49th State Brewing Company: renovating and revitalizing an Anchorage landmark.

• Author: Anderson, Tasha
• Position: RECONSTRUCTION - Cover story

There are few buildings in Anchorage or Alaska that can boast nearly one hundred years of history. One of those, built in 1918, is located at 717 West Third Avenue in downtown Anchorage and currently occupied by 49th State Brewing Company, a home-grown Alaska business owned by Jason Motyka and David McCarthy.

"This building was originally built as an Elks Lodge," Motyka explains. "From what I've been told, back in the day one in every six Alaskans was an Elk." The Lodge was a community center, boasting a theater, fitness center, and bowling alley in addition to the bar and restaurant. Most recently it housed the Snow Goose Restaurant and Sleeping Lady Brewery. "When the opportunity came to be a part of this facility we were really excited because those folks that helped shape Alaska's future utilized this building; it's kind of passing on the baton to us to do something unique for Alaska's future as well," Motyka says. "The history is unparalleled."

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Moving forward it will be the home of 49th State Brewing Company's second location; their origins are in Healy in Denali National Park, where their first brewery and restaurant were born. This second location is an opportunity to expand, but, McCarthy says, "One of the reasons were growing is actually to stabilize our business in Denali, which is our foundation." He says one of their challenges in Denali was being able to produce enough of the beer that their guests love. "In order to produce more we had to expand into an area that was going to help reduce our costs so the beer could be more affordable." One of the benefits of the Anchorage location is a huge storage area on the bottom/basement floor, allowing the company to ship in raw ingredients in larger quantities and store them in-state.

McCarthy and Motyka are passionate about developing the building in such a way that only builds its status as a community gathering place and iconic Anchorage property. So they invited Alaskan artists to be a part of the renovation and remodeling process. "If you build a place for the people, you just have the people help you build it, right?" McCarthy says.

The Whiskey Wall

One of the installations is behind the main-floor bar: the whiskey wall by local woodworker Mark Wedekind, who owns Blackstone Design (blackstonedesign.com), a hand-shaped custom furniture business. He says that normally most of his work is from private commissions, and his clients find him through word of mouth.

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In this case, Wedekind has had...