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Thursday, October 5, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
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Local group saves house from wrecking ball
Five rental living units to be created from 19th century home
By Lisa Moss
Kansan staff writer
A 119-year-old Lawrence house has been saved from demolition to preserve 19th century architecture.
The original house, built in 1700, is being rehabilitated by the Lawrence Preservation Alliance. The house is known as the Benedict House because the Benedict family lived there for about 59 years. It was bought by the alliance in 1887.
"We saved it at the last minute," she said.
Developers had bought the house and planned to tear it down and build an apartment complex, said Nancy Shontz, president of the alliance.
nfluence.
Residents in the Oread Neighborhood were upset and wanted the house to be saved, Shontz said.
"We saved it at the last minute," she said. Various loans and the first loan in Kansas from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C., are financing the project, said Daniel Rockhill, associate professor of architecture.
The Lawrence Preservation Alliance is an
organization interested in furthering building preservation in the city.
The alliance wanted to buy the house and then sell it as a single-family residence, Rockill said. However, no buyer was found because the lot the house was built on included an empty lot and the cost was $50,000.
Three cottages will be built on the lot and the house will be divided into two units. These units will be rental property
Rockhill said he hoped the house would serve as a model to other owners, showing there were alternatives to the bulldozer.
"It is located in a very important spot. The block is trying to come back," she said.
plans for the house's rehabilitation.
Shontz said the house had a cottage-like
chalet.
Oliver Finney, member of the alliance, said if people were more aware of the value of old architecture, they would be less prone to undervalue it.
The Benedict House is the fourth project the preservation alliance has undertaken, Finney said.
Rockhill and his employees designed the plans for the house's rehabilitation
Above: Jeff Chenali, Lecompton freshman, left, and David Sain, Lawrence architect, load bricks into the house basement. The bricks are being saved because they are the same as those used in the house.
Far left: Andreaa Grogan, a Lawrence framer, removes panels from the house garage. The panels will be used on the additions to the house to preserve the 19th century architecture.
Left: Dan Rockhill, associate professor of architecture, removes trees from the adjacent lot where cottages will be built next to the Benedict House.
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"It was recently taken aback by the discovery that only one member of a college audience I was about to address had even the vague idea who W. E. B. DuBols was. What I had planned to use as a rhetorical device to introduce my lecture became the subject of the lecture itself, as I put down my speech and addressed the relevance of black studies to the students' lives and educations, whether they wished to be academics or investment bankers. It is"
not only white students who need this education; my audience was entirely black."
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
A symposium on Academic Excellence in a Multicultural University.
In a Multicultural University.
Participants:
William Tuttle, Professor, Department of History, The University of Kansas
Philip Uri Treisman, Director, Charles A. Dana Center for Innovation in Mathematics and Science Education, The University of California at Berkeley
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Saturday, October 7, 1989, 8:30 a.m.-Noon Woodruff Auditorium. Kansas Union
1.