Waterskis line the roof of a recently opened souvenir shop in McCall, but safety concerns and code led to city officials ordering them to be taken down.
The building at 200 Lenora St. was once occupied by McCall Pet Outfitters and Supply, but more recently, Laketown Shore Shop took over. Owner Cade Huskinson wanted to carry the McCall-themed inside of the store to the outside of the building as well and did so by lining the roof with waterskis.
“When we took over the building, we made some updates on the inside, we painted, we did some updates to the outside painting these things, and we wanted to really reflect what McCall is,” Huskinson said. “So almost everything in my store says McCall. We sell sweatshirts, we sell shirts, we sell water bottles that say McCall, Idaho, it’s very touristy. One idea we had when we saw the roof was ‘man, it’d to be cool have a bunch of waterskis up there.’”
Code says no
While this may fit the Huskinson’s interpretation of the city’s aesthetic, the McCall Planning and Zoning Commission says it does not fit the code.
McCall code says harshly contrasting color combinations are prohibited on exterior finishes, and building materials should be natural or natural appearing. The commission said the waterskis do not fit that description. There was also concern that snow and ice build-up between the cedar shack roof and waterskis could cause the skis to potentially fall off.
During the meeting, Huskinson explained how the skis were fastened to the roof.
“So they’re not mounted directly to the roof they are actually mounted to some support beams that we put around the building, and those are resting on top of these glulams. So all the weight on skis, everything is supported on those glulams. The skis are screwed and straight to those treated two-by-sixes,” he said.
When asked about the safety of the roofing, Huskinson said that he spoke to previous tenants about the building and was told that the shingles would hold on to snow and it would build up before all breaking off at once. He said he feels like the slicker material of the waterskis would cause snow to slip off much easier.
“If I can keep the skis, the plan is to run heat tape through that to help mitigate snow buildup on the roof because that is a real concern, and I don’t want any issues with that,” he said. “So the way that this was applied is so we have some pretty deep screws going through the support beams that are resting on those glulams. And then each ski has about four screws in it, adhering it to those beams, so I’m not too concerned with buildup popping any skis off.”
He said one thing that has been considered is putting a layer of roof flashing over the tips of the skis to direct snow and water off.
Public and officials respond
Huskinson said the response he has received about his waterskis from the public has been “overwhelmingly positive,” he posted on Facebook about this debacle and also got a lot of support.
The one person who showed up to testify was a woman who owns a home with views of the shop. She shared that she was supportive of the water ski design as well.
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“I love it. And I think natural is a subjective word nature (doesn’t mean) brown,” Judith Clarity said.
While the commissioners generally agreed that they liked this addition to the building, they recognized it could not stay due to the concerns at hand.
“I hate that there’s no way I see a path for this in our code. Because I love it, personally, I think it’s fantastic,” Commissioner Liz Rock said. “But going back to previous arguments that, we’ve made countless times with sign approvals and stuff for consistency, there’s just no path in the code to say that this is okay.”
City Attorney Brian Parker told Huskinson that it would be worth chatting with city staff to figure out a way to do something similar – that is not this.
