A narrow, four-story building stands at 26-28 Washington Street, in Keene, New Hampshire. It looks familiar, like thousands of mixed commercial-residential blocks that were built in the late nineteenth century in cities and towns all across the Northeast. But it captured my attention immediately on one of the many visits my wife and I have made to this lively small city with its famous wide Main Street.

What makes the building so special? There's the nostalgic advertisement for Coca-Cola painted on the north side of the building, a relic of a long-gone era. The brick structure stands alone, the lone survivor among its immediate architectural neighbors, which were eventually condemned to dust. And the slate mansard-like roof and dormer add an elegant finishing touch.

More than 130 years after Massachusetts native Joseph G. Warren opened his new building for business, I ventured a few steps up from Central Square and discovered the Warren Block, as it's called, and was disappointed that the street-level storefront was vacant. I turned to my wife and said, "This would be a great place for a café."

That's just what Maureen Clark said nearly 30 years ago when she was living upstairs in one of the apartments. She was attending Keene State College and had dreams of opening up her own café someday. She now works for Marsha and Kristin Dubois, who opened Kristin's Bakery & Bistro in this space in October 2005. The popular lunch spot had enjoyed a great nine-year run at the Colony Mill Marketplace, a shopping center located in a historic mill, just a mile away. Maureen has been their baker almost since the beginning. But Marsha and Kristin (mother and daughter) had been interested in the Warren Block for a long time.