LPA Announces Summer 2023 Preservation in Progress Awards

For our Summer 2023 Preservation in Progress Awards, LPA applauds a recent commercial rehab in downtown Lawrence, honors a front porch repair project that benefited from Kansas’ Historic Tax Credit program, and salutes a longtime volunteer committee that is making a big difference at one of the city’s most historic sites.

11 East Eighth Street

Courtesy of Evan Holt & Mary Holt

A dedicated rehabilitation team led by Evan Holt and Mary Holt has breathed new life into this commercial building in downtown Lawrence. After over a year of work, two businesses—Grounded Coffee and Henry’s Upstairs—are benefiting from all the work done inside and out.

Originally constructed as two separate buildings in 1870, the structure is now a cohesive brick-faced two-part commercial block. Inside, removal of a drop ceiling, sheetrock partition walls and layers of patchwork materials revealed the historic building’s original character.

A beautiful open floor plan is now featured on the street level, where Grounded Coffee is located, with two bathrooms and a mechanical room separated in the back. 

The second floor, home of Henry’s Upstairs, still retains its residential apartment-like layout. The addition of pine floors, trim and windows in the mid-20th century gave the space warmth and charm that has been enhanced by the current work. While now supporting use as a bar, rehabilitation work has been carefully performed to ensure a harmonious blend of past and present.

Electrical and plumbing systems throughout the building now meet modern standards. Non-historic lighting systems were replaced with energy-efficient ones. Existing historic fixtures were cleaned and reinstalled. Historic hardware was carefully restored.

Courtesy of Evan Holt & Mary Holt

The exterior’s brick and native limestone surfaces had seen some rough treatment over the years and required extra care. Vines that had climbed the walls for decades—causing masonry damage both by their attachment and holding moisture in the facade—were removed. Original street-level window openings on the alley side that had been closed for years with concrete blocks were restored. All masonry surfaces were cleaned and tuckpointed.

The storefront facing Eighth Street was cleaned, repaired and painted, with new metal windows installed that were consistent with the historic architectural style. Wood windows upstairs were repaired. The project is using both the Kansas Historic Tax Credit as well as the Federal Credit for income-producing properties, reimbursing up to 45% of qualifying rehab costs.

Historic Downtown Lawrence is now one storefront stronger thanks to this thorