The building on the northwest corner of Main and River streets is getting a facelift. It started Monday, Jan. 20, with the removal of a 45-year-old awning, with the intention of replacing it with a similar one, said building owner Bill Warnock.

He and his wife, Michele Starr, bought the building in 2016. They expect to have the renovations done by spring, although they had hoped to get it done sooner. He said that’s just the way things work in Wallowa County.

“If things got done in a hurry, it wouldn’t be Wallowa County,” he said, adding that he appreciates the slower pace of life here.

In addition to a new awning, exterior paint is planned, Warnock said. He noted that as they remove the old awning, they can see the original colors of the building. He’s planning somewhat “muted” colors for the building, he said.

Now a naturopathic doctor in Burlington, Vt., he still considers Wallowa County his home, maintaining a home at Wallowa Lake.

“I tell people I live at Wallowa Lake and make money in Vermont,” he said.

Warnock said in addition to work on the outside, they’re upgrading electrical and other aspects of the interior.

He said the building was built in 1950 on the site of a previous one that had burned the year before that housed the Enterprise Milling and Mercantile. The previous building, he said, had not used cement in its mortar and when it burned, that allowed bricks to fall easily.

It was replaced by the current structure built by the German immigrant Dutli family, who brought with them from the old country construction methods to last for a long time.

Warnock said the building has steel posts and I-beams to strengthen it.

“I’d say it’s the best-built building in Enterprise,” he said., “They oversized it rather than undersized it.”

The Dutlis operated a bakery there and it has since housed other businesses. In the basement remains a meatlocker.

“In the days before personal freezers, everybody stored their meat there,” Warnock said.

Warnock’s and Starr’s efforts are part of their interest in helping revive downtown Enterprise, he said.

“Part of that is having good buildings so people won’t have to spend $1,000 a month to heat them in the winter,” he said. “All the time I was growing up, it was odd to have a vacant store.”

He said he was pleased to see such new businesses as the Thistle and Pine in his building and Friends Restaurant a few doors down.

Warnock and Starr also own the neighboring Bowlby Building, where eventually they want to have apartments on the second floor.

“It’d be great to see people living downtown,” he said.

The fifth-generation native is eager to retire and return to his home county. He said his ancestors were some of the first settlers in the county, coming here in the early 1870s.

“We’re excited,” Warnock said. “It’s the best building and we’re fixing it even better.”