MARK WAITE / PVT Nathan Miller feeds the ducks in front of the Calvada building, which is targeted for demolition. MARK WAITE / PVT Nick Willing, a county groundskeeper, stands in front of the Calvada Building, where shingles still sit on the roof. Advertisement

Sheila Miller watched her son Nathan feeding the ducks at the Calvada duck pond on a warm summer afternoon this week.

Nearby, red tile shingles still sat on the roof of the former Calvada Inn building. Nye County commissioners had plans to renovate the building, which dates to 1971, as a future meeting room and county administration offices.

However future county offices won't be in the Spanish-style building, which it was decided will be subject to the wrecking ball since commissioners heard a report from Charles Abbott and Associates.

Their verdict: It would be too expensive to rehabilitate it.

Some residents like Miller appreciate the duck pond as a welcome oasis in the desert. When it comes to the building, however, she had mixed feelings.

"It's not as historical as far as Pahrump -- 35 years isn't that much -- but it used to be the first real store, like a grocery store, bigger than a market," Miller said.

She pointed to the back part where there was formerly a steak house.

"It is pretty historic, I can't imagine this place without it," Miller said.

The Nevada West and Pahrump Valley Times in October 1971 reported a Las Vegas group headed by attorney Daryl Enge Bregson leased the new Calvada Valley commercial complex, which opened Dec. 11, 1971. Andy Peters was hired as director of the Calvada Inn, Peter Specht was named the market manager, John Gulbo the restaurant manager.

Advertisements touted complete dinners from $2.95 at the Calvada Inn's western-style restaurant. The Pony Express Bar and Cocktail Lounge was the "favorite meeting place for happy people."

The Calvada Market advertised choice USDA meats and field-fresh produce for locals who no longer had to travel into Las Vegas.

The opening of the center wasn't long after Preferred Equities Corp. paid $3.5 million for the 10,500-acre Pahrump Ranch and began dividing up 15,000 parcels for residential development.

Prospective clients were given a sales pitch in brochures that read, "We'll take you to revisit your Calvada property -- show you the progress -- treat you to lunch at the elegant Calvada Inn -- and you'll be back in Las Vegas in time to go out for another evening on the town."

Sharon Cahlan recalled meeting her late husband, former prominent attorney Forest Cahlan, while working as a waitress at the Calvada Inn.

"It was really kind of the place to be and the place to go eat. They had a little gambling going on, they also had a little convenience store at one time," Cahlan said.

"They had movies at one time for the kids in the summertime, a place for them to go and they had a lot of the graduation dinners and dances. I kind of hate to see it go, it's really a landmark," she said.

Long-time resident Tim Hafen, in an April 2002 interview with the Pahrump Valley View at the time Preferred Equities Corp. declared bankruptcy, described the steakhouse as a first-class dinner establishment with white table cloths, comparable to the Pahrump Valley Winery or the Pahrump Nugget's Stockman's Steakhouse today.

Eventually the restaurant closed and the building was used as administrative offices for PEC, for the companion Central Nevada Utility Corp. and space was leased for $1 for the Calvada library until the present library opened in January 2001.

After the library moved, that room was used temporarily to hold 5th District Court while the Nye County courthouse was closed due to mold in 2001-2002.

Nye County purchased the 32-acre Calvada Eye, including the Calvada building and a block of apartment buildings nearby, for $3.2 million in August 2004. In May 2005, Nevada JobConnect opened in a manufactured building on the island, after a $400,000 grant was provided by the Workforce Development Board,

Nye County officials drew up plans to expand the Calvada building from 11,000 to 18,000 square feet at a cost of about $3.5 million.

The apartments were to be used for the nuclear waste repository office. Nye County is paying Wulfenstein Development $5,200 per month for office space on East Basin Avenue.

The Pahrump Arts Council and the Rotary Club of Pahrump Valley have been granted a lease for a performing and visual arts facility on three acres of the Calvada Eye.

The minimum bid to remodel the Calavda building came in at $2.5 million last April, $700,000 more than the county had budgeted. The remodeling of the apartment complex would cost at least $955,000, the county budgeted $250,000.

When county commissioners commissioned the Charles Abbott buildability study, Commissioner Joni Eastley questioned why it wasn't done long ago.

The Charles Abbott study noted the existing Calvada building would have to be elevated a foot above base flood elevation, unless Nye County granted itself a variance.

The firm, which runs the Pahrump building and safety department, concluded, "It appears the county's best option is to completely demolish the two buildings and construct two new ones."

Charles Abbott Regional Director Buster Scholl's report stated the total demolition of both buildings would cost $265,000. A partial demolition, enough to provide a level starting point, would cost $390,000.

Engineering documents also weren't available to determine whether the foundation is still viable, the report added.

Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos made the motion to demolish the building, which was seconded by Eastley.

Nye County Commissioner Gary Hollis, who personally did some of the renovation work on the building as his own pet project, turned off his microphone in frustration after the vote.

"We tried to save it but you know it's in the flood district. That foundation would be below the flood stage," Hollis said. "We haven't figured out exactly what we're going to do yet, how we're going to do it."

Hollis indicated the county could try to recoup some of the $100,000 spent on the GM Architectural Firm which submitted plans to expand the building.

Nye County spent $60,000 to abate the asbestos on the building in 2006.

The neighborhood was zoned for a town center zone, based around the use of the Calvada Eye for a government center.

Hollis said it's one of the oldest buildings in Pahrump not in a museum.

The county plans to erect a steel building in its place.

One person who isn't going to miss the building is Nick Willing, a groundskeeper on the Calvada Eye, who showed a reporter the gutted-out interior this week and wondered how vandals got in.

"I can't wait to get rid of this place," he said. "It's such a big job, it's been neglected for so long."