D e s e r t E x p o s u r e July 2008

Courting Progress

Architect Gerald Lundeen reveals his plans for — and gives a peek inside — the massive renovation project that will give new life to Las Cruces' historic courthouse.

Story and photos by Donna Clayton Lawder

In order to implement the design for his latest project — the massive renovation of the historic former Doa Ana County Courthouse on South Alameda — Las Cruces architect Gerald Lundeen is in the unusual position of having his very first professional building project knocked down. Well, he admits, it was bound to happen.

Architect Gerald Lundeen poses in front of the old Do¤a Ana County Courthouse he's renovating.

"I've been here a long time, I've worked here a long time," Lundeen says. He and his wife still live in the same house he bought her as a wedding present 43 years ago, a 100-year-old restored territorial inn that houses both his architecture practice and, for the past dozen years, the Lundeen Inn of the Arts, their bed-and-breakfast business.

"My license number is a really low one," Lundeen says. "If you check the records, I'm sure my license number is among the lowest there is here in town. And it (architecture) is all I've done here."

Lundeen speaks with pride, and no small amount of affection, for the tan stucco building he started with and whose days are now numbered. He describes its eye-catching angled doors and windows. He recalls how the mason on the project couldn't fathom what he meant from the plans, how he rolled up his sleeves and gave the mason a demonstration.

"I took the trowel out of his hands and showed him what I wanted. When I got to about the third layer of brick, his eyes lit up and he smiled this great smile. Then he took over," Lundeen recalls. "It was a great little building in its day."

But the great little building, Lundeen's first commercial triumph, now stands waiting for the wrecking ball, waiting to make room for this latest chapter in his long architectural career.

The morning has been drizzly, but Lundeen insists on walking the short distance from his office to the old courthouse. Walking briskly, he relays some of the details and history of how the ambitious new project came to be.

"I engineered the deal," Lundeen says. "I knew John Hoffman for only about eight months. I'd redesigned a shopping center for him." Hoffman is the Texas businessman who bought the courthouse and its annex, on the same city block, for $1.5 million last year.

"He (Hoffman) was in town, on other business, looking at another project, and we drove past the old courthouse. I said something like, 'Hey, how about this building?' He looked at me and said, 'It's for sale?' I told him it was and we explored it. Things happened very fast," Lundeen says. Hoffman received the deed for the property in January 2008, and the grungiest of the gutting and clean-up commenced immediately.

Lundeen says he knew Hoffman had "the capital resources and the reach to tackle such an ambitious project, and also the vision" to see the historic old building's potential. "I wanted to have a chance to do this project. I'd had my eye on this property for a while. I loved the building, and I knew he'd be able to see the things I saw in it."

The Spanish-revival-style courthouse, at 180 W. Amador Ave., was constructed in 1937 and served as a headquarters for county operations. Over time, new construction was added on. A hodge-podge of wiring was strung throughout to accommodate phones and, later, computers. Heating and cooling systems were added, along with dropped ceilings to conceal the wiring and the ductwork.

Around 1970, the county constructed a jail on the west side of the courthouse. Several county offices still were housed in the building until May 2006, when government operations moved to the new courthouse building at 845 Motel Blvd.

Arriving at the entry, Lundeen pauses for just a moment to take in the stately old building. After a jingle of keys in the lock, he throws open the door with a comical flourish and reveals, well, a pretty dark, featureless entryway. The dreary day does little to add illumination or charm to the space, and Lundeen flips an electric switch here and there before finding one that's hooked up to juice, sparking one of the retro fluorescent fixtures above into action.

An optimist skilled at spotting diamonds in the rough, he points out the massive white concrete ceiling beams well above his head, running between dark wooden vigas.

"Look at the ornate ends on those monsters! They look beefy, they look nice," Lundeen says of the white concrete beams. "In my design, I plan to use them," he adds with a wistful smile. "I mean, wouldn't it be a shame to lose those?"

He leads the way down a hallway and gestures to the frosted glass door of a small office. "Here's where people got their marriage licenses," he says.

Lundeen notes that there used to be asbestos tiles in the floor here and throughout much of the building. "We've just gone through a whole round of asbestos remediation. We thought the remediation was going to cost around $50,000." With a grimacing smile he adds that the actual bill came in at a whopping $127,000. He manages a laugh: "I like to say that, well, at least the worst is over now."

A little farther down the hall, Lundeen points out another frosted-glass door — the former tax office. "I came right through that door over there," he says with a gesture of his arm, "and paid my taxes right here in this office."

Lundeen says this bottom floor could hold retail establishments and offices. "If we turn it (the building) into a hotel, there could be gift shops down here, administrative offices for that, for the hotel."

He stops by a bathroom to point out the step-up needed to get in. "That'll be another expense, making the bathrooms ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)-approved," he acknowledges. "Those and the elevators. Oh, the elevators. You see, all this construction here, in this part of the building, was done so long ago, before we had ADA standards."

