Oregon -- R-Rated House Changes Into Bed-And-Breakfast

David and Rebecca Campbell, owners of Mac's Place tavern in Silverton, Ore., listen to the creaking floor and to the echo of their voices.

"If the walls could talk I'm sure they would have a wonderful story to tell," says David Campbell, staring down the hallway. "A few wonderful stories, I should say."

But the stories that live in these walls aren't designed for general audiences.

Near the last turn of the century these walls above Mac's Place housed the best little whorehouse in Silverton. Now, more than 90 years later, it sits quietly.

What do you do with such a sordid find?

If you're the Campbells, you turn it into a bed and breakfast.

"It'd be fun as a bed and breakfast," said Greg Smith of Silverton Historic Inc., which works to restore Silverton's downtown historic district.

"You could say, `I stayed in the Silverton Bordello,' or something like that."

Mac's Place, which was founded in 1890, is the oldest wood structure in downtown Silverton and is on the national historic register as part of the downtown historic district. And like any bar, Mac's has its own share of folklore and stories about notorious card games and town drunks.

Greg Smith thinks that the brothel operated above Mac's from 1903 to 1905. However, without much evidence of its existence, locals rely on legend, which over time has made the brothel common knowledge to many.

"You know how people talk," says local historian Jeff Brekas.

The Campbells, who live on a farm outside Silverton, bought Mac's Place in January 1997 from the Oster family, who ran the joint for about 50 years.

Silverton resident Rod Oster says he didn't use the upstairs for anything more than storage. He said he doesn't believe the stories about brothels and the like.

But when the Campbells looked more closely at the mess, they discovered much more than dust mites and moth balls.

They found six rooms with numbers still fixed above the doors. Further down the narrow hall, they stumbled into what they think was a card room - the light bulb still hanging above an old dusty table.

And finally, in the back of the building, overlooking Silver Creek, the Campbells found what they believe to be the madam's quarters with different wallpaper as well as a kitchen area.

"I was surprised we didn't find food in the refrigerator," David Campbell jokes.

In addition to the rooms themselves, the Campbells found an old, tattered pamphlet that Rebecca Campbell says appears to be some "sort of Playboy magazine of the times."

Dave Skilton, preservation planner for the State Historic Preservation Office, says he doesn't doubt that the place used to be what some may call a house of ill-repute.

"The rooms are just tiny, little rooms," he says. "Just big enough for a bed."

Major renovations

But renovating the 1,500-square-foot space is going to take more than just a little work.

The Campbells estimate it will take up to two years and $70,000 to transform the dusty shells of rooms above the bar into and a modern bed and breakfast that you don't have to rent by the hour. The bar, however, will remain downstairs. Overnight visitors will be able to enter the second floor from a separate door just as they did more than 90 years ago.

Smith says cozy accommodations like a bed and breakfast above Mac's Place would make a nice place for visitors to stay.

What else, after all, do you do with a 90-year-old whorehouse?