Melting snow causes damage at Conrad Mansion

The Conrad Mansion Museum’s 111-year-old “wedding dress,” a handful of shoes and purses, and the second-floor closet they were housed in have all been water-damaged by melted ice and snow caused by ice dams on the historic building’s north roof.

Gennifer Sauter, the museum’s executive director, discovered the damage late Thursday afternoon when she looked in the master bedroom closet on the north side of the mansion. There she discovered the bottom half of the wool dress — which was on a mannequin inside the closet for the winter season — and its lengthy train had been drenched. Ten slippers and shoes, two purses, the wood closet floor, the ceiling, wall and window frame were also wet and damaged.

Sauter was still assessing the building Friday but was optimistic that all structural damage could eventually be fully repaired.

Restoring the clothing, on the other hand, is less certain and a painstakingly slow process. Kalispell textile conservationist Teresa Knutson, who is volunteering her time, is spearheading that work.

“(Thursday) my first call was to her,” Sauter said. “I said, ‘Teresa, the wedding dress is wet!’”

Knutson came on the job almost immediately Thursday and estimated it would take weeks to dry and restore — as best as possible — the damaged items. The so-called wedding dress was in the worst shape, with water stains and dirt buildup in several spots.

“What happens when things get wet is as they get dry, it dries going up and it dries going out,” Knutson said. “As it dried going up, all the dirt from the floor and probably the dirt that was on the hem from it being worn moved up here and it moved up there.”

Knutson said there was no guarantee the stains could be removed in their entirety, in part because of the age of the dress and the amount of time it had been sitting before being discovered. Sauter was unsure when water began leaking.

“It is an absolutely spectacular dress in any shape or form, in relatively good condition,” Knutson said. “I have to be very patient. I can’t be rough at all with it.”

The museum believes the “wedding dress” was worn by family matriarch Alicia (Lettie) Conrad in 1906, although it is unclear whether it was worn at a wedding. Alicia and Charles Conrad were married in 1881, 10 years before the couple moved to the Flathead Valley and helped found the city of Kalispell.

Friday, Knutson was working on the waterlogged items in a makeshift studio set up in one of the museum’s few heated first-floor rooms. There, she was drying out shoes inch by inch with a cotton swab, and had a blow-dryer, cheese cloth and a package of baby diapers on hand to assist in the deliberate process of moving the stains and water off of the dress and onto diapers or other absorbent pads.

The last time spring melting caused a leak at the mansion was two years ago when the ceiling in the Billiard Room, also on the second floor, dripped water. Those repairs cost more than $1,000, although the total was significantly mitigated by in-kind donations from Kalispell businesses Meyer Construction and Advanced Roofing.

“Thank God we have some wonderful people in the valley,” Sauter said of the leak two years ago. “They volunteered a lot of their time and effort.”

Conrad Mansion Museum offers winter tours by appointment only and hosts a handful of offseason events, including the annual “Death by Chocolate” murder mystery in April. The museum opens for the summer season on May 17 and Sauter expected some restoration work — primarily to the closet’s floors and plaster walls — would not be completed by that time.

The museum is located at 330 Woodland Ave. in Kalispell and run by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit through memberships and donations. For more information, visit www.conradmansion.com or call 406-755-2166.

Entertainment editor Andy Viano can be reached at (406) 758-4439 or aviano@dailyinterlake.com.