The era in which the building was designed, Lundeen says, bequeathed it both grandeur and unfortunate features. "It's got a really old design, and there are some really big spaces that are underutilized, and then this rat warren of tiny offices that were so dark!" He leads the way down a hall. "You'll see. It must have been horrible to work in."

Lundeen explains that the older bathroom floors are raised so plumbing could be run through the space. "It also gave access for any future work that had to be done. But it doesn't give access to the people (with disabilities), and that's the issue we have to address now."

He notes the massive door of a room-sized safe. "There are five safes in the building," he says, pausing to fix in his mind the location of each and counting them off on his fingers. The safes were once used to house official records — Las Cruces school system files, criminal records and other official files for the county.

Lundeen pauses again at a massive archway that looks to be made of concrete and plaster. "This is where the original building stops. From here on, it's sort of modern stuff — sheetrock and steel trusses instead of solid concrete. With all that concrete, this probably would have been a good place to come in a nuclear blast," he says with a wry laugh.

He gestures from the midpoint of the archway, back in the direction he has just traversed and to the floors overhead. "On this side is all the jail, all old stuff." With a sweep of his arm in the other direction, he says, "From this side over, it's all so-called 'new' construction."

But don't think that means there's less work needed on that side of the building. "Oh, wait 'til you see the way they went about some of this stuff. Sure, county budget and all that, but some of the things they did as they went along just fly in the face of reason, let alone esthetics!"

At the end of another long expanse of hallway, Lundeen leads the way into an old office space, littered with abandoned desks, chairs, light fixtures, you name it. On a far wall, black burn marks in regular intervals mar the white painted steel beams in the ceiling, as if someone took an acetylene torch to them.

"That's exactly what happened," Lundeen says. "This used to be a bunch of jail cells and the county removed them so they could use the space for offices. Pleasant, don't you think?" he asks jokingly. "At first, the plan was to renovate this courthouse building, so they started adding and expanding office space, but then they decided to just build the new one instead."

He doubles back, continues down a long dark hallway, then leads the way up and down stairs, pointing out other jail cells — these still intact — and prisoner holding tanks, a series of small, dark rooms with very dark pasts.

"Here's your solitary confinement," Lundeen says of a scrunched and dismal barred area with a single stool bolted to the floor. "This is where prisoners were interrogated." He gestures to more squalid quarters down a hallway lined with bars upon bars: "Here's where they took their meals." He shows the larger "group rooms" where numerous prisoners were housed, and the austere concrete-block showers.

"Above this is one hellacious roof," he says. "I mean, it is a mess! My idea? Steel rebar and concrete and you've got a perfect parking garage. It'll be convenient to the shops, the restaurant, the hotel, whatever."

Up on the second floor, Lundeen points out some beautifully painted ceiling beams in the old courtroom, an impressive room some 40-by-60 feet. "Can you believe they had drop ceilings covering up all that?" he asks incredulously. Huge, old silver heating ducts hang down from above, along with wiring, looking like hanks of plastic-coated crazy spaghetti.

"Oh, we've already taken out miles of ductwork!" Lundeen exclaims. "They did the dropped ceiling treatment to hide everything and to make the space more efficient to heat. Shrinking your space and using all these ducts doesn't hold a candle to what we're going to do."

He describes the latest technology — in his mind, the best — of new Japanese heating/cooling units. "We'll open these windows all the way up," he says, noting that many have been boarded-over at the top. "You put the units right there, at the tops of the windows. It's unobtrusive, allowing the beauty of the windows to go unspoiled, and it's the most efficient type of heating and cooling there is."

He ventures down another dark hallway.

"Imagine a restaurant here — with a terrace," he adds excitedly. "I see full French doors here. . . and here. We're going to bring it back to real grandeur."

In another room, Lundeen pulls back heavy drapes, flooding the room with light. "This is going to be a very big challenge, a big part of what I need to do, to bring light into spaces like these. Some of these rooms have no windows at all, so the challenge is even greater."

Up on the third floor, Lundeen points out the jury room and a juror waiting area, where male and female jurors were kept separately. "These were the private jurors' bathrooms," he says. A stairway was dead-ended here to accommodate this small room. "There even was a place for them to sleep on the premises. Can you imagine? The horror!" he adds with a laugh.

In between the gender-segregated juror waiting areas is an odd, square cabinet with a hole in the center of its wooden top.

"It used to have a Plexiglas square in the middle, so you could look through, down at the stairway we just came up and see who was coming up the stairs," Lundeen explains. "Why would a person want to do this? I have no idea."

He leads the way back down the stairs, down another hallway, back up stairs to another part of the third floor.

"Think about it. A barber shop, a beauty shop, real estate offices," he says of potential tenants he sees on this floor of a renovated building. "Look at these little balconies outside all these spaces. All these tenants would have their own little balconies, so the employees, maybe their clients, could enjoy the outdoors."

Up on the fourth floor is the old juvenile jail. Lundeen points out a cramped room with a metal stool bolted to the floor and a phone on the wall. A Plexiglas window separates it from another room, just as cramped and unwelcoming.

