Kevin Rhoades (center), bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Diocese, talks with Rev. Ron Rieder (left), pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, and Msgr. Owen Campion, from Our Sunday Visitor, take a tour of the St. Felix Friary . Photo by Scott Trauner.

Originally published Nov. 8, 2010.

If you know the right people, things start happening.

Take the former St. Felix Friary, for example.

Just months ago, the building sat empty, without a purpose, on the north side of Huntington.

Last week, the 30-acre site was swarming with workers bringing the grounds and the massive former monastery back to life.

And just what is the building's new purpose?
Nobody's quite sure - yet.

"John Tippmann just wants to find the best use for the building," says Joe Wharton, general manager for Tippmann Properties and the man overseeing the restoration. "We don't know yet what that is."

All involved, however, agree that the "best use" will somehow pay homage to Rev. Solanus Casey, a priest who spent 10 years at the friary and who may soon be officially recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church.

"The important thing is getting it back in Catholic hands," Tippman said late last summer while finalizing the purchase of the property by the Mary Cross Tippmann Foundation.

Tippmann owns the Fort Wayne-based Tippmann Group, which includes companies dealing in refrigerated warehouses, construction and real estate. The foundation is named in honor of his late mother.

Tippmann was introduced to Casey and the vacant friary by Ed Romary, a former classmate of Tippmann's and the founder of Romary Associates, another Fort Wayne-based company involved in real estate and construction.
Romary is a friend of Rev. Ron Rieder, who now serves as pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Huntington but, a half-century ago, crossed paths with Casey at St. Felix Friary.

"He (Tippmann) had never heard of the place," Rieder says. "I took him through the friary and he liked what he saw. I gave him a book about Solanus and he decided to buy the place and restore it in honor of Solanus."
Wharton, too, made researching the priest a priority when he was given the job of overseeing the massive restoration project.

"John bought it and I got my tour," says Wharton. "The first thing I did was go get a book and start reading."
He finished the book in awe of the priest who died 53 years ago.

So, who was Solanus Casey?

Born in 1946 in Wisconsin, Casey was ordained in 1904 and first served in Capuchin friaries in the New York area, then spent 20 years at a Detroit monastery.
While in Detroit, Casey became widely known as a holy man who could intercede with God for cures to diseases and solutions to business and personal problems.

The demands on Casey became so great that, in 1946, his superiors sent him to the St. Felix Friary in Huntington. Casey stayed in Huntington until 1956; he died a year later, at age 87, after returning to Detroit.

Rieder studied philosophy at the friary from 1956 to 1959, eventually returning to Huntington to serve as pastor of one of the city's two Catholic churches.

The Capuchin order closed St. Felix Friary in 1979 and sold the building the following year to a local United Brethren congregation, which took the name Good Shepherd Church when it moved into the Hitzfield Street complex. Good Shepherd moved out about a year ago and thought it had a deal to sell the facility to a religious organization that planned to open a seminary there; that deal fell through when the potential buyers were unable to sell property they already had.

The collapse of that deal opened the door for Tippmann to purchase and restore the property.

The cost of the restoration is being paid by the Tippmann Foundation, and Rieder will say only that the project will cost "a lot of money."

"Any day, there are 10 to 15 workers out there, all day," Rieder says. The work, he adds, "is just endless."
The goal of the first phase of the renovation, Wharton says, is "to get the outside fixed up before winter."

Then, he says, workers will move inside to do some cosmetic work.

Wharton just ordered 377 windows - Rieder says there are a total of 499 windows in the building - and plans to start installing them in January. He's not replacing the stained glass windows and he's still looking for suitable windows to place in openings with round tops, he says. And the windows in the room believed to have been used by Casey will not be replaced.

"Our goal is to stay consistent with the look and feel of the original," Wharton says. "We don't have much of a plan yet for the inside - just clean it up."

A group of brothers visited the friary late last month and returned furnishings that had been scattered throughout the building to their proper places.

Huge tables, built by the brothers who once lived in the friary, were located and returned to the dining hall.

"It looks like it looked 50 or 60 years ago," Rieder says. "It's just beautiful. There's not a nail in the whole table, but they weigh a ton."

The friars, Wharton says, were self-sufficient - they made their own furniture as well as their own clothing; they grew their own fruits and vegetables; and they had their own vineyard.

While the building is showing its years - it was built in 1928 - Wharton and Rieder both say it's in good shape.
"The Brethren took good care of the building," Rieder says. "They kept one room as a shrine to Father Solanus Casey. I admire them for doing that."

The room is locked, but its contents are easily visible through a window in the door. A brown robe lies on the small bed, and an old-fashioned rotary telephone sits on an unadorned desk.

Wharton says a priest who served as Casey's assistant has confirmed that the room was occupied by Casey.

"We're as sure as we can be," Rieder says. "But does it really matter?"

He believes that if the priest is declared a saint, many people will come to Huntington to see the friary where he spent most of the last decade of his life.

But the building will serve as more than a shrine to Casey.

"We're not quite sure what we're going to do with this yet," Rieder says. "By next summer, we'll have a real clear direction where we're going."

Tippmann, Rieder says, wants to see the complex used for religious purposes - possibly retreats, youth group and Senior Citizen activities, meetings or diocesan activities.

An advisory board is being formed to study the possibilities for the facility.

Complete caption: Kevin Rhoades (center), bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Diocese, talks with Rev. Ron Rieder (left), pastor of SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, and Msgr. Owen Campion, a columnist for Our Sunday Visitor, during a tour of the St. Felix Friary on Hitzfield Street on Thursday, Nov. 4. The friary has been purchased by a Fort Wayne-based charitable trust and is being renovated for an as-yet-undetermined use.