With the sale of the troubled Granatelli Museum building, the Dean V. Kruse Foundation came closer to meeting its agreement with a bank.
And while the building didn’t sell for quite as much as officials would have liked, the new buyer brings potential to the area that is encouraging, a Kruse official said.
“It will go nicely with what’s already out there,” said Tammy Hantz, operations manager for the Dean V. Kruse National Military History Center and Kruse Automotive and Carriage museums in DeKalb County.
Hantz said the vacant building, built to house the memorabilia of former race-car owner Andy Granatelli, sold at auction last weekend for $995,000.
It was sold to South Dakota classic car collector Dewayne Keiper, who plans to display classic car memorabilia and classic cars in the 22,500-square-foot building, as well as potentially sell classic cars from the site, Hantz said.
In July, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Monte L. Brown awarded a judgment of $2.9 million to Farmers State Bank of LaGrange and against the Dean V. Kruse Foundation, which operates a World War II museum, as well as the Kruse Automotive and Carriage Museum.
As part of that judgment, Brown ordered the property, which includes 28.27 acres at DeKalb County Road 11A and General Doolittle Drive, as well as the buildings and their fixtures, to be sold at a sheriff’s sale.
But last week, Kruse Foundation officials announced that some of the bank’s requirements had been met and a payoff plan presented that could lead to the foundation becoming debt-free within months.
Part of that plan included the sale of the Granatelli building, into which the foundation has invested nearly $3.1 million.
Because the sale of the building did not generate as much money as needed, Hantz said the foundation plans to go ahead with another auction in November – this one to sell off some of the World War II inventory.
That inventory, secured by Dean Kruse years ago, came from a Belgium museum near the site of the Battle of the Bulge, officials said.
