McEldowney Madness in Winchester!

Downtown vis­i­tors on Saturday had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a pranc­ing baby camel, view an art exhib­it, lis­ten to live music, take part in a scav­enger hunt, and tour Winchester’s Beaux Arts mas­ter­work, the McEldowney Building.

The 120-year-old, five-sto­ry struc­ture, which three young cousins are restor­ing, is home to an eclec­tic mix of busi­ness­es, rang­ing from a fan­ta­sy book­store to a soft­ware tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny. Most of the busi­ness­es were open to guests through­out the day.

The build­ing is also the home of WinCity Media, the non­prof­it that pub­lish­es WinCity Voices and oth­er dig­i­tal media. Another non­prof­it, All Voices Reading Room, occu­pies the space next door to WinCity Media. 

“It’s not the first time we’ve had an open house, but it is the first time we’ve got­ten most of the busi­ness­es in the build­ing to open their doors and par­tic­i­pate, so we’re real­ly excit­ed about that,” said Adam Kidd of DAM Holdings LLC, the fam­i­ly-owned com­pa­ny that owns and is ren­o­vat­ing the building.

This was no ordi­nary open house.

Outside the build­ing, Avalon Farms set up a pet­ting zoo where kids could pet the kids (baby goats) and oth­er crit­ters, and grown-ups could drink a West Sixth craft beer with their pulled pork bar­be­cue from Two Chicks and Pig or bak­ery treats from 2 Dudes Baking.

Inside the build­ing, guests could study artist Jeffery Hale’s “Giants” exhib­it of paint­ings, lis­ten to Cooper Harbert strum his ukulele and sing about Al Dexter’s “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” or meet the real J. Peterman (not the char­ac­ter on Seinfeld) at Hell’s Half-Acre vin­tage cloth­ing shop.

The build­ing cur­rent­ly has 18 businesses.

“It’s every­thing from white col­lar pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices to a stu­dio to a tat­too shop,” Kidd said. “You know that when you get an attor­ney and a tat­too artist in the same build­ing, you’ve cov­ered all your bases.”

There’s also a mas­ter per­fumer, a hob­by shop that fea­tures col­lectible trad­ing card games such as Pokémon, a yoga stu­dio, and a knife­mak­er in the mix.

“We’re all over the place,” Kidd said.

Kidd want­ed to have the food trucks, pet­ting zoo, and oth­er attrac­tions out­side to dri­ve foot traf­fic into the build­ing, and they made the open house an all-day event so there wouldn’t be “a mob” all at once.

“We’ve had so many peo­ple in just the last cou­ple of hours come through, faces we’ve nev­er seen before, and peo­ple we’re com­ing to know,” said Anna Kidd, Adam’s wife. “It’s a great day for the community.”

Bree Bowman of the new Book Nook on Main had sev­er­al cus­tomers in her store around noon.

“It’s good to bring aware­ness to the com­mu­ni­ty,” and bring peo­ple in who may not know what the McEldowney Building has to offer, she said.

Her hus­band, James Bowman, owns High-Speed Collectibles, the hob­by shop on the ground floor below her bookstore.

“I think Adam is onto some­thing,” Kevin Parido of Shepherd’s Forge, the blade smith and life coach, said. “I think it’s the right thing to just open this build­ing up. The first time I walked in here, I was just amazed at how much atten­tion to detail Adam has done.”

Downtown’s tallest com­mer­cial build­ing, at 5 Cleveland Ave., has brass, mar­ble, hard­wood, plas­ter, and oth­er mate­ri­als from the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry when it was erect­ed by M.T. McEldowney.

Adam Kidd, Demetrius Fassas, and Matthew Fassas bought the build­ing in 2019 and began restor­ing it. In 2022, they received a his­toric preser­va­tion award from the Clark County-Winchester Heritage Commission for their work.

More stories about the McEldowney Building and some of the businesses housed there

• McEldowney Building restora­tion near­ing completion
• New art show fea­tured at McEldowney Building
• All Voices Reading Room Has Grand Opening
• WinCity Media’s down­town office is now open
• M. T. McEldowney
• Get ‘Inked’ in Winchester . . . underground!
• New Winchester book­store offers an ‘Enchanting’ Experience

Image gallery