Dec. 14, 2021

By Jill Callison, for SiouxFalls.Business

Renovation of a 113-year-old landmark in downtown Dell Rapids could take up to two years.

When it is completed, however, the former hotel and former bed-and-breakfast will be restored to its past splendor while offering a variety of business and residential options for the community.

This fall, Robert and Laura Sauls purchased the Rose Stone Inn at an auction. The sale was finalized recently with bed-and-breakfast owners Rick and Sharon Skinner.

The Sauls, who have resided on a family farm near Dell Rapids for the past three years, are beginning initial restoration of the building this month. They plan to offer the first floor to a restaurateur, turn the second floor into co-working spaces and conference rooms and convert the lower level into two apartments.

The upper level also will host events such as weekly meet-and-greets for business owners and education opportunities such as how to prepare taxes for a company and self-promotion on social media, Laura Sauls said. A studio where podcasts can be recorded also is envisioned.

The Sauls, who are both self-employed, said the idea of a co-working space came out of their own needs. They worked from home while teaching their two children during the pandemic.

“I want this to be a space where people can come and flourish,” Laura Sauls said.

The former hotel contains 10,000 square feet over three floors. Constructed of quartzite stone taken from a nearby quarry, it originally opened in 1908 to give traveling salesmen a place to stay. An earlier hotel had burned down.

“The town was desperate for a hotel, so businessmen downtown formed a corporation and built it specifically for accommodating sales representatives,” Rick Skinner said. “It served as a logical spot, the end of the block from the train station.”

The hotel also housed servicemen who needed lodging and other travelers. It was owned by the corporation for 57 years. In 1965, Lena Tieszon purchased the property, and then it was left to Hazel Tieszon Jonason. When the Skinners purchased the building in 1991, it had been used as a boarding house.

Sharon Skinner ran the B&B until December 2018 when she suffered a stroke. The last guests stayed at the Rose Stone Inn in August 2019.

The Sauls plan to hire a general contractor to do much of the renovation, but they have extensive experience of their own. The couple, who lived in Waterloo, Iowa, has renovated two other 100-year-old structures. Robert Sauls’ renovation work received recognition from the Waterloo Historic Preservation Committee.

“(The Sauls) are very conscientious about historic preservation and all it encompasses,” Rick Skinner said.

Robert Sauls and his family now live on a farm that has been in his family for 147 years over six generations. His grandmother, the late Roberta DeVaney, was active in historic preservation efforts in Dell Rapids for decades. He owns and operates an appliance business that focuses on scratched and dented appliances. Laura Sauls is an independent consultant with Norwex cleaning products.

The old hotel has “good bones,” Robert Sauls said. Much of the work will be restoring rooms to their original dimensions and removing interior changes that occurred five decades ago.

As a bed-and-breakfast and the Skinners’ home, the building had both a commercial and residential kitchen. The Sauls expect to remove the residential equipment. They hope whoever opens a restaurant in the building will be interested in serving breakfast and noon meals at a minimum. The backyard will be replanted and could become a gathering place for a restaurant.

“This building has so much potential,” Laura Sauls said.

Some of the rooms have the original embossed tin ceilings. The lower level with its 9-foot ceilings and multiple large windows will provide space for two large apartments.

Tuck-pointing the old hotel will begin in the spring with renovating the front porch one of the first tasks. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places, and work will be done in accordance with those guidelines, the Sauls said.