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Washington Evening Journal
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Washington, IA 52353
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Haus Walk recalls early days of the Amanas
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WEST AMANA — Cory Nevitt makes a living as a blacksmith — in the 21st century. The old craft is his passion.
Nevitt introduced visitors to the historic vocation last weekend in West Amana during the Amana Arts Guild’s Haus Walk.
“They got hold of me two years ago,” said Nevitt, and asked him to run the blacksmith’s shop for them. He spends about two days a week there.
“This is the last Blacksmith shop in Amana,” said Nevitt. It needs a lot of repairs, he said.
“I do historical repairs,” said Nevitt. He knows the traditional way to put things together. Welding is not the same thing as blacksmithing and it doesn’t produce the same result, he said.
From his shop in Menlo, Nevitt makes repairs and customer orders. He hopes to spend more time in Amana next year.
“My dad’s a woodworker,” said Nevitt. So is his grandfather. His entire family is artistic, he said, and he’s good at working with his hands. But he chose to work in metal.
“I hate wood,” Nevitt said. A person can glue wood back together, but it won’t be as good as it was.
With his blacksmith’s tools, however, Nevitt can forge steel items back together, and they’ll be just as strong as they were before.
Nevitt loves making scroll work. The self-taught blacksmith has spent 13 years figuring out how to make a scroll, he said.
The forge in the West Amana shop is original, said Nevitt. One of the bellows works, but the other needs repaired.
Nevitt uses the tools that Amana settlers used during the 19th century. “The simplest tools built the most amazing things,” he said.
Historically, blacksmiths worked with wrought iron, but it hasn’t been made since the 1970s.
Nevitt works with steel, It’s a lot more forgiving, he said.
“We’re pretty lucky that he comes out here,” said Angela Tjaden, the resident tinsmith. Amana is a long drive from Menlo.
While Nevitt beat hot metal on his anvil on one side of the shop, Tjaden helped residents make cookie cutters on the other side.
“We advertised a tinsmithing class today,” said Tjaden. She taught three people Saturday morning and four in the afternoon. They made cookie cutters using a pattern created by late tinsmith Bill Metz.
All the equipment Tjaden used came from Metz’ estate, she said. Metz was a retired sheet metal worker from Cedar Rapids, so he already knew how to work with metal when he began tinsmithing out of his home, said Tjaden.
Metz died in 2021.
“Most of these tools would have been used in the communal era,” Tjaden said.
Tjaden lives in West Amana and has been tinsmithing since shortly before COVID. “I started learning from Bill,” she said, but she admits she doesn’t have his experience.
Tjaden has been tinsmithing out of the Amana blacksmith shop about two years.
The building needs more light for tinsmithing, Tjaden said. The blacksmith needs to see the color of the metal, but the tinsmith needs to measure and draw lines.
Blacksmithing is a dirty job, while tinsmithing needs a cleaner environment, Tjaden said.
The Amana Arts Guild is giving the building new life, said Tjaden. It’s making a improvements, such as replacing the woodburning stove with a furnace.
Daniel Huff and Meghan Huff, of Coralville, took the Haus tour while visiting the Amana Colonies Saturday.
“I’ve been here a couple of times,” said Daniel, but Meghan, originally from California, experienced the historical villages for the first time.
“It’s a fun little thing to do,” said Meghan, especially around the holidays.
The bakery
A short walk from the blacksmith’s shop is another historic building on the Art Guild’s tour of homes.
The Brost-Ward Residence at 705 E. St. in West Amana is an 1858 sandstone building that was once a bakery and general store.
“My wife and I moved here in 1998,” said Robert Brost. Jill Ward, a calligrapher, died in 2002.
“Most of this work was her idea,” said Brost.
Brost grew up in Buffalo, New York, and Ward grew up in Long Island. Brost’s employer brought him to Cedar Rapids, and the couple bought the bakery house and “threw a lot of money at it,” said Brost.
The fireplace in which the bread was baked is in what is now a garage. The bread moved through the oven to the interior of the building.
The oven access is no longer open, but it is visible in the exterior wall of the home.
“I traveled for a living,” said Brost. “A lot of this work happened in my absence.” “This work” included stripping plaster off the walls of an interior room to expose the original sandstone.
“It was all her vision,” said Brost.
Brost couldn’t salvage the floors in the hallway between the opposing front and back doors, but the sitting room floors at the front of the house are original.
The house was lacking in closets, so Brost added some for storage — much of it for his audio equipment and vast CD collection.
On the second floor is Ward’s calligraphy studio and several of her drawings. The original wood supports are adorned with historical tools
The granary
The John Simpkins Residence at 1603 Fourth Ave. in South Amana was built as a granary in the 1860s using locally made bricks and timbers from local oak trees.
Once an antiques shop and art gallery, the home retains the brick driveway that ran through the granary.
John Simpkins has owned the home for about a year and a half, he said. He moved to Amana from Baker City, Oregon. He spend 10 years in Andrews, Oregon and is a painter by trade.
Baker City “just wasn’t the right fit for me,” said Simpkins. He was looking for something historic and quiet.
Simpkins found the South Amana home at 2 a.m. one morning. He’d been looking for real estate online, “and this popped up.”
Simpkins began researching the Amana Colonies. “It sounded really interesting to me,” he said. So he made the leap.
“I bought it site unseen.”
Simpkins said he doesn’t know a lot of the granary’s history, but people who visited during the Haus Walk did.
“I’ve learned a lot today, actually,” said Simpkins.
“This building was derelict in the 1970s,” said Simpkins. The people in the Amanas were looking for buildings to restore and put a roof on the granary to protect it from future damage.
“Someone decided that it would work great as an antiques shop and an ice cream parlor,” said Simpkins.
Then someone made it into a residence.
The brick road through the center of the building remains. A kitchen and dining area occupy one side of the brick road, and a living area and art studio the other.
The walls display the art Simpkins has collected through the years. The studio reveals his own work in acrylics.
The Conquest Residence at 4535 220th Trail in Amana was also on the tour. A former communal kitchen haus, the residence featured multiple Christmas trees, each themed and intricately decorated.
