Cool Spaces: Historic downtown buildings house Snug and Stove Co. loft apartments

Vickki Dozier | Lansing State Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Cool Spaces: Two historic buildings home to lofts with urban feel These lofts are only 600 square feet, but owner Camron Gnass says they don't feel or live like they're 600 square feet. Photos by Jennifer McKinstry.

LANSING — "The Snug," opened as a cigar and liquor store at 615 E. Michigan Ave., in 1906.

Next door, at 617 E. Michigan Ave., the Ambs family opened a restaurant in 1908.

Nearly 110 years later, both buildings boast historic urban loft apartments, with thriving businesses on the first floor.

From the street, you'd never guess what was upstairs.

Each loft has its own private entrance, parking, a distinct open floor plan, ceilings over 10 feet high with original oak timbers, exposed brick walls and stainless steel appliances.

They're only 600 square feet, but owner Camron Gnass says they don't feel or live like they're 600 square feet.

Gnass started his business, Traction, a branding and design studio, in 1995 in East Lansing. In 1997, he began a branding project for Club 621 on East Michigan Avenue.

"I came down to this block and fell in love with it," Gnass said. "In 1998, I moved my business downtown into the building at 617 E. Michigan Ave."

He spent about a year renovating, then moved his office into the first floor and built two lofts overhead.

Around the same time, the building next door was purchased and converted into a hair salon. There were two units upstairs that were also constructed to rent out. When the hair salon went out of business, Gnass bought the building and renovated those lofts.

"The biggest thing I did when renovating is I tried to preserve as much of the original building content as possible," Gnass said. "That meant the original brick walls, original oak timber ceilings and original maple floors.

"Other than that, everything was stripped, I started with blank rectangle spaces and built everything after that. It was kind of my canvas. I’m not a painter or drawer. This was my canvas to create a unique floor plans but maximize the small spaces."

When he started to design the lofts, they were shells.

"They all have concrete counter tops that I made, personally, but they look like quartz," Gnass said. "I picked out high-end appliances. People are spending $1,000 a month to live here, so I built them as though I’d want to live in them."

Only one of the spaces, at 617 E. Michigan Ave., has a bedroom. The rest of the lofts have open floor plans.

"I have a creative agency, and its been a nice, alternative outlet of design and creativity, designing my physical office space, designing residential lofts," Gnass said.

"That kind of creativity, I like to kind of think of it as it kind of seeps upstairs to the lofts."

After Gnass bought 615 E. Michigan Ave. and renovated it, he immediately found a tenant that does art, Eclectic Tatoo.

"They have nationally renowned tatoo artists in there," Gnass said. "They travel around the country doing guest appearances. One of the founders was on Ink Masters.

"I like to think of these couple little buildings as a really cool, creative pocket here on Michigan Ave."

Stove Company Lofts at 617 E. Michigan Ave.

The Ambs family opened a restaurant at 617 E. Michigan Ave. in 1908. Around 1913, Zella L. Harvey opened the White Front restaurant in that location, but by 1915, it had closed.

The building became the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company in the 1920s. then became known as A&P in 1925. After that, it became a Piggly Wiggly, then a Kroger.

"It was awesome," Gnass said. "A Piggly Wiggly and a Kroger in downtown Lansing."

It stayed a Kroger until 1935, when it became Kalamazoo Stove Company.

"That’s why I call it the Stove Company Loft," Gnass said. "I think that is one of the unique tenets of this building. You could come in here and buy a heating stove, basically that had these really cool, historic wood-burning or fuel-burning stoves that people would buy for their houses around Lansing.

A family that lived in the building raised eight children upstairs. Gnass was working late one night when a man who'd grown up there walked by.

"It was after midnight, and I saw this guy peeking in the windows and went out and chatted with him," Gnass said. "He had lived upstairs as a little boy. I gave him a tour of the building, and he was just blown away that it was a creative studio.

"He told me stories about living upstairs. The kitchen was down here in the middle of the business. His mom would be cooking, and they would all come downstairs and eat in the middle of the business at night after the store was closed."

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The Snug Lofts at 615 E. Michigan Ave.

Next door, at 615 E. Michigan Ave., George Rogers opened the Snug, a wine, liquor and cigar joint in 1906. It was there for a couple years, then became a pharmacy for quite some time, and later a grocery store, as well, according to Gnass.

In 1919, it became Beck Brothers Sport Shop, which sold auto supplies and sporting goods but also was a service station.

"There was a single gas pump sitting out on the sidewalk, where you would stop and get gas, just one single pump for the gas," Gnass said.

It stayed the Beck Brothers for almost 60 years, even doing taxidermy at one point. until In September of 1975, the business moved to a new location at 2650 E. Michigan Ave.

The building stayed vacant for about a year, then became an antique store for awhile, and, in the 1980s, a furniture rental store.

"The family who bought the building in the 1980s, bought both 615 and 617 and they held onto them for awhile," Gnass said. "When I got them, they had been, for probably 30 plus years, antique storage places. They were vacant storefronts, but they would move antiques in and out."

The Snug and Stove Company today

Gnass says, of the four, the front loft at 615 E. Michigan Ave. is his favorite. Natural light shines in through the front windows.

"I wanted to have as much of the brick exposed as possible," Gnass said. "That’s why everything up here is angular. The only thing that ties into the brick is two little short walls.

"I put the bathroom pod in the middle and put a glass block in so that natural light would get into the bathroom. I pulled the sinks and designed it so that the sinks would be out in the open like you would see in a hotel, because these were 1920 American standard sinks."

Gnass says his lofts have drawn in renters who moved here from other cities, because they want this feel. It’s not an apartment feel.

"That the huge difference with my spaces," Gnass said. "It’s not a traditional apartment. It’s a truly historic loft, and there’s only a few of these downtown."

Snug and Stove Co. lofts

615 E. Michigan Ave. and 617 E. Michigan Ave.; (517) 913-3040.

https://lansinglofts.com/

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.