The Merc • Fort Klamath, Oregon

Owner/Client: Basin Living Arts, LLC

AOR: Place Collaborative

Size: 4,000 SF on 2 acres

Services: Architecture, Planning, Policy

Completion Year: 2023

Certifications: Living Building Challenge Pursuant

Located at the base of Crater Lake National Park, the Wood River Mercantile—known locally as “The Merc”—is a hybrid general store and farm-to-fork café that anchors community life in Fort Klamath, Oregon. This rural hub complements its sister project, Watershed Row in Klamath Falls, which supplies the Merc with both fresh produce and preserved goods.

The café includes indoor dining clustered around a central hearth for winter months, while a shaded outdoor seating area offers summer gathering space near a mature grove of trees. Designed to operate off-grid, the Merc integrates water and food systems with its surrounding landscape.

The commercial kitchen uses well water and irrigates its productive gardens with both rainwater and treated greywater. In the absence of municipal sewer infrastructure, a decentralized system treats blackwater and greywater onsite through a septic pretreatment process and subsurface drainage field. Together, these systems model a regenerative approach to food, water, and community infrastructure in a remote setting.