(happy music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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(happy music) Hello.

Welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Hillsborough in front of a building that you may recognize if you're familiar with downtown: the Old Red Rooster, and I mean old from like 1902 is getting a facelift inside and out.

Kendra.

You and your husband, John really took on a project here, didn't you?

- Yes we did - You really did, I'll tell you what, it's a big building.

- It is a big building - It was built as a hotel, and had a lot of rooms.

It had a restaurant, had a full kitchen.

It had, it was, it was a big, big operation.

- Yeah, it was a fully functioning operation that they built onto a couple of times as need arose.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And what, what possessed you to want to get into this?

- [Kendra] Well, my husband and I were actually thinking about building or buying a building that was just a little bit down the street.

And we kept, you know, we live north of town and we kept saying somebody really needs to fix The Rooster.

So, you know, months go by and we never really came to an agreement with the other the man that was selling us that other building.

And so we just kind of, well, you know over time somehow we decided we should fix The Red Rooster.

So that's, that's how it started.

- How long have you been at it?

- Right at January of 2018, we bought the building in October of 2017 and we, you know - [Mark] Three years in and you're getting close, aren't you?

- We are getting very close.

Yeah.

- You're going to show us through.

- Yeah - Terrific.

Now the front of the building is a little different than it was when you got ahold of it.

- [Kendra] Yes.

- [Mark] Tell us about that project.

- [Kendra] So it actually looked quite similar, but I mean what was here was, was rotting and decaying and it was actually a very different kind of structure.

So when you walked out the front doors there was a step down and this whole lawn was at that retaining wall level height-wise so there was a lot of, a big huge step trying to get kind of up off the street level.

And so we raised the porch to get rid of that step and then we lowered the rest of it.

So there's a lot more steps than there were before.

And then there was a ramp here, but it was a pretty steep ramp.

And so that's all brand new as well.

So now there's a nice -- - [Mark] Okay.

Okay, that's accessibility.

And the porch itself is okay, but, man the pillars and the and the railings and everything, that the pillars are old and the railings are new.

- [Kendra] Yes.

So the railings themselves are actually almost exactly what was there, reproduced.

And, but the columns themselves, minus the base, that little square base on the bottom, are all old.

Those are the original columns from 1902, they've been painstakingly re-done to stand for another 120 years, so.

- [Mark] So how many rooms were in The Rooster.

- [Kendra] You know, we really don't know.

And I, I say yes, because originally in 1902 there were privies out back and a bathroom on the second floor with a bathtub, that was, you know, that was, that was all their was.

So it, I believe by 1913 had been changed around so that there were at least more restrooms and indoor plumbing not necessarily in every room.

And then again, it was changed so that every room had its own restroom.

And then every room had its own shower and, you know a full restroom.

And, and when we actually got the property, there were some apartments that had been kind of carved out that we've turned back into hotel rooms.

And then there were some other areas where they were hotel rooms where we've kind of carved them out into apartments.

- Okay, so you'll have apartments, hotel rooms.

You're going to have a tap room, a restaurant.

- Yes.

- [Both] And a brewery and a distillery.

- Yes.

- You got them covered.

You got the bases covered.

- Yes.

We just weren't sure what to do.

So we said, let's do it all.

- So you've added on, you've added onto the building as well?

- Just the back where the brewery and the distillery are, yeah.

- Okay, so we get to see it all in this 30 minutes, don't we?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- What I'd like you to do is, first take me to the part that's nearest completion.

- Okay.

- That would be the rooms, right?

- Yeah.

The hotel rooms are almost done.

Just some trim.

- Okay.

Let's go there.

- All right.

- [Mark] Okay.

Kendra, we just came up to the second floor.

It's interesting how they, I don't know if this was intentional or not when they designed it or not, but this is this bends off, but I assume this is where the new, an addition was put on.

- Yeah, and you can see right there.

That beam kind of delineates 1902 from 1903.

- 1903 Okay.

And then it kind of, for some reason, curves out.

- I think because of the property, there's a church right back there.

I think they had to, - [Mark] Squeeze it in.

