LPA Annual Membership Meeting Set for October 9 at Winter School Building

Please join us on October 9 for LPA’s 2021 Annual Meeting of Membership at the newly restored Winter School on Farmers’ Turnpike between Lawrence and Lecompton. We are excited to see the results of this recent rehabilitation project undertaken by members of the Winter family.

This open-house event begins at 1:30 p.m. and will be held in two sessions to allow as many members as possible to visit and congregate safely. Brief presentations by members of the Winter family will be made in the schoolhouse at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. LPA board members will be at tables in the courtyard throughout the event to visit with you and listen to your ideas and comments. Members arriving at 1:30 are encouraged to depart by 2:30 so that folks arriving later can participate.

Masks will be required in the schoolhouse and encouraged in the courtyard. Meeting materials, including president and treasurer reports and the new LPA strategic plan, will be emailed to members on Tuesday, October 5.

Winter School is located at 744 N. 1800 Road (Farmers’ Turnpike), about 1 mile west of the I-70 interchange, on the north side of the road just past Heritage Baptist Church. If you reach Berry Plastics while driving west, you’ve gone a bit too far. 

 Winter School, 744 N. 1800 Rd. (FarmerS’ TURNPIKE)

Winter School

This rural schoolhouse just east of Lecompton has been a Winter family project since Mathias “Ship” Winter donated the land for its construction in 1869. The school opened in 1871 and served the surrounding farming community until 1949. A nearby farmer purchased the property in the mid-1950s, and the schoolhouse began an unfortunate reuse as an agricultural building, which greatly accelerated its deterioration. In 1984, members of the Winter family formed Winter School Preservation and bought it back, knowing that a long road of stabilization and preservation work lay ahead.

The family hired the design-build firm Rockhill and Associates in 1986 to do limited stabilization work to the building. In 2018, when the Winters decided they wanted to restore the property for educational and gathering use, the family worked further with Dan Rockhill and his longtime associate David Sain to create a rehabilitation and new construction plan. Wint’s daughter Katie—who grew up in Lawrence, left as a young adult, and then moved back with her family—tells us that the Winter family enjoyed this planning process in which Dan and David were able to share their extensive knowledge of old stone buildings and their creative design ideas. The project was aided by a grant from the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council.

The leaky roof and eaves were repaired. The rotting floor and missing windows were replaced, and original windows still existing were repaired. The original limestone walls were tuckpointed and the historic stucco coating was repaired.  After a new water meter and septic system were added, a 14x20-foot outbuilding was constructed to house two unisex bathrooms and complete a wonderful rural public space.

As Katie helped with this family endeavor, she remembered all the civic work her dad and his father, Wint Sr., have done during her lifetime. “But the cool part for me” she says, “is how interested people in Lecompton are about it. They are so thankful and have shared stories about what it meant to their family. I have also been able to make this part of my children’s upbringing, and that is special to me.”

While the pandemic has slowed the opening of this facility to the public, Katie’s background in education for museum and non-profit platforms will help inform future use of the schoolhouse. It soon will be open to families for self-guided tours, and later to groups through arrangements with the Lecompton Historical Society.