"This is where you'd talk to your child in jail," Lundeen explains. With an exaggerated shudder, he asks, "Would you want to see your child here?"

He points out that throughout the area, metal ceiling tiles were welded in place. "Couldn't have the kiddies climbing out of jail through the attic. . ."

The tour continues past holding areas, a room euphemistically named "Daycare 1," where groups of juvenile offenders were held, a large prisoner admission area. "Oh, we can do all sorts of nifty things with all this," Lundeen says brightly.

Up just one more flight of stairs is the rooftop level. Turn right and there's a door leading to a defunct balcony-like space where pigeons have wreaked havoc, leaving their droppings and feathers for years. Lundeen turns left and passes by the hulking elevator machinery, the motors that once pulled the whole system of cars from floor to floor. He flings open a door to the rooftop. The morning's drizzle has cleared and the sunlight and brilliant blue sky are startling, eye-squinting.

"Can't you just see a restaurant up here?" Lundeen asks, throwing his arms wide. "Can't you imagine sitting here for breakfast in the morning, or drinks and dinner in the evening?" He rests his arms on the chest-high adobe wall and looks down on the city spread below, then gazes off to the Organ Mountains in the distance.

Lundeen points out the division on the roof between the original courthouse construction and the addition, marked by a broad white line of some kind of sealant. An odd stuccoed structure on one side of the roof looks like some kind of out-of-place bell tower.

"I imagine that's what it was planned to be, but now the stairway doesn't come all the way up here," he says, recalling how the stairway stopped on the jury floor level. "The stairway was dead-ended to add the jurors' bathrooms. We'll bring it all the way up when we renovate this part."

Lundeen says the odd and ugly collection of defunct heat system and air conditioning exhaust tubes will be removed. ''We won't need them because we're installing those Japanese units." The roof will be insulated, reinforced and brought up one foot higher, making it the level of the door and, thus, ADA-compliant.

Asked when all this might happen, Lundeen laughs.

"Oh, there's still a lot of work to be done," he allows. "Right now, we want to focus on a part of the project that will start bringing some money in, that building right over there." He points out another tan stucco building — similar to the big courthouse — on the same city block, sharing the same parking lot.

"That's the annex," Lundeen says — the other building Hoffman purchased in his $1.5 million deal. "He (Hoffman) also has first right of refusal on the third (courthouse-related) building over there," Lundeen adds, pointing to a small building even closer to the big courthouse, "and he's making an offer on that service station right there." The purchase would give the Texas developer pretty much the entire city block.

"Let's go look at that one," Lundeen invites.

On the way down from the roof, while walking over to show the annex building, Lundeen describes some of the plans for the other parts of the project. He says he's made contact with a couple of grocery stores he'd like as tenants in the space: Trader Joe's, the island-themed discount and gourmet grocery store many Las Crucens would like to see come to town, and also a similar England-based chain, "called Simple and Easy market, or something like that."

He opens the door to a space that appears to be not nearly in the rough shape of the old courthouse.

"Don't be deceived," he says with a raised finger and a smile. He points out the aged, wooden attic vents up high in the walls. Plywood and wire mesh endeavor to hold out the elements — and the pigeons. Overhead, a striking system of steel beam work is laced in an open, triangular pattern. Another 12 feet up are the roof rafters.

Ever able to see that diamond in the rough, Lundeen spreads his arms wide in the desolate-seeming blank space. "Can't you just see a restaurant in here? Or a huge market?" he asks.

He leads the way into another room across the hall. It's not much more than brick walls and a concrete floor, currently littered with construction debris. But not to Lundeen.

"I see four rentable spaces here. We'll split it up and put in walls, here and here," he says, translating the plans in his mind into spots on the floor beneath him. Each tenant will have front and rear access. He advances to a doorway at the far end of the building.

"Look at this," he invites. "Here's Main Street. You're facing the main corridor. You can't get better than this."

He steps outside and prepares to lock up the building. Across the way is that little tan stucco building with the eye-catching angled doors and windows — his first project, the one that will be torn down in order for this ambitious courthouse project to develop and be completed.

Asked if he's sad to see the little building go, Gerald Lundeen shakes his head and smiles.

"No. No, not at all. I mean, it's had a good life, you could say. More than 40 years, in fact," he says. Striding across the parking lot, taking in the view of the big old courthouse, it's obvious Lundeen long ago let go of that tiny building, his first triumph, and has his mind fully on this next project, a very big chapter in a long architectural career. As he crosses the street, heading back to his office, he jingles the keys in his pocket and gives a broad smile.

"It's an exciting project," Lundeen says. "To restore that grand old building and bring in something like this? Something really vibrant? It's going to be good." k

Lundeen & Associates Architects' office is at 618 S. Alameda Blvd., Las Cruces, 527-9031.

Senior editor Donna Clayton Lawder's last architectural project
involved beach sand and a plastic bucket.