“Our first step in classing up Broadway,” Stiles said.

To transform the space, they tore out the drop-tile ceiling, commercial carpeting, sheetrock walls and room partitions — doing all the work themselves except for the new electrical and plumbing — and installed rich wooden floors, walls and ceilings.

The Loomis Block, also called the Downing Block, at 14-16 Broadway was sold by Saranac Lake resident Ed Dukett to Taimim Li of Long Island last summer. Dukett had owned the building since 1972.

Li has purchased several downtown properties in recent years, including the Goody Goody’s toy store and the former Dew Drop Inn down the street. Stiles said Li is not just collecting properties — he has plans for all of them.

Katie Stiles and Bruce Darring stand in their Barefoot Peddler Antiques and Accessories storefront in the corner for the historic Loomis building on the corner of Broadway and Woodruff Street. The couple personally renovated the long-vacant storefront and recently opened it, with plans to continue renovating the building. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Stiles, the broker and owner of the Adirondack Stiles Real Estate Company, facilitated the sale and is now the property manager.

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Restoring storefronts

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The Barefoot Peddler storefront on the left-hand side of the building was the start of the restoration. With that done, Stiles’ next plan is to prepare the storefront on the right-hand side for a business.

The area is available to rent now, but needs a bit of work before it can be occupied. The floor slopes, the carpet is old and portions of the drop tile ceiling have crumbled, but the newer wooden walls are in good shape.

Stiles said they’ll be selective in what opens there. She wants a good fit for the building and for downtown. But she’s open to ideas. The only thing is they’re avoiding a restaurant because there’s no fire suppression system in the wood-frame 1890s building.

It could be office space, but she prefers a public-facing business.

“Something that brings foot traffic,” Stiles said. “That’s what a lot of this was about.”

At one point, she said, between Berkeley Green and the Saranac River, there were 14 empty storefronts.

“This building was a big part of that,” she said.

The Loomis block building had, for many years, been considered an eyesore in Saranac Lake’s central business district. Storefronts change dynamics, Stiles said. She sits on the village advisory boards, and said filling empty storefronts is constantly a topic of discussion.

Two more storefronts in the middle of the building are in rougher shape, and will be tackled after the right-hand-side one.

The storefronts have been empty, but upstairs, Dukett lived and rented to four tenants. Stiles said they are in decent shape. There are five to six units upstairs — one studio unit, three one-bedroom units and three former inn rooms, which might be combined.

Stiles hopes to be able to serve the market for extended-stay rentals for traveling professionals like nurses at the hospital.

The inn rooms might be used as short-term rentals. Stiles said she plans to have the short- and extended-stay rentals in the front, with a longer-term rental in the back, so she can control the aesthetic of the Broadway-facing porch.

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‘Thrill of the hunt’

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Barefoot Peddler is open every day from 11 a.m. or noon to 4 or 5 p.m. Stiles wears several hats, so sometimes she is pulled away from the shop for her real estate work.

The two have always dabbled in buying and selling things as a hobby. Darring previously owned The Curiosity Shop at the Berkeley Hotel. They love the stories antiques have, as well as the process of traveling all over to find the perfect item.

“The thrill of the hunt,” Stiles said.

“We only want to buy antiques that we like,” Darring said.

They search for not just old things, but unique things. They don’t want the typical free-for-all of antiques and are selective in their process.

Most of the paintings were framed by Darring himself. The two have also been restoring billiards tables for years. In the center of the room is an ornate Brunswick with patent dates ranging between 1870 and 1905.

When they found the table, the beautiful wood marquetry had been painted over black and lime green. But Stiles knew what the table was immediately because of the beveled wooden case.

Around the room are old boat motor ads, stuffed bobcats, Navajo rugs, birch tables, Native American art and a framed lithograph of historic surveyor Verplanck Colvin measuring Whiteface Mountain, drawn by Colvin himself.

“It’s the ‘cool s*** store,'” Stiles said.

In the future, she hopes to also sell accessories and camp necessities.

Soon, Stiles plans to start work on renovating the front of the building. She wants to fix up the porch and cannot wait to paint over the blue tile and concrete. A paint job, to her, signifies a new era of the building.