In 1992, a realtor name Steve Dodds recommended that Carton Service acquire a vacant industrial site in NW Portland. The former home of the Northwest Marine Iron Works (NWMIW), this environmentally challenge collection of WWII buildings was under the control of the Resolution Trust Company, the legal repository of that decade's savings and loan scandal. After days of negotiations with the loan officer in charge of the property's disposition, who could only be reached between the hours of 10AM (when he got to work) and 11AM (when he left work for his standing tee time) Carton Service traded its former home at 13th and Hoyt for this new project in the contaminated swamp of Guild's Lake.

In its 1970s heyday, NWMIW was a $100 million company machining parts for the maritime industry and some of the world's largest public works projects. Wooden patterns for some of these parts are still stored on the premises. These exquisite samples of the pattern maker's art were hand crafted for such diverse projects as the Aswan Dam, Bonneville Dam, and Portland's Steel Bridge. In 1976, Mary Armstrong Morse, Ken Unkeles' future wife-to-be, was among the hundreds of highly skilled people employed at the thriving enterprise. When NWMIW's charismatic founder and president George Grebe died, the company floundered and in the late 1980s ceased operations.

Following clean-up and restoration, many of Carton Service's first renters at the NWMIW remain today. Among them are Shellcore Industries, West Coast Finisher, the Oregon Zoo's Special Events Group, and artist and skunk trapper Dale Mills.

Early in 1993, with restoration work continuing, artist-tenant Max Grover introduced his handyman, Lyle Williams, to the Carton service community. For the next eleven years, until his death in March 2004 at the age of 82, Lyle made an essential contribution to the quality of studios the Unkeles Group delivered. A former professional photographer, Lyle was accomplished in almost all building trades and was responsible for conceiving many of the design innovations that have made the various building so artist friendly.

           - Ken Unkeles