- [Kendra] had to squeeze it in so they pushed it back this direction, yeah, to get it on the property.

- Okay.

So now we're in 1903 and this, this will be a hotel room.

- This is, yeah.

This is what we're calling the deluxe hotel room.

It's the one that's a little bit different because it's got this entryway.

So it's this part here is going to have the closet the bathroom.

And then this is the hotel room.

- [Mark] Okay, and every room will have a bathroom?

- [Kendra] Oh yeah.

- [Mark] That's okay.

Yep.

And this is really, this is really pretty sweet.

What happened here, this was the outside, was this the outside wall?

- [Kendra] This was the inside edge of an exterior wall.

And you can see here kind of the difference right here where the brick is cut where they added on the third row of brick.

This was the end of 1902.

And this was a window and downstairs in the same spot.

There's a door.

It's a doorway.

- [Mark] Oh it makes a perfect doorway, but it was a window?

- [Kendra] Yeah.

- [Mark] Yeah, okay.

- [Kendra] Slightly different arch downstairs.

- Beautiful new flooring.

Are all your rooms going to have the same flooring?

- [Kendra] Yes.

This is all brand new white Oak that's been custom dyed to what would have been the original coloring of the hardwood.

So none of the wood that was here was salvageable anymore because you know, the rooms had been cut up and reshaped so many times - [Mark] Maybe we can get a look at how some of this is kind of unique, isn't it?

- [Kendra] Yeah.

- [Mark] This is.

And you're having this milled just to match what was here.

- [Kendra] Yes, it's exactly the same.

They're very tip top of the header all the way down to the plinth block and 10 inch trim at the bottom - [Mark] Man.

That's attention to detail.

It's probably not easy to find people who can do that.

- [Kendra] No, but there happens to be a place over in Carlinville, that was happy to help.

- Okay.

How many hotel rooms will you have?

- There are actually 12 hotel rooms.

There's six down and six up that are identical.

It's the back wing of the building - Okay, and how many apartments will you have?

- There are going to be eight apartments, six one bedrooms and two two bedrooms.

- Okay.

Now they're not as far along as finished - No, and actually, the plumbing is finished in them.

The electric isn't finished.

So they're close to getting electric done and drywall up.

- Can we see that area?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Let's go.

Let's go check that out.

- Okay.

- [Mark] So now we're in the apartment area and you can see that there'll be halls between them, of course.

- Right.

- [Mark] And there's one that's down here that I think you're really proud of isn't it?

- [Kendra] Yeah, this is, I think, one of the neatest kind of entryways and just apartments in general.

I mean, they're not finished, but this one is, is kind of a sunken.

So that's the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom back there, but this one is neat.

It's got a pretty awesome view all the way of everything that's going on in Hillsborough.

- [Mark] Yeah, it is.

- [Kendra] So this is actually 1913.

So when we come down those stairs now we're in the 1913 addition.

And when you look at it from the outside of the building you can easily see there's this little square.

- [Mark] Because the brickwork looks different?

- [Kendra] The brick is different, It does not have the, the big header on the, you know that doesn't have that top piece.

That, which is actually just metal decorative.

It looks kind of like gutters, but it's not.

Yeah.

- [Mark] Now this looks to me like, and I'm not I'm not very talented at this stuff.

It looks to me like you have a lot of work to do.

What, what do you sort of have envisioned completing this?

- [Kendra] Well (laughs) - [Mark] I mean, is it this year?

- [Kendra] Well, the hotel will be open.

The lobby will be done, that kind of stuff will be done this year for sure.

The apartments, maybe they won't all be finished but they'll be behind closed doors.

And actually what you see here to completion doesn't take very long.

It's the infrastructure and the things that happened prior to getting to this point, because the plumbing is all done.

It's really just running the electrical and then putting up you know, the dry wall and that kind of stuff.

It actually is pretty quick compared to the infrastructure.

- Do you have anybody on a waiting list for an apartment or is anybody even aware that you're going to be - - Oh yeah.

I get a question at least once a week begging me to put them on a waiting list.

- So you do have a waiting list?

- Yeah but we, I mean, I have a list of names that I know want apartments, but I'm not, I haven't made any promises to anyone.

