Bodine Construction is gearing up for successive work on notable Lake City historic structures

 Ken Bodine’s Bodine Construction is gearing up for successive work on notable Lake City historic structures, including the fire damaged Beam-Nichols-Coffin house at 519 Gunnison Avenue, as well as a sizeable addition which will go up next door at Holly and Tim Stephens’ pioneer dwelling at 513 Gunnison Avenue.
   The Stephens’ place, owned since the early 1970s by Holly’s late parents, Jerry and Esther Culver, had a somewhat dilapidated one-story frame addition at the rear which — as of Monday this week — has now been demolished, pictured above, with Cody Bodine behind the wheel of the backhoe.
   Reviewed and okayed by the Town of Lake City Preservation Commission, the old frame kitchen addition will now be replaced with a roomier 1-1/2 story addition which will combine both kitchen and additional bedroom space.
   Removal of the old kitchen addition reveals squared, hand-hewn logs, shown at right with broad axe marks, which form the structure of the unaltered front portion of the Stephens’ building. Similar to many historic homes in the Lake City Historic District, the house started out as 1-1/2-story squared log residence built by H.E. Turner in 1877. Like the next-door Beam-Nichols-Coffin house which also started out as a log cabin, the Turner residence later received a more cosmopolitan appearance when the exterior logs were covered with horizontal lap siding.
   H.E. Turner, original builder of the house, is recalled for his most notable local construction, the six-story Crooke Smelter at Granite Falls in 1876. Turner both lived and worked in the Gunnison Avenue neighborhood: his carpentry workshop was located just up the block in what is now St. James Episcopal Church.
    With demolition of the old part of the Stephens’ house now complete, Bodine and crew will start work later this fall on the new addition, with plans to transition to the Nichols-Coffin house next door starting next year.