Old Hotel gets by with help from community

OTHELLO - For Sally Laufer, The Old Hotel Art Gallery in Othello is a place that truly belongs to the community.

Laufer has served as the Old Hotel's director for about eight years. The historic building is a venue for community members to learn more about art and the area's history, she said.

From the dozen or so rooms filled with local and regional art, to the 1946 Milwaukee Road Caboose that houses a railroad exhibit or the art studio where children can take classes each summer - the Old Hotel features something for everyone, Laufer said.

But the Old Hotel wouldn't be what it is today if it weren't for the hard work dozens of community members have put in over the years, she said.

"A lot of people in the community have given a lot," Laufer said. "We are a non-profit so everything has to be done with donations, and people have been very, very good about giving."

Laufer said the giving began back in 1975, when a group of Othello artists purchased a building and turned it into an art gallery.

The Old Hotel was originally built in 1911, and was in operation until 1974.

Laufer said the new owners worked hard to convert the abandoned hotel into an art gallery. And even though they got the building in good enough shape to reopen, improvement projects at the hotel continued through the decades, she said.

"The hotel itself is 102 years old right now, and even though it was repaired occasionally, with a building this old there was always something to do," Laufer said.

Since coming on board as director, Laufer said they've completed a few major projects including installing a new furnace, painting the hotel's exterior, replacing a basement wall and installing all new windows.

They also just completed work on the exterior walls, she said. The building originally had wood clapboard siding on it, but past owners replaced it with fake brick and then stucco.

"Now it's 40, 50 years later and it was beginning to deteriorate, and beginning to chip off," Laufer said. "So we covered it up and made it look like how it used to look before the fake brick and stucco."

She said projects at the hotel have only happened because of donations from individual community members and area businesses. The Old Hotel hosts an art auction each fall, which serves as their primary fundraiser.

A few projects have also only happened because community members donate time and labor, Laufer said.

The Old Hotel has a bottle wall thanks to a group of artists, for example, she said. People can write down thoughts or wishes on paper and stuff them in one of the wall's many glass bottles.

The wall sits next to a drought-tolerant garden, which several master gardeners helped establish a couple of years back.

She said people also help by doing little things around the property, like watering the flowers and doing other landscaping projects.

Laufer said she even had a young girl come to help dust the inside of the building not long ago.

"People will come to look at the gallery or visit the exhibit and see what we're doing and say 'Oh, I want to help with that," she said. "Even if people aren't on the board, they just want to come by and volunteer. It's amazing."

Laufer said she's thankful for all the help The Old Hotel received from the community over the years. She said it makes it easier to start new projects because she knows the help will be there.

The next few projects she wants to undertake is building a handicap-accessible ramp, putting up signs on two of the building's outer walls and building a roof over the benches outside the caboose.