- Well yeah, that's kinda nice though, to know that.

- Yeah.

Oh yeah, definitely.

- There are people who are already interested.

- Yep.

A lot of people want to live here.

A lot of people in this town, you know their histories are tied to this place in one way or another.

- Yeah, yeah.

And of course they all know The Red Rooster, right.

- Oh sure.

They all know The Red Rooster.

They all, all their wedding receptions and family gatherings and you know, bridal showers, half I think half of like every County learned to play piano here because the woman that ran the place for like 60 years she was the piano lady too.

So yeah.

- Okay.

Well, listen, next thing I want to do is I maybe I'll talk to John about this, but the next thing I want to do is you're all, you already added on to this and you're putting in a brewery and a distillery.

In fact, some of the equipment has already arrived.

You've got it installed.

So can we take a look at that?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

So it has all been at least placed where it's going to sit and the piping is not complete - [Mark] Well John right now we're on the East side of The Red Rooster, you know.

And you can see that you've built on a little bit, just a little bit here.

Now I asked one of the first things I asked you was, you must have a background in construction.

You said no, software.

- [John] That's correct.

- [Mark] Well, how do those things, how does that match up?

- Well, I've always done construction when I was younger and my dad was an electrician so we were always kind of working on projects.

And then after I went to college, I went to college for computers and ended up having a career in Silicon Valley and did 15 years out there.

- Yeah.

- Enjoyed it.

But we decided to come back here.

- Are you from here?

- I'm actually from Champagne.

- Yeah.

So in the area, in the area.

Well, I'll tell you, you're lucky that your dad taught you all that stuff.

My dad never did.

And so I've been, I'm a klutz when it comes to stuff like that, but it looks to me like you're, you're pretty well able to handle yourself.

- I can do enough to be dangerous.

- Gotcha, I gotcha.

Okay.

So I'm looking here.

It looks like a beer garden to me.

- Yes.

- Okay.

This patio, here, what's it going to be?

- [John] It's going to be a beer garden.

We'll have tables sitting out here.

You'll be able to see up into the windows where all the equipment is.

We added this building on, on the back of the existing structure to house the brewery and distillery.

And then the taproom is right here to the left.

So that will be the entrance into the tap room.

And we have a bar area there.

So - [Mark] I see, okay, is it your plan to have a kitchen or, you know, is that sometime in the future?

- [John] We are going to have a kitchen.

It's going to be a pretty simple kitchen kind of pub food.

So.

- [Mark] And now we're talking about this.

This is the brewery and distillery.

- [John] Yes.

- [Mark] Okay.

- We'll see the brewing equipment on the inside.

The piece that you see right there is the still, so you'll see that right through the windows.

- [Mark] Okay.

Let's walk down here and get a little closer look because you've got some big tanks here and I assume those are meant to house something.

- [John] Yes.

So the biggest tank that you see facing here, will house all of our malt for beer, the smaller ones since we can source it a little bit easier locally is for corn, for whiskey but these will get fed in from trucks on the outside.

And then there's an auger system that feeds it into the equipment on the inside.

- [Mark] Okay.

So you say locally sourced, of course you're right in the middle of corn country.

- [John] Exactly.

- [Mark] So you should be able to have no trouble with that.

Malt is a little different, a little it's very expensive and it's hard to get ahold of, isn't it?

- [John] Exactly, exactly.

And it grows, it grows more up north and that's where all the malt, where the malting process happens.

So we'll probably have that shipped in.

We've looked into doing some local sourcing of it.

It's the malting process that we're looking at doing.

But it would be hard to do at this volume so.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I want to take a walk around here because I want to see the scale of this building.

You've got your own loading dock here that you've thought ahead.

And you're going to have a lot of supplies delivered here because hopefully if business is good you're going to be going through a lot of stuff.

- [John] That's right.

So we'll be able to load stuff into this dock and we'll also be able to ship beer out of this dock.

We plan on distributing, you'll see the size of the equipment inside.

It's a lot for just serving out of the taproom.

So we'll have extra to be able to distribute around.

