The house that Brick built

By Ric Butler

This weekend, almost three years after closing its doors in the Highlands, the newly reconfigured and renamed Brick House is having its grand opening. Now at the corner of Second Street and St. Catherine in Old Louisville, the community center will host three full days’ worth of musical performances and learning workshops to introduce itself to the new neighbors and to give visitors a sense of what the venue is about.

It’s not going to be the same as its earlier incarnation, said Jamie Miller, a board member for the Brick House who’s been with the group since the beginning, when it was known as the BRYCC House. That moniker, an acronym for Bardstown Road Youth Cultural Center, was discarded because of the location change and to increase their interest base. The new Brick House will function more as an overall community center and less as a teen club.

“We still have programs for young people, but we wanted to broaden it to include a larger amount of the community,” Miller said.

Meg Stern, another Brick House board member, said, “The space on Bardstown Road was mainly used as a show venue. … Part of the whole catch of the old BRYCC House was that it was for youth, by youth. And while a bunch of us are still kids, we’re not kids anymore. We definitely have an interest in providing services and resources for the entire community.”

Projects that are already up and running include a bike and tool workshop, where visitors can learn hands-on bike repair and maintenance; a “free store,” which works the same as a thrift store but without paying for anything; a nicely stocked book and magazine library focusing on independent publications from which visitors can check out titles; an arts and crafts space with some communal supplies; and a meeting room and event space for hosting and organizing regular group meetings or singular events like musical performances, poetry readings and theater productions. Most noteworthy of all, the Brick House is trying to offer all of these services to the community for free.

“I’d much rather do this for free and have somebody do it than not do it just because I can’t get paid for it, and it not happen. I think that the services that are provided by a project such as the Brick House are important enough that they should be there,” Stern said.

“I think it goes along with the worldview of most of the people who put a lot of energy into the Brick House,” said co-chair Nathan Hall. Hall’s is similar to a presidential or vice presidential role, but his title was changed to eliminate hierarchy. “The kind of ideals and resources that we support and provide are really how we think people in general, all over the world, should interact with one another and live. … I think in a world where everybody’s worried about getting their money and just looking out for themselves that nobody’s ever going to be happy.”

It’s an idealistic perspective, sure. But there’s nothing wrong with idealism if it brings positive contributions to the community.

Lee Jones, who owns the Oak Street Hardware store on the same block as the Brick House, seemed happy about his new neighbor.

“I think it’s going to do very well in the community,” he said. “Our community’s growing older and we need some new things in the neighborhood. … They’re very interesting young people. It’s nice, it’s different.”

One particularly appreciative Brook Street resident named Steve Thomas said he found out about the Brick House almost a week ago, and has come by every day since. While browsing the library, he said, “This is one place I can find everything I need. … The only thing missing is nothing — except funding.” Said so perfectly that the Brick House might consider assigning him a P.R. position.

Hall said that the Brick House’s main objective is to teach people about self-reliance and sustainable living. These are two subjects the group knows well: a major reason for the venue’s extended hiatus was, aside from a lack of funds to bring in professionals, an almost stubborn desire to do everything themselves. They’ve spent countless hours stumbling through legal forms, teaching themselves a multitude of building renovation trades and scrounging — largely from their own pockets — enough money to stay afloat.

“We’re definitely independent, we’re definitely DIY to a fault,” Hall said. “It took us two and a half years to open, all because we wanted to do it all ourselves, even though we didn’t know what the f— we were doing.”

“Before we got a mortgage on it two years ago and began renovations, the building had been abandoned since 1985,” Stern said. “We ripped up a bunch of floors, there were walls falling down, we’ve had to paint the interior of the entire building, all the plumbing had to be replaced because of frozen and broken and burst pipes and just old toilets and fixtures that didn’t work anymore — so it’s been a lot of work with very limited funds and very limited volunteer power.

“Nathan [Hall] literally read books and books on plumbing and learned how to do it himself and finally got it done. He’s our plumber, bike mechanic, PR, bank account guy,” Stern said.

“I spend most of my waking hours either at or doing something related to the Brick House,” Hall said. “I’ve also put a lot of my personal money into it, I’m going to estimate about $2,500 — which is a lot to me, because I’ve worked [as a bike courier] for all of it. Well, almost all of it — I did get a little bit of Christmas money.”

Other volunteers similarly provide for themselves through various day jobs. Stern is a pantry chef at Lynn’s Paradise Café and Miller is a teacher at Shawnee High School. The Brick House doesn’t provide income to any of its members.

In fact, fundraising has been a constant limitation for the group. On the Brick House website, http://www.brickhouse.cc, they’ve listed an option for both monetary donations and supplies they need for their building and individual programs, such as kitchen equipment, which would allow Stern to teach cooking classes on how to design a healthy diet on a budget. Other programs, like the photographic darkroom and the radio station, for which the group has applied for a low-power FM license, are also in need of contributions. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, all donations are tax-deductible.

For the time being, anyway, the Brick House has applied for three city grants and routinely embarks on their own fundraising efforts, from selling roses around Valentine’s Day and mistletoe around Christmas, to organizing Brick House benefit concerts and selling “art bikes” on First Fridays. The group has also released a book of coupons for local independent businesses like Day’s Coffee, Za’s Pizza, Cherry Bomb, Lemongrass Café, Vault Liquors and 15 others. The books are available at the Brick House or through their Web site for $5.

If you’d like to help out, you can start by showing up this weekend to see for yourself what the Brick House is trying to do. There will be a series of educational workshops during the day and some big-time concerts at night — rock on Friday, hip-hop on Saturday and folk/country on Sunday. Have a good time, learn a few things and feel free to utilize the resources they’re providing. That’s what the venue’s there for.

The Brick House Grand Opening Weekend

Friday

Rock show: Black Cross, Lords, Gaj Mustafa Cell, Ganthet, One Small Step, Ultra Pulverize.

6 p.m., $6 advance, $7 at door.

Tickets available at the Brick House and Ear X-tacy.

Saturday

Educational workshops throughout the day.

Hip-hop showcase: Father Jah & Reck D. Mic of Unstoppable Sound Agency, Teezy, Chicago, Booth, Killa Kam, Amos, Lockdown.

7 p.m., $3 admission, with a rap battle hosted by John Doe at 10 p.m.

Sunday

Educational workshops throughout the day.

Folk music session: Ponty’s Camper (Appalachian banjo), Matt Mattingly (old school country), Drew Hampton (fiddle).