Help Restore the Anthe Building

To help restore the Anthe Building in downtown Covington – the new headquarters for Lost Art Press – we are selling some special products and a chairmaking class to help fund the work. (If you would rather just contribute directly, you can do so here.)

The building will immediately house all our order fulfillment and storage operations and give us the space to do more interesting things in the future (perhaps a retail store). We will continue to have operations at our current space, including woodworking classes, as we carefully restore this gem in Covington's central business district. For a video tour of the building before restoration, click here.

The Anthe Building, located less than a mile from our shop on Willard Street, is an amazing time capsule. Built about 1897, the Anthe Building was the headquarters for the Anthe Machine Works, which made woodworking cutters. In addition to housing Anthe, parts of the spacious factory were rented out to furniture makers, printers and other tradespeople. You can read a history of the building here.

The building is in solid condition. It was built well and has good windows and a solid roof. The walls of the factory are still covered with the evidence of all the work that's been done there. First aid cabinets. Slots for time cards. Calendars.

But it needs love and care. We need to add an HVAC system to control the humidity for our books. We need to make things safe for our employees. Oh, and a functioning bathroom. And we need to do it in a way that respects the history of the building.

And that's why we are asking for your help.