Arthur's Restaurant on Ten Mile Lake - Page 9

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These photos were submitted by Tom Cox in the winter of 2014-2015

Construction Update as of January 16

Movement has been dramatic, with framing of the Porte Cochere, the arrival of the Pizza Oven, completion of the roofing, enclosing the building against the winter weather, and pouring of the screened porch floor. There are 51 pictures here, culled from "billions" taken by me, Jim Graves, Jason Snodgrass and Carl, Shari and Jerry Peterson. Thanks to all for helping to build this photo-record of this historic development! With this much detail, viewers may want to zip through these hurriedly. There are more to come! - Tom

Tuesday, Dec. 16. Jason Snodgrass rides the Lull driven by Brad Edwards to lift the ridge beam of the Porte Cochere into place:

Dec. 16. Caleb Peterson works on framing the south wall:

Mid-December was just snowy enough to be a nuisance to the crew.. Here Shari Peterson shovels snow off of the upper level floor:

Dec. 16. Jason prepares to ride the Lull up with the "ladder" for the Porte Cochere look-out:

Dec. 16. Jason and Jerry Peterson fasten the "ladder" in place:

View of the building about 3:30 PM on December 16:

Dec. 16. The white pine pillars that support the roof of the Porte Cochere will have steel boxes for feet that rest on top of their concrete supports. Here Carl shows me on of the boxes, fabricated by Jason Snodgrass at his shop in Bemidji:

The box turned upside down to show its interior:

Thursday, Dec. 18. Brad Edwards adjusts the placement of a Porte Cochere pillar as it is lowered into position by the Lull:

A pillar with its steel foot resting on its concrete support (sonotube). The sonotube will ultimately be surfaced with attractive stone:

Dec. 18. A bleak, cold and drizzly day. With support pillars in place,Brad guides the Porte Cochere ridge beam into position. "Neither snow nor rain nor cold nor wet stays these guys from the work at hand....":

Dec. 18. The Lull lifts one of the Porte Cochere roof support beams into place. These are large, heavy and attractive white pine beams, brought by Shari by trailer from the lumber yard in Cass Lake or Bemidji:

Dec. 18. A close-up of the Porte Cochere beam being settled into place:

Dec. 18. John Mason, Brad Edwards and Carl secure and stabilize the Porte Cochere beams. You can see at the lower left that the building is beginning to be closed in with OSB (oriented strand board - "plywood"). The crew's jackets are a clue to the outdoor working temperature:

Dec. 18. That may be Carl and Shari's daughter, Amber, up there helping to enclose the south wall:

Friday, Dec. 19. Amber Peterson is an A student and champion pole vaulter at NDSU. She was home for the holidays, and came to work. Here she is sitting on the snowy inside floor sand floor of the building pulling nails out of lumber. Again, you can see that it was a cold and somewhat snowy week before Christmas:

Friday, Dec. 19. Jason and Jerry work on sheeting the north slope of the roof over the screened porch:

Dec. 18. This is the chase for the main chimney. Work on the roof is now progressing rapidly:

Dec. 19. The chase, wrapped, and ready for installation:

Friday, Dec. 19. The roof curbs arrive by truck. This is the delivery of the curb and chimney lining for the main chimney above the roofline:

Monday, December 22. Brad and John install rafters and other roof framing on the Porte Cochere:

Dec. 22. Sheeting complete, Jerry and Jason work on shingling the north slope over the screened porch:

Dec. 22. Meanwhile, John and Brad continue work on framing the Porte Cochere roof:

About 1:45 PM on the 22nd, the Italian Open Wood-fired Brick Pizza Oven arrived by truck. There were some anxious moments as Brad used the Lull to extract the oven from the truck and move it, ever so slowly and carefully, over to the building:

Dec. 22, 1:48 PM. The Lull manages to get a grip on the oven crate, and slowly move it out of the truck. In another life, Brad would probably have been an obstetrician:

Dec. 22, 1:50 PM. Here it comes! It fit in the truck very snugly, and it took great skill with the Lull to pull it out smoothly, without damaging or dropping it. Midwifery has nothing on this operation:

Dec. 22, 1:54 PM. Almost out! Now the trick is to lower it to ground level safely. This oven weighs about 3,500 pounds (1.75 tons), and cost about $13,750.00. No one, least of all Brad, wants to see it fall off the Lull!:

Dec, 22, 1:56 PM. Made it!

