The Ippisches had run a Christmas market at the Schoolhouse for 30 years, but the tradition faded once they sold the house and outbuildings in 2002. The new owners had no interest in picking up where the Ippisches had left off. Curiously enough, though, after the Anaconda Co. left the Ninemile and before the Ippisches came along, the property was owned for a short time by four area couples, one of whom were the grandparents of a Frenchtown native named Kurt Cyr.
Kurt Cyr graduated from Frenchtown High School in 1983 and eventually made his way to Los Angeles, where he worked as an interior designer. In 2005, his parents mentioned to him that the Schoolhouse was for sale. Cyr remembered many a Christmas season at the Schoolhouse, so he got in touch with folks in Montana and, within months, owned the property.
I m not sure I would have come back to Montana at this time, but this was such a chance to get this place, and it s really offered the opportunity to take my design life in some new directions, he said. That direction is, at least for now, decidedly seasonal. We re all about Christmas, Cyr said Monday as he showed visitors around the buildings with business partner Jay Zaltzman. During the Ippisch years, the Schoolhouse Christmas market had a distinctly Scandinavian feel.
That made perfect sense, given their heritage. Cyr and Zaltzman have kept a bit of that flavor Hanneke created a Schoolhouse style, and we always want to respect that, Cyr said but they ve made the market a bit more worldly. This year the theme is Italy and Cyr and Zaltzman spent last Christmas in Tuscany doing their research. They witnessed Italians more understated approach to the holidays it s much more family oriented and less commercial took part in the Crib Crawl and checked out St.