LPA Announces the 2025 Preservation Achievement Awards

/ W Banquet Hall/

Join us in celebrating the 2025 winners: Stan & Joni Hernly, Karl Ramberg, Matt Gilhousen!

We are excited! For the ninth edition of LPA’s most prestigious award, LPA has chosen a slate of winners that include a property owner with a strong record of redeveloping unique infill historic properties, the owners of a full-service architectural design firm that loves to help breathe new life into historic ‘diamonds-in-the-rough’, and a highly-skilled artisan who focuses his knowledge and experience to the saving of all things stone.

The Preservation Achievement Award was created in 2009 to honor individuals or groups contributing in extraordinary ways to preserving buildings, cultural histories or natural sites significant to Lawrence and Douglas County. Please join us for this fun Saturday morning event to help celebrate the  outstanding work of these individuals within our awesome preservation community.

Matt Gilhousen, founder and owner of Walnut Street LLC, and his team have previously received two LPA Preservation in Progress (PIP) Awards for projects at the old Broom Factory Building (401 Elm) and the J. E. Stubbs building (1101 Massachusetts). His desire to engage in projects that can provide significant impact to the community has now led him to the hugely important and daring rescue of the Reuter Organ/Wilder Shirt Factory buildings currently underway in the 600 block of New Hampshire Street, adjacent to the old Riverfront Mall parking lot and the current City Hall.

Stan and Joni Hernly, founders of Hernly Associates, and their team have an impressive business legacy of preservation projects including the Santa Fe Station (413 E.7th St.) and Zimmerman Steel (701 E. 19th St.), and both have logged considerable  volunteer time to LPA, KPA, and HRC (Historic Resources Commission). They have truly shone in their decades- long pro bono work to piece together the comprehensive rehabilitation of St. Luke AME Church (900 New York), and by forming an LLC to buy  the condemned historic Rhody Delahunty property (1100-1106 Rhode Island) from the city and  completing a restoration/redevelopment project there.

Karl Ramberg   honed his skills by  working with and soaking up knowledge from mentors like sculptor Elden Tefft  and previous  Achievement Award winner Keith Middlemas. Karl demonstrates  love for his craft in projects ranging from brick sidewalks, stone walls and fences, historic outbuildings, and stone foundations to carving monuments and restoring massive stone walls and building facades.  He and his sculptor sister Laura  were commissioned by the University of Kansas to recreate eight heavily deteriorated stone grotesques  at Dyche Hall, and he recently oversaw the restoration of the iconic Lawrence Wren Statue for the Watkins Museum of History.

Come celebrate these preservation champions while enjoying a delightful morning with breakfast, coffee, and tea. Secure your tickets today and be part of this special event honoring the past, present, and future of preservation in Lawrence!

📅 Date: Saturday, May 31st, 2025

⏰ Time: 10:00 AM

📍 Location: The W Banquet Hall (704 Connecticut St, Lawrence, KS)

🎟️ Tickets: $30 per person (includes breakfast grazing table, coffee bar, and tea bar)

Tickets can be purchased at https://givebutter.com/2025PAA. 

* Unfortunately, due to a previously scheduled trip, the Hernlys will not be able to join us at this event on May 31st. We will be presenting them with their Award at an Old Housewarming at their offices on Thursday, June 12th. Get tickets for that event here: https://givebutter.com/DelahantyHouse