Dec. 22, 1:59 PM. Oven enroute to building, at a snail's pace. We all held our breath until the oven was safely in the building:

Dec. 22, 2:11 PM. Brad slowly and gently maneuvered the oven into the building, and lowered it onto some 2x4s, so that in due time some steel pipes could be slipped underneath the crate and the crate rolled into its final position in the southwest corner of the open kitchen:

By 2:30 PM, the guys were back up shingling the roof. Another dreary, damp day, but not freezing, thank goodness. You can see the wrapped chimney chase in place now:

Dec. 22. A front view of the building about 2:35 PM, three days before Christmas:

Dec. 23. Jerry and his son, Caleb, ride the scissors lift up with the "ladder" section for the Porte Cochere look out:

Dec. 23. Jerry and Caleg fit a second "ladder" section into place:

Christmas Eve. A view of Long's Bay from inside the building. You can see that that view from the dining rooms will be excellent. You can also see that the screened porch floor has yet to be poured. Stay tuned.....

Christmas Eve, front view of building. Work ended about 2:30 or 3:00 this afternoon:

Sunday, Dec. 28. After church, Sarah and I stopped by to have a look at progress since Christmas. Here Sarah and Carl pose for me while they talk about building progress. This picture of the two of them is too good not to include!

Dec. 29. Another front view of the building, with the Porte Cochere now complete:

12/31: New Year's Eve - a view of the upper level, which will house three bedrooms, each with 3/4 bath. Their purpose is to house visiting restaurant personnel and program presenters - speakers, musicians, etc. for special events. Graves Hospitality will furnish the rooms nicely, at no expense to TMA, LLLP:

Fri., Jan. 2. Jerry Peterson applies heavy-duty plastic to the window openings on the lake-side wall. Enclosing the window openings this way will allow work to continue in a heated building during the coldest months of the winter:

Sat. Jan. 3. Here Jerry installs OSB to enclose the south wall:

By Saturday the 3rd of Jan., this 32,000 BTU portable gas furnace was in place to provide heat to the building. There will be a foot-square duct running from the furnace through the wall at floor-level. The furnace puts out a powerful and comforting flow of heated air that brings the interior temperature up into the sixties, and will also help thaw the sand floor of the screened porch so that its concrete can eventually be poured:

Jan. 4, 1:08 PM. A front view of the building, almost completely closed up.

Thursday, Jan. 8. Jim took this shot of the building as he was passing by. Finally, a little lasting snow!

Friday, Jan. 9. Another of Jim's photos, taken from the 371 right-of-way. Note how high the building is from the highway - great visibility from the road!

On Friday, the 16th, Jim and I were back at the lake for a construction meeting with Carl and Brett Palmer. Carl obliged us with this picture of the two of us standing on the sand floor of the screened porch, with the pizza oven in the background:

Monday, Jan. 26th. At last! - the sand has thawed. Carl sent this picture of the crew pouring the concrete floor of the screened porch. That's the hose from the pumper truck's conveyor device being used to guide the concrete placement. The conveyor arm came in through an opening in the front wall. You can see the tubing for the in-floor heat over which the concrete is being poured:

Meanwhile, a week earlier, on Monday the 19th, Jerry Peterson was installing the first of many windows to go into the building. This is a window in south wall on the upper level:

Also on Monday, Jan. 19th, spray foaming began to be applied to the underside of the roof of the screened porch. Ultimately there will be 4.5 inches of foam here - very good insulating value:

Jan. 19. Spraying of the north slope is complete. Spraying continues on the rest of the roof:

On Wednesday, the 28th, Jim returned to Ten Mile to work with the Cass County Auditor/Treasurer and the Sheriff on the Graves Hospitality liquor license application. While he was there, he also met with Brett and Carl. He took this shot of Brett and Carl going over the plans for the construction of the twin bar areas: