Alki Homestead sign comes down for restoration
Alki Homestead sign comes down for restoration
The Alki Homestead sign was taken down on July 19 to be restored. The building has been under restoration by the owner Dennis Schilling since he purchased it in March of 2015.
Screen capture from video by Clay Eals
Wed, 07/20/2016
information from SWSHS
On Monday morning, July 18, 2016, Alki Homestead owner Dennis Schilling, his son Matt and five-member crew removed the building's iconic neon sign so that it can be restored as part of the landmark building's overall renovation and restoration.
The removal took just shy of two hours.
The sign restoration will cost $25,000 to $30,000, and the Southwest Seattle Historical Society, which secured city landmark status for the building 20 years ago, helped Schilling in 2015 to obtain a $15,000 grant from 4Culture for the project.
The contractor for the sign restoration will be Western Neon on Fourth Avenue South. The Alki Homestead, originally called Fir Lodge, was built in 1904. It has been closed since a January 2009 fire damaged a portion of the building's interior.
Schilling and his crew have been restoring the building since he purchased it in March 2015. The neon sign is being stored temporarily inside the Alki Hometead. (The restoration work will cover up the graffiti with which vandals defaced the lower portion of the sign in late June 2016.)
