end of the building and walk on level ground to the porte cochere and thence through the main entrance, without needing to take a single step, either up or down.

Wednesday, May 27, about 3:30 in the afternoon, Shari Peterson and her daughter, Amber, were painting the porte cochere, its ceiling, beams and pillars.

By Wednesday afternoon, May 27th,the first of the deck rim joists were in place.

Wednesday, May 27: Joe Sechser, our HVAC subcontractor, was busy hooking up all the kitchen equipment to their propane lines. Those are three deep fryers just in front of Joe in this picture.

By Thursday, May 28,Kirk Lowe and Sean had installed this stunning chandelier in the interior dining room.

By about 5:00 PM (hence the deep shadow) on Thursday, May 28, the front steps had been poured and stamped. Note how the walkway separates as it approaches the blacktop.

Here's a view of the interior bar lighting on Thursday afternoon, May 28th.

And here are the first three courses of the herringbone flooring going into the interior dining room, also on the 28th.

Gary Hart's crew works on the herringbone flooring on Friday, May 29th. Note that the bar has now been paneled.

Here, on Friday, May 29th, John Soward works on "seasoning" the wood-fired pizza oven. The oven must be "burned in" for about two weeks before it can bake its first pizza. It uses very clean, kiln-dried firewood ultimately to create a very hot fire - from 700 to 1,100 degrees; the present fire is a low one.

Friday, the 29th, about 3:15 PM. Jim Graves and Carl Peterson view the interior dining room, which is rapidly taking beautiful shape.

Approaching 5:00 PM on Friday, May 29th, I snapped this photo of the parking lot, now with its "first lift" of asphalt in place. It will receive a "second lift" before it is finished. The old northern entrance to the parking lot has been removed, and the main entrance, off of Long Bay Road, has been widened, in accordance with MNDot's requirements.

Saturday, May 30th, 7:33 AM: A view from across 371 of the building in the early morning sunlight.

May 31, 2015: On the weekend of May 31, Jim Graves, Steve Erickson, Jim Krotzman, Beth and Stuart Wilson, I and several others of Carl's crew and Beth's wait staff moved all of the dining room and deck furniture, lighting fixtures, door frames and doors from the storage building at 371 Storage on Lower Ten Mile Lake Road to the Arthur's building. Skip Duchesneau and Dale Jones, of D.W. Jones Realty of Walker, graciously gave us the use of Storage Building No. 28 at 371 Storage, free of charge, from November through May, to store all of the furniture, equipment, lighting fixtures, etc., etc., that were delivered during that period but that could not yet be accommodated in the restaurant. We are deeply grateful to 371 Storage for the use of that building. We completely filled it up with our stuff while we waited for the building to be ready for it.

This past Monday, June 1st, Beth Wilson organized her wait staff to come in to unpack the many boxes of furniture and begin to organize it all temporarily in the main dining room. Beth has assembled a terrific staff, and we are thrilled by their obvious energy, willingness to work and their eagerness to see the restaurant up and running.

Tuesday, June 1, 2015: You can get something of a feel for the volume of furniture that had to be unpacked and organized, and of cardboard boxes that had to be disposed of.

On that same Tuesday, the 1st of June, either Roger Schroeder or Joe Danzell was up on the lifter putting the last of the white trim on the wall under the eaves on the south west building gable.

By that same Tuesday, the 1st, we had received several boxes of Arthur's "memorabilia," which ultimately will be on display and for sale in the "off sale" room just inside the front entrance - T-shirts, Hoodies, Hats - who knows what all?! They'll surely sell like hotcakes!

Wednesday, June 3, 2015. Beautiful ceramic tile, a sandstone sink counter, Moen single-lever faucets, and shapely urinals dress up the men's room on the main level.

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015: Work on the north end deck joists proceeds.

June 2nd: You can begin to get a sense of the extent of the new deck.

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015: About 4:00 in the afternoon we took delivery from Northland Monument of sections of the sandstone bar and kitchen countertops. These are beautiful pieces of stone, each weighing between 700 and 1,000 pounds.

June 3, 2015: It took four burly guys to wheel this bar top section in through the interior dining room and out into the main dining room for installation on the bar.

June 3: Wheeling the bar top section through the doorway from the interior dining room to the main dining room. Careful, now...!

June 3rd: Here Nathan Lang, his colleague Jeremiah and three other members of his crew lift the bar top from its dolly onto the bar, where you can see that two other sections are already in place. Jeremiah will seal the joints between the sections with a special, epoxy resin, tinted to match the color of the stone.

June 3rd: Here is the main dining room bar, with its top now installed.

Afternoon of June 3: The guys are making good progress on the deck joists on the north end of the building as well as on the lake side.

Here, on a platform high above the main dining room bar, a technician from NLFX Professional of Bemidji, adjusts the equipment in the A/V equipment rack. The A/V system, procured for us by Ten Mile's own Justin Krueger, will provide sound throughout the building, not only for dining background music, but for presentation speakers, MCs of special events, etc., and a 47" TV over the interior dining room bar.

This past Thursday, June 4th, was our GC, Carl Peterson's birthday. Shari and others of the crew accented its celebration with cake and this helium-filled balloon.

This past Friday, June 5th, 2015, Barb Sherman and a colleague, of Barb's Creative Gardens, came with flowers and shrubs to brighten and soften the Arthur's landscape. That day I rode my bike to the site for the first time (see it in the upper right of this pic).

Meanwhile, also on the 5th, Brad Edwards was working on the foundation for the lighted "Arthur's" monument sign that will stand on the eastern edge of the parking lot, just opposite the restaurant's main entrance. It looks to me as though this sign will be there permanently, and for a long time!

Friday, June 5th: Lovely ceramic tile by Jason and Leah Gilland; tasteful lighting by Kirk Lowe and Restoration Hardware; Moen single-lever faucets by Restoration Hardware and Joe Bates of Legacy Plumbing and Heating; and a sandstone sink counter by Nathan Lang of Northland Monument lend elegance to the women's room.

On Friday the 5th, Shirley Fossey and the crew from Kensak Karpets installed this lovely carpeting in the hall, TMLA office and board room downstairs.

Meanwhile, also on the 5th of June, Floor Manager Barb Gavitt and members of the wait staff, with an assist from Stuart Wilson, assembled the staff lockers in the basement hallway.

Still on Friday, June 5th, work proceeded on the north end deck. The decking is a weatherproof composite material designed to stand the test of time.

Progress on the west side deck as of Friday, June 5th, about 4:20 in the afternoon.

By that Friday, the 5th, DirecTV had come to install its satellite dish in the front yard, just off of the parking lot's handicapped space at the south end of the building.

By COB on the 5th, Brad had completed the forms for the concrete foundations of the monument sign. This may be poured during the week of the 8th. My next photo update will undoubtedly include a picture of the sign in place.

I took this picture on Friday, the 5th of June. Anderson Brothers had already placed these boulders around the corner of the parking lot where Long Bay Road crosses it leading down the hill.