photo by: Submitted/Sarah Wallace

Fire destroyed both the building and contents at BKB Leather repair shop in North Lawrence, pictured on Aug. 8, 2023.

With flames shooting out of its sides, it didn’t take Bruce Barlow long to surmise his longtime BKB Leather repair shop was going to be a complete loss.

It took him only a few seconds longer to determine that he was going to rebuild the nearly 40-year-old business that has gained a following for everything from shoe repair to leather upholstery.

After all, he knew he had the right resumé for the job.

“I’m a fixing kind of dude,” Barlow said Tuesday afternoon while well-wishers stopped by the shop site at 815 Elm St. in North Lawrence.

A fire ripped through the workshop around 2:30 a.m. Monday. Barlow said early indications are that a loose electrical plug started the fire.

What’s clear is that nearly everything inside the shop, which is next door to his house and an Airbnb that his family owns, is a complete loss. The family on Tuesday was working with an insurance company and also was in the process of creating a GoFundMe account to give friends and community members a way to donate to the rebuilding effort.

Barlow said he intends to rebuild on the existing site, though he plans on moving the shop from the back part of the property to a spot closer to the road.

“He was coming up with that idea while the flames were still burning,” said Sarah Wallace, who has worked at the shop for about a half-dozen years, lives near the shop and was the first to see the fire.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Bruce and Kris Barlow are pictured in front of what’s left of the BKB Leather repair shop at 815 Elm St. in North Lawrence on Aug. 8, 2023. The shop was badly damaged by fire the previous day.

Indeed, Barlow, 68, said there really seemed to be no other option but to rebuild when he was standing there in his “underwear and long hair,” watching the shop burn. In some ways, he said, he was just waiting.

“After that burn was done, I knew we would salvage what we could and start rebuilding,” he said.

It won’t be the first time that Barlow has started over. The business — which for years was located in one of the stone buildings just south of Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence — got its start in 1987. Barlow had been a construction worker, but hurt his back.

Barlow’s wife, Kris, recalled that Bruce had a roll of leather among his miscellaneous belongings and was determined to make himself a tool belt while he was healing. Instead, the leather ended up making something different out of him. The project sent him to the library in search of books about the craft.

“I went to the library to research what I was going to be when I grew up again,” Barlow said.

At about that time, shoe repair businesses in the community started going out of business left and right, and leather-working equipment could be had for “dimes on the dollar,” Barlow said.

He accumulated as much of it as he could, but Monday’s fire snatched most of it from him. Barlow, though, said members of his “cobbler’s community” — organizations such as the Shoe Service Institute and Shoe Repair International — began offering him free equipment to help rebuild his shop.

Barlow said those donations, along with the quick and professional response of the Lawrence fire department, are among the top heartwarming moments he has from the tragedy. As for the bitter ones, he said the shop also had many of his favorite musical instruments inside it, plus he had a “cremation shelf” that was destroyed. It housed the ashes of many deceased loved ones.

“That’s probably what has hit me the hardest,” he said.

photo by: Submitted/Sarah Wallace

Favorite musical instruments of owner Bruce Barlow were among the many items destroyed by a fire at BKB Leather, pictured on Aug. 8, 2023.

But Barlow said he didn’t allow it to hit him very long. There was work to do, and he was ready to get back to it. In fact, yesterday, he took a call from a woman who had a pair of high heels she was hoping to get repaired before a party on Thursday.

“I told her we had just had a fire but I could go out to the shop and see what I could find,” Barlow said.

Wallace was the one who had to say no to that request. Kris said saying “no” is one of the skills Barlow doesn’t have in abundance.

“Somebody will ask him whether he can do (it), and he just says yes,” Kris said. “Then he’ll have to figure out how to do it.”

“But,” Bruce adds, “I can do it.”

There will be a few things to figure out when the new shop opens, whenever that may be, which likely will be determined in part by the insurance money and GoFundMe donations. Wallace said the shop even before the fire had thought about shifting its focus. While repair work will still be a staple of the business, both she and Barlow said the new shop likely would seek to sell more handmade leather items. In the world of “fast fashion,” Wallace said the number of people who fix their leather items rather than simply throw them away and buy new was shrinking.

Navigating that changing industry will be challenging, but Barlow said he’s happy to have the chance. He said both Wallace and he tried to open the door to the shop before firefighters arrived.

“We were both lucky that we lived,” he said.

He said the building was full of hot gas at that time and was at an extreme risk of creating an explosion if the door would have opened.

“Why it didn’t, I don’t know,” he said. “I guess because we are not done yet.”

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Fire gutted the back portion of the BKB Leather repair shop in North Lawrence, pictured on Aug. 8, 2023.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Flames came shooting out the sides of the BKB Leather repair shop in North Lawrence, as evidenced by the damage pictured above on Aug. 8, 2023.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A few mementos survived the fire at BKB Leather repair shop in North Lawrence, as pictured on Aug. 8, 2023.