- [Mark] Now, do you have a name for this business?

Is it going to be called Red Rooster?

Will the beer and the whiskey be called something else or?

- It'll actually be called Red Rooster.

I, we're calling it Red Rooster Brewery and Distillery, so.

- Okay.

And apartments.

- And apartments.

- And hotel rooms.

(both laugh) - And when you get a restaurant, you'll call that The Red Rooster, too.

- Exactly.

- Can we go in and take a look at your stuff?

- Absolutely.

- [Mark] Well, John, this building still smells new - [John] Yeah, everything is brand new.

- [Mark] Can we walk back there because we were looking at those tanks and we know that those have to come into the building, so let's take, take us back there.

- [John] Okay.

So the silos are out there with the grain, we had the auger system comes in, it comes into this kind of custom milling system, mills up both malt for beer and corn for whiskey.

And then these augers will take it up, And they will take it all the way around, up to a grist case that will weigh it before it goes into the mash tune where you actually produce beer and whiskey and make the, make the sugar water slash wort.

- [Mark] Okay.

So that's how you know that you've put the proper amount in for what you want to get out.

You need to know what that exact weight is.

- [John] Exactly.

- [Mark] Okay.

And so it goes through the auger system, across - [John] up into that funnel, which is called the grist case.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [John] And that's where it gets weighed.

And then it comes down into this tank and that's where you basically make the mash water for - And you're making the mash water for either whiskey, or beer, both, right?

- [John] Yeah.

This is kind of a custom system.

So the company that built this is out of Rock Island, and they kind of made this custom system where I can make it both in the same tank because beer needs to be boiled.

Whereas whiskey goes straight into a whiskey fermentor to go ahead and produce alcohol in the fermentation process.

- Okay.

So, but of course you won't do them at the same time.

You'll do the beer mix and then you'll do the whiskey mix but you can do them in the same container.

- We can do them in the same system.

And then we'll just alternate days.

- Sweet.

Sweet.

Okay.

Well, let's walk down and show us where it goes down.

- [John] So, beer will go from the mashing process over here into the boiling process.

That's where you add hops and your ingredients boil, sanitize, and comes over to these fermenters with the cone bottoms.

And that's where we'll make the beer.

So that's where we'll ferment, alcohol, clarify.

And then we can put it into serving tanks or kegs or cans.

- [Mark] How many different beer products could you make at a time?

Could you make two?

- We can make two at a time.

It usually takes about a 12 day process.

We have some space to add some tanks on the back so we can make four at a time.

Our hope is to kind of get to the point where we're making kind of eight to 10 beers on tap.

So.

- And like you say that that'd be pretty easy for here because you can hold it here, but for what you want to distribute, that's a little different - [John] That's right, that's right.

And these tanks are big enough that we'll be able to produce some for here, can the rest of it and be able to distribute out to wherever we buy packaged beer, so.

- [Mark] Now this, I love this setup over here.

I have no idea what it does, but it's really impressive.

- [John] Yeah, so I said that the whiskey goes straight into a whiskey fermentor, that's what you're seeing behind you here.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [John] The difference between the beer process and the whiskey process is that the mash itself still has the grain on it.

So the corn is still in there.

So you have to agitate it constantly while it's fermenting.

Now, once it actually ferments and produces enough alcohol, that can be pumped straight into this system.

And this is kind of a unique still, usually you see a still and it looks like a kettle with a column on it.

This is just the column systems.

And so it's pumping in and it's more works like an oil refinery.

So it's actually taking the good parts of the alcohol off and the bad parts of the alcohol off and producing the good parts and pulling them straight to the front.

So we'll make it, we'll put it into a container.

We'll proof it down to the right proofing level, we'll put it into a barrel, and then we'll store those barrels offsite to age.

- Okay.

So it comes, it comes out of here and then, then it goes into the barrel.

But when you say you proof it first, that means, you know the alcohol content.

Exactly what the alcohol content is.

- That's right, you have to measure the alcohol content.

Part of that is for the tax purposes, right?

The state and federal revenue.

They want to know exactly how much alcohol you produce but you also want to water it down to the right level to put in for aging.

And then when it comes out of the barrel, you have to go take those measurements again, because some of it evaporates off and you want to proof it down for the right, for consumption in a bottle.

So.

- Have you found a provider for your barrels yet?

- No.

I'm actually still looking, Traditionally is mostly produced out in Missouri.

There was a couple of places that we've been looking at in Minnesota and Michigan as well.

So - Now, and that's where the aging starts, right?

And that's when you have to wait years, once it gets into a barrel, then you're, then you're waiting years.

It's a good thing.

you're a young guy.

- That's right.

- It's not an old man's game.

- That's right.

It usually takes about four years or more in a normal 55 gallon barrel.

We'll also probably experiment with some smaller barrels.

There's more surface area to them.

And we might be able to get that number down for some of our initial product, but we want to make sure that it's still good high quality products.

So we're still playing around with those techniques.

So - Would you bottle that here?

- Yes.

- I mean you age it offsite cause you can't really have room for all, all those brands but you would bottle it here.

- Yes.

Yeah.

We'll bring it back here and proof it, we have a packaging line that we've designed.

It hasn't come in yet, but it'll will both can beer and it'll bottle whiskey.

So it's kind of a Lego set.

So you can kind of take the different parts and put them together and do either one sounds great.

- I guess what I'd like to see next, we went by the what's going to be the, the beer garden.

- Yeah.

- But we didn't get into the pub room, so can we go in there next?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- [Mark] Okay.

Out of the brewery, distillery, and now we're in the old building again.

- [John] That's right.

- [Mark] Okay.

And why do you have this partition the way it is?

- Yeah.

There used to be, a kitchen back here.

And then this was the original restaurant.

We kind of re partitioned it.

So this is going to be our lab space.

So we walk out of the brewing while the process is working.

We can come up here, take samples, harvest our yeast, do all the kind of brewing stuff.

- When you're doing the proofing and all that stuff that would all be done here.

- Correct.

- Okay.

All right.

Well, it's nice to have a work area and I imagine, I imagine it'll what's Oh, it's a dumbwaiter.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- [John] Well.

- [Mark] It's going to be a dumbwaiter?

- [John] It's going to be a dumbwaiter.

And we talked to a lot of people that originally worked here and they said that the stairs, going up and down the stairs with food and drinks and stuff was just a big pain.

So when we decided that we wanted to make a two level tap room, we said, well we can solve part of this problem by building ourselves that dumbwaiter that can come up, grab the drinks out of here, have food carts on them.

- You'll have a lot less spilled.

- That's right.

- Oh man.

I mean dishes broken and everything.

Okay.

So now, okay.

Here's you got lucky with this wall.

It's in good shape and it looks beautiful.

- [John] Yes.

- [Mark] And this could be a meeting room, I guess.

Huh?

- [John] Yes.

So we have these big pocket doors that we built in.

(door moving) - [Mark] Were they here or did you build them?

- [John] We actually had them built.

- [Mark] They're nice.

- [John] It was the same place in Carlinville that built these doors.

They said they were the biggest doors they ever built but we wanted to be able to divide off some of the space in case you wanted to have a meeting room or small reception or birthday party or something like that.

The walls in here were all plastered.

So we actually peeled off plaster and saw.

this beautiful brick and we said, yeah, we gotta do something with this brick.

So we tuck pointed it, cleaned it all off.

And I think it looks really, really good.

The archways on the windows, that half moon was originally there in the brick.

And we found some wood that we had reclaimed from other parts of the building that kind of matched it and built the header down and then built the sills on the windows out of it.

- [Mark] It's really nice.

- [John] So kind of really nice matching old and new is where we're kind of going for here.

- Yep.

And we were talking about, look we're of course one floor up from where the bar was, this was this was a restaurant, right.

- [John] That's right.

- [Mark] Okay.

And, and then down there was a bar downstairs and there still is in there and you'll retain a bar down there?.

- [John] Yes, we'll retain that.

That's where most of the drinks will be served.

We just wanted to kind of expand the space.

So we kind of made this two level space and we wanted it to feel connected.

So what we did is we opened up the ceiling right above the bar and then we're installing this bar rail up here.

This is actually salvage out of another bar in town.

It's an old mahogany bar, I think from the forties.

That's what we believe.

- [Mark] So if you'd like to stand and just kind of mill around and stand and drink and watch, look down and folks you can.

- [John] That's right - [Mark] You can do that.

Nice.

Nice.

- [John] That's right.

- [Mark] Okay.

And the old chairs they were here, they're the old Red Rooster chairs.

- [John] Yes, this is original chairs from the dining room.

And then we'll probably have some tabletops made.

We're gonna, we're gonna keep the old table legs and then use the old chairs.

So they're sturdier than, than a lot of stuff you can buy - Man.

I can't get over that tin ceiling, too, that.

Was this the only tin ceiling in the building?

- [John] No, there's, there's actually one in the lobby and we're still working on it, but we kind of looked at these tin ceilings and we kind of tried to evaluate whether they were worth saving, this one was worth saving.

It just took a lot of work.

So there was a lot of patching that we had to do, but it came out really nice.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And you did the mottled coloring.

Is that, was that your work - Actually Kendra did the mottling.

- Did she?

- She was up on a ladder with a foam roller and a spray paint can and kind of, yeah.

- Like Michael Angelo and the Sistine Chapel that hurts you just to think about it.

Okay.

And so you can walk right into the lobby as well.

If you're, if you're a, you come up those big white steps we saw at the beginning of the program - [John] That's right.

- [Mark] You come into the lobby - [John] You come into the lobby and the lobby is still being worked on but this is the other tin ceiling that we're, you can see where we've started to patch it.

We'll get it back into shape.

This, we'll build some big lounge space but we'll have a big service desk here.

So kind of you walk straight through the front door off the porch and you'll see the desk here.

There'll be a breakfast bar it's actually covered in plywood.

We're installing the cabinets but there'll be kind of like a breakfast nook over there and then kind of some lounge space.

- [Mark] So now for your apartment dwellers Would they come in this room, in this way, or do they have a separate entrance for the apartment?

- The apartments they'd probably come right in the front.

- [Mark] Well, Kendra, we see what it almost is.

What was it when you, when you first found it - It was really falling down, the entire structure inside and out.

Really, there wasn't much salvageable except for the brick itself.

It was tuck pointed completely inside and out.

There were some families living here, some older people living here and, you know, kind of a hodgepodge of people living here week to week, month to month.

Some had been here for, you know, 15, 20 years, but it was just kind of, it hadn't been repaired for quite some time.

So it was really kind of needs to be fixed or it's not going to be fixable.

- How many folks lived here?

39 people lived here when we moved in, or bought the place and started moving people out - [Mark] It's been a couple of years since this was actually a working restaurant and inn, right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that the current owners closed the restaurant in 2015 or something like that.

So.

- [Mark] Yeah, and the conditions were not good?

- No, the conditions were very poor.

The rooms themselves, you know, they had layer after layer of carpet just to kind of keep the floors from falling in and the radiator system, which was original to the building from 1902 leaked in the walls.

So there was, there was water damage everywhere.

That was one of the first things we did was get rid of the radiators.

- [Mark] Yeah.

You know I can't imagine taking on a project like this, but I also, if I had a chance to see it as it was, I'd probably been even more discouraged.

(both laugh) - [Kendra] Well, we definitely knew what we were getting into.

I don't think we, we weren't surprised by anything.

It was, you know, and and that's why I say we're so much closer to being done than it looks because there's no more surprises.

There's no more walls that are going to have to be tearing out floors, tearing out things of that nature.

- [Mark] Well, listen.

Thank you to John and yourself for spending time with us.

I'm so, I mean, I know you're busy, busier than heck and and for spending an afternoon with us, let us in.

Thank you.

- Absolutely.

Here at the Red Rooster Inn, you may have been familiar with it before, it looks a lot different now.

And sometime later this summer, you'll probably be able to get a room here.

With another Illinois Story in Hillsborough, I'm Mark McDonald, thanks for watching.

(happy music) - [Narrator] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you, thank you.