or decades, Merlin Stensrud stashed junk and antiques in the old brick building carrying his name in one of Missoula’s rougher neighborhoods. In 1998, the life of the eccentric Stensrud collided with the life of Mark Kersting, a man versed in historical restoration. The men, neighbors but not contemporaries, sat on a porch stoop and talked one day. Stensrud wanted to sell Kersting the building, and the older man turned to Kersting with a proclamation about their encounter and the sale of the hurting edifice. “I think I’ve been waiting for you.” Ten years later, Stensrud the building is more alive and lively than it has been at least since a grocer sold goods out of it in the 1920s. Kersting, the man honored with the task of her restoration, has his eyes trained on another dilapidated structure around the corner in the same railroad neighborhood. Stensrud the man is dead, but he didn’t pass without seeing the old gal polished up and
returned to splendor. “I sold to the right guy.” The right guy encountered a lot of wrong problems in the monumental endeavor. Even getting to Missoula took Kersting a couple tries. He first arrived in 1996 from Kansas City, Mo. He’d honed his craft in Missouri, learning the skills involved in historical restoration: the plastering, wiring, wood stripping, plumbing. For nine months, he presented his portfolio to architects in Missoula. The accolades came in droves, but the only salary offer that came with them led Kersting to do an about-face. “The wage was so ridiculously low for my skill level that I basically went back to Missouri,” he said. Missoula is a vortex, though, and it pulled Kersting back after he tried real estate in Missouri and learned life behind a desk didn’t suit him. That second time in the Garden City, he met Merlin Stensrud. Their paths crossed because Kersting had found a place to live on the Northside. It was just behind the Stensrud Building, missoula.com magazine
25