Built in the 1860s, the downtown Warsaw building at 123 S. Buffalo St. is undergoing renovations to become the home of Fellowship Missions’ The Gathering Place, as early as August.
As the remodeling has taken place, Fellowship Missions Executive Director Eric Lane said they’ve uncovered and learned about the building’s 150-plus years of history.
“The terrazzo out front, it says Phillipson since 1864 on it. It’s been a historical project,” Lane said in an interview Wednesday.
According to Kosciuskohistory.com, Phillipson’s Clothing Store moved from a building near the northwest corner of Center and Buffalo in June 1, 188, to the southwest corner of Market and Buffalo. The store, operated by Marcus Phillipson, had been in Warsaw since 1863.

    The pulley from the original elevator of the downtown Warsaw building at 123 S. Buffalo St. has been converted to a chandelier for a conference room on the second floor. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

The original elevator for the three-level building (including a basement) is now sitting on the first floor, as is the original safe from the late 1800s.
“It was a single-car elevator. We put a light in it because we’re going to do something with it. The gears for it, the pulley, is actually upstairs. One of our volunteers took it, powder coated it and now it’s the chandelier in our large conference room, which we’re actually going to call the Phillipson Room,” Lane said.
As he’s uncovered the building’s history, Lane said he’s been putting together a whole book of information on it, with the help of the Kosciusko County Historical Society. “This has been a fun, fun project,” he said.
Phillipson’s Clothing Store was in the building until the 1950s, and then Hull House moved in. Champs Sporting Goods, owned by Eugenia Fulkerson, occupied the building for a number of years. It’s also housed a few other businesses and organizations over the last few decades.
“I’ve got pictures of when the buildings down here used to have access to the basement from the outside. The basement used to be a bathhouse, in the 1800s, a community bathhouse,” Lane said, noting that he has postcards dating back to the 1800s and early 1900s of the building and others from back then in downtown Warsaw. There’s handwritten notes on the postcards. “It’s so cool. People just sell them because there’s no meaning to them, but they’re really cool.”

    The basement of The Gathering Place will have a conference room, art therapy and maker space. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

James Whitcomb Riley (Oct. 7, 1849, to July 22, 1916) was an American poet, newspaperman and best-selling author. Two of his more famous works include “Little Orphan Annie” and “The Raggedy Man.”
Lane said Riley used to hang out in the Phillipson building.
“In fact, there’s a painting in the Indiana Room at the (Warsaw Community Public Library) that he did for the Phillipsons here,” Lane said. “It was basically an advertisement piece.”
He and his wife, Tammy, decided to call the building The Gathering Place because that’s what they want it to become, a gathering place. “It’s for recovery and mental health, but it’s actually for anyone, especially this space where we’re sitting now,” Lane said, referring to the main front room. “And so we had an article - I forget when it was dated - about Mr. Riley being in this building and there used to be a mezzanine back in that corner and (the article) talks about how, in the evening, this was one of the buildings that would stay open late and people would gather and they actually called it The Gathering Place here in downtown, so it’s kind of cool.”
The Lanes only found out the building had been called The Gathering Place previously after they decided to call it The Gathering Place.
“We’re excited. We love this,” he said. “At some level, when you get a hold of an old building like this, you feel a sense of responsibility to it. We just want to do right with it, and make it for the community as it should be.”
Once it’s ready, Lane said all three floors of the building will be Fellowship Missions’ The Gathering Place.
“It’ll be a place where individuals can find resources for recovery and mental health, but not only resources. They can find resources, they can find professional help and also classes or groups. So we’ll host groups in this building on all three floors. There will be classes anywhere in the building,” he said.
On the second floor are seven office spaces and two large conference rooms. Those offices will be filled by Fellowship Missions, CARES (Community Assistance, Resources and Emergency Services) and by other organizations in mental health and recovery. The conference rooms will be used for meetings and classes.
The basement has a large meeting room, and there will be sessions down there for art therapy and makers space.

    Prayers on a prayer wall have already been posted at The Gathering Place, 123 S. Buffalo St., Warsaw. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

The first floor is wide open, with tables and seating set up.
“One, it breaks down the barriers. There’s no barriers to anyone coming in here to utilize the spaces,” Lane stated. “We really want to blur the lines to where stigma’s reduced. It’s a place for community to happen, that’s what it’s about. It’s about community coming together and nobody feels shame or anything like that in trying to find help. We’re going to have people here that want to see people get help and be able to walk alongside them. We see this main floor space, people just having one-on-one mentoring meetings, just sitting down having a cup of coffee that they get at one of the different coffee shops downtown. Large groups can come in and just sit down and enjoy.”
If needed, The Gathering Place can host supervised visitations.
For individuals who can’t get up and down the stairs, or for a person who really just needs to get away and calm down, there’s a private office on the first floor. A therapist can assist the person if needed.
Fellowship Missions has had its own recovery hub inside the shelter for a while.
“But inside the shelter, we’re so crammed that it’s hard for the loved ones or individuals just in the community to come in there to find the help that they needed. So, one, we needed space for that,” Lane said. “Another thing is, our community needs more resources to help individuals who need to find help in either recovery or mental health because they go hand in hand, and to be able to have another outlet that is so centrally located.”
People just being released from the jail will be able to have a place near the jail to help them become a part of the community again.
“And, to be honest, it’s kind of just what I said: Blurring the lines because it’s not an institutional feel and it’s not meant to and we don’t want it to be. We want this to be a welcoming, loving place that anybody could feel like coming in and hanging out, and nobody feels that ‘us and them’ feeling. As humans, that’s just how I think we should treat each other. We all have stuff going on and we shouldn’t make anybody feel less than because they need help in some area. And nobody should ever feel like they can’t be in that space because, ‘I’m dealing with this or that.’ That’s what we want, we want it for anybody. This is an awesome building ... this is a welcoming place for anybody to come in,” Lane stated.
Staff will be on hand during open hours, which are still to be determined.
“We’ll have set hours during the day, then we’ll have those - if there’s emergency calls and we need to come in for something, we’ll come in, and then we’ll have the classes. The classes could go - there’s some Celebrate Recoveries that go until 9 p.m. so they would be in here - and that’s just one of the classes that we’re going to have in here. So there will be a lot of people in and out,” Lane said.
They will need more volunteers once The Gathering Place opens, tentatively in August.
“We already have some volunteers starting to sign up, so if anybody is interested in getting involved, they can jump on our website and we have a volunteer page,” Lane said.
The website is fellowshipmissions.net; and the phone number is 574-268-9555.
“I just hope our community will embrace it for what it is, and it is a place for people to find hope, be loved, be known. I just hope they embrace it and see it for what it is, and utilize it,” Lane concluded.