Casey's Bar under new ownership
The oldest building in Whitefish has a
new owner. Local builder Eric Payne says Casey’s Bar is the first
bar he’s owned, and he wants to keep the name and the style of the
building intact.
The two-story wood building opened for
business as the Sprague Saloon in 1905, and the site has been home
to saloons or billiard halls under different owners ever since. Pat
Casey took over ownership in 1967 and renamed it Casey’s.
Richard Kramer, who sold Casey’s and
the Red Caboose cafe next door last year, had both properties
listed for $1.775 million before the properties were separated. He
said Casey’s Bar, which sits on “old-growth timbers” and leans
about 18 inches to the south, was not officially designated
historical and theoretically could be torn down.
Sean Averill and several other
investors bought Casey’s Bar from Kramer but sold it shortly
afterwards. Payne told the Pilot he took ownership of the building
and business on Jan. 4. He’s been a member of the city’s
Architectural Review Committee for about six months and is the
owner of Frontier Builders of Whitefish.
In the short term, Payne said, he plans
to improve the functionality of the inside, provide more security
and safety, and address some minor aesthetics.
In the long term, however, the building
could see a major renovation — even if that means tearing it down.
The structural components are in “horrible condition” and mostly
not salvageable, Payne said.
The new building could be two stories
high with a rustic Old West exterior combined with some newer
finishes.
“I want to build a great cornerstone
project, something the city can be proud of,” he said. “I’d want it
to be a little different than anything else downtown.
Two things Payne wants to salvage are
the neon cloverleaf sign hanging over the front and the “poker
nitely” sign on the building’s north side. Neon signs, however, are
not allowed under the city’s sign ordinance, and putting it back up
on a new building could require a variance.
Casey’s sign ordinance problem surfaced
during the Whitefish City Council’s Feb. 22 meeting when councilor
Turner Askew noted that while the neon sign was “funky,” it was
also “part of Whitefish.”
City planning director David Taylor
said the sign might qualify for a variance as an historic sign, at
which point councilor Chris Hyatt noted that the cost of a sign
ordinance variance is $1,980.
Taylor told the Pilot he was sad to
hear Casey’s might be demolished. A chapter on historic
preservation in the city growth policy mentions that Casey’s was
vulnerable to demolition, he noted.