4E
Wednesday Aug. 23, 1989 / University Daly Kansan
RIGHT: Dennis Brown works on window trim at 1509 Crescent Road. BELOW: Ben Graham Inspects a stairway in a theaterin the 600 block of Massachusetts Street.
Artists preserve history
by Charles Higginson Kansan staff writer
In an age of mechanized construction, a small group of artisans in Lawrence still specializes in handwork. Many of them don't appear in the phone book listings for their trades, but owners of old houses who want first-class plastering, stonework or paint jobs seek them out.
Charles Higginson/Special to the KANSAI
Their work graces homes in the Oread and Old West Lawrence neighborhoods and downtown buildings alike.
Call them housecrafters.
"They're really unsung heroes," said Lawrence attorney Jerry Harper. Harper was president of the Oread Neighborhood Association for a year and spent six years on the board of advisers of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
"These are the people who help to maintain these houses, who give Lawrence a very important part of its character. The visual sense of our history is embodied in these houses."
"If you survey any hundred people in Lawrence, the vast majority will say that one of the things they like about Lawrence, that makes it so livable, is its collection of turn-of-the-century houses." Harper said.
Dennis Brown does the most visible work among local housecrafters. Brown's painting company specializes in polychrome color schemes for older houses. He painted the ceiling of a two-story farmhouse, which often use five or more colors, have turned several Lawrence homes into landmarks.
Brown's best-known project is the house at 701 Louisiana St. It belongs to Burdett Loomis, chairman of the political science department, and his wife Michel. The Loomises employed several housecrafters for their extensive renovation.
His most recently completed project was the house at 1041 Tennessee St., which is lavender with several trim colors. He painted Headquarters, 1419 Massachusetts St., four years ago.
"From the beginning, they're considerate of the house," Burdett Loomis said. "They want to find the best thing for the house."
"You also find these guys going to great lengths to solve problems."
Brown said he started using multiple colors to bring out details he discovered during preparation work on turn-of-the-century houses. He said working with the craftsmanship he found in older structures, was a creative challenge.
"You're unmasking something that's just begging to be let loose," he said. "I want to show people what's hiding on some of these street corners."
"It's almost archaeological. You're looking at something 80, 90, 100 years old and realize, 'This guy thought about work just like I do. And he did it every day.'
"It's a crime to let that go."
Jay Patterson, carpenter and contractor, also appreciates the skills the old craftsmans had.
"The fact that they put everything together with hand tools is amazing," Patterson said. He was involved in the rehabilitation of the Bay Leaf building, 725 Massachusetts St., and the house that Brown's company painted at 933 Tennessee St.
Unlike some of the other craftsmen, Patterson spends much of his time working on new construction. He said homeowners willing to pay for good rehabilitation jobs were rare.
"One of the first questions I ask is if they want to maintain the quality and character of an older home," he said. "If the answer is no, I'm not interested. There's always going to be someone else willing to come in and put in modern trim."
Patterson said the housecrafters got most of their jobs through word-of-mouth references.
"It's a small community of people who do this kind of work," he said. "We spread each other's names around."
Plasterer Ben Graham arrived in Lawrence in 1984 from his native Iowa. His first big local job was replastering the interior of the stone house at 1008 Ohio St. He was involved in restoration of the Riggs house, 1501 Pennsylvania St., and did the plaster work in the renovated Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St., and in the Free State Brewing Company, 636 Massachusetts St.
"My goal is to try to return the structure to the same integrity it originally had in the plaster," Graham said.
He said plaster had several advantages over drywall construction. It's more durable, can be formed into textured shapes, and can be textured or colored, he said.
Graham said that the work was dirty and sometimes hard, and that he had a love-hate relationship with plaster.
"It's like a mission almost," he said. "We're touching the souls and spirits of craftsmen and artisans who
passed a long time ago.
"Every time I put mud to the wall, I feel somehow I'm saving their work."
"We're all committed to the idea of being artisans," he said. "And we're all eccentric. We all have our own ways of thinking and our own ways of presenting what we do."
Keith Middlemas, a stonemason, has built walls, arches, pools and fountains through Lawrence. The limestone retaining wall at 1140 Ohio St. is his work, as is a stone pool in a yard in the 1200 block of Mississippi Street
"I'm in Lawrence because the place has an inordinate number of intelligent folks with different backgrounds," Middlemas said. "In Lawrence you can find people thumping nails who have master's degrees. They're pretty conscientious.
"When you work with your hands and then retire, all you have to show for it is the body of work you've done. Most people just see the exterior. But me and a few others, quite a few others, we want its vitals to be just as nice as its outside."
Middleman said he went to New Mexico, looking for summer adventure, while attending KU 13 years ago. He met a master mason there, bought land in the New Mexico hills and built a stone cabin on it. When he graduated from KU in 1974 with a degree in anthropology, he sold the cabin and paid off his school loans.
He returned to Lawrence two years later and bought 20 acres north of town, where he lives now.
He worked on houses for about five years, but got bored with "pasting rock to the sides of houses." He started doing landscape pieces.
He said he used 23 sources of stone, but bought little of it from quarries. Of the 23 types of stone, some are lighter than others, some resist cracking in freezing weather and some resist heat. He uses whatever type fits the job.
"My biggest job used 84 tons of stone," he said. "Eighty-four tons is a lot of stone. But I've also done an alabaster fountain you could pick up in your two hands.
"Sometimes it's like dental work, sometimes it's like the Hindenbrow."
Like his fellow housecrafters, Middlemas prefers working for himself.
"This way I'm able to describe my own future," he said. "So really what I'm doing is buying my own freedom.
A free Kansas boy playing in the woods, you know."
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