News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Dozens of antique hounds and bargain seekers stood in the cold and snow at Conklin’s Guest House on Saturday, February 4, hoping to go home with a treasure.
The venerable Sisters bed-and-breakfast is now part of the Dutch Pacific development at the north end of Sisters, slated to become a restaurant. All the fixtures and decor of the business were tagged for an estate sale — appliances, deck furniture, paintings, glassware, silver and more.
Shane and Wendela Lundgren worked tirelessly to get the sale ready, tagging literally hundreds of items. Some were tagged multiple times as they discovered real values.
Wendela said some items looked like junk, then “you start polishing and you find out it’s real sterling silver.”
“We found some silver that could be 100 years old,” Shane Lundgren said. “But I don’t think it’s been here that long.”
Conklin’s has a long history in Sisters. It served as a school house in 1911. It served the Hitchcock family as a residence, then was purchased by the Barclay family in 1946.
Frank and Marie Conklin turned the house into a signature Sisters bed-and-breakfast before selling to Lundgren and his partners.
“People like this place because it’s a piece of history,” said Wendela Lundgren. “The idea is that everybody walks away with a piece in hand if they want to.”
That was certainly the goal of the hordes that turned out.
Several people in line thought that they’d arrived early enough to be at the head of the line when the sale opened at 9 a.m. It turned out that they were late.
“I couldn’t believe it when we drove up and saw the line of cars up and down the road,” said Sisters resident Lori Steinthel.
There were some antique dealers hunting for treasures, but most were just regular folks with an eye for unique and useful household items.
“I just thought they’d have some good stuff,” said Helen Mannhalter. “You drive by (Conklin’s) every day and you hear a lot about it.”
Beverly Gunson has heard about Conklin’s for years as her family vacationed in Camp Sherman. Her nephew looked at the facility as a possible wedding location.
“It makes me a little sad to see it change,” she said.
Yet change it will. According to Wendela Lundgren, the site is to become a restaurant, possibly a new location for Bend’s Jackalope Grill. The main house will become a reception area and bar, with the commercial kitchen expanded off the existing kitchen facilities. The restaurant seating will be under a wrap-around enclosed porch.
Another portion of the house will be a check-in office for rental cabins that are planned for the surrounding grounds.
Plans for this portion of the development have not been finalized or approved. The adjacent industrial area has been approved and is under construction.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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