LJWorld.com

PAXICO — Steve Hund Jr. bought his first potbellied stove for just $15 at an auction in 1971.

He needed something to heat the old farmhouse he was restoring between the northeast Kansas towns of Paxico and Maple Hill. The home had been abandoned for several years and had no heating system or plumbing.

Then the 1970s energy crisis struck and the price of heating fuel skyrocketed. Friends who saw how effective Hund's old stove was at keeping his farmhouse warm asked him to look for stoves to install in their homes.

What started as a sideline turned into a full-time business after Hund lost his job. Hund now operates an antique store in Paxico's once-empty but now flourishing downtown. He makes most of his money selling restored wood- and coal-burning potbellied stoves from the turn of the last century and vintage gas ranges from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The stoves sell for between $1,500 and $2,000, with the fanciest gas ranges going for up to $4,000.

'A simpler time'

His restored stoves reside in homes from Kansas to California. He also has rented stoves to be used as movie props. Some of his customers are attracted to the stoves for their beauty and functionality. For others, nostalgia is the lure. Older customers recall that their mothers heated their bath water on top of the stoves. And Hund has heard others tell of being placed in the stove's warming oven when they were born prematurely.

"I think people are looking for a little simpler life," Hund said of the stove's appeal. "A stove means a simpler time."

Some of his stoves feature finials and gargoyles. The embellishments fit with the Victorian homes that were popular during the turn of the last century when most of the stoves were built. Heavy competition from gas ovens put most heating stove manufacturers out of business by the 1940s.

Martin Hurla restores an old stove in a shop behind Steve Hund Jr.'s Paxico antique store. Old stoves have been restored and sold at the shop since the 1970s.

More than half a century later, appreciation of the stoves is growing. Old cook stoves and vintage ranges are appearing in decorating magazines. Some people are designing kitchens around them.

"These things were art in their day," said Delmar Joyce, of San Diego, past president of the Antique Stove Assn. "A really high-end stove was like having a Duesenburg in your driveway."

It's a tough business, and Joyce said the number of businesses that specialize in stove restoration "would be measured in dozens."

"It's not anything people are real anxious to be involved in," Hund said. "They're heavy, rusty, dirty and a lot of work to restore."

The stoves first are taken apart and cleaned. If cracks are found, the piece is welded back together, or a new one is recast. Damaged nickel parts are sent to Independence, Mo., to be replated. The stoves then are reassembled.

Steve Hund Jr. displays some of the antique stoves he has restored and sells at his antique store in Paxico. Hund makes most of his money selling restored wood-and coal-burning potbellied stoves from the turn of the last century and vintage gas ranges from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Upturn in business

The work is done in a shop behind Hund's store, Mill Creek Antiques, which is nestled between a cafe and another antique shop. The buildings were constructed around the time the railroad arrived in Paxico in 1886. Now neatly restored, the downtown looks as though it could be the set for a Western.

But that's not what it looked like when Hund bought an abandoned section of a general store in 1973 for $2,200. Some buildings were selling for even less then.

He worked at the store during the day. At night, he worked in Topeka as a switchman and brakeman for the now-defunct Rock Island Railroad. Business was terrifyingly slow at first. "We would wait sometimes a week for a car to pull up in front of the store," he said. "If they found it, it was an accident."

He and a partner re-caned chairs and restored furniture to occupy their time.

First one billboard, then others went up along Interstate 70, directing travelers to the shop and later other antique shops that began filling the empty storefronts in the city's downtown.

Hund advertised his wares in a farm publication. And customers told their friends and family about the little antique shop in Paxico.

Gradually, Hund started doing more and more stove restoration. Stoves were easy to find at farm auctions in the 1970s when Hund often was the only person bidding on the century-old relics.

Initially, Hund restored only stoves that didn't need much work, selling them for $100 to $150.

The antique store became his full-time job in 1980 when the Rock Island Railroad went under and Hund lost his job. It was a scary time. His wife, Kathryn, was pregnant and had quit her teaching job to care for the baby.

He initially tried selling modern heating stoves along with the older stoves. But he was unimpressed with their quality.

He focused on learning more about fixing the older stoves with a local blacksmith as his early tutor. Now he's teaching the business to a Paxico man who also turned to stove restoration after losing his job.

Martin Hurla started renting space in Hund's workshop after he was laid off in November from a sheet metal fabrication shop in Topeka. If someone wants a stove restored, Hurla does the work. He also restores stoves in Hund's showroom on a contract basis.

Gone is Hurla's commute. His house is located across the alley from the workshop. He can go home for lunch and peek out the shop's back door and see his children -- ages 9, 6 and 4 -- playing and riding their bicycles in the alley.

Hurla called losing his job "a blessing."

Hund had a similar assessment.

"It's pretty amazing," he said, "that it's worked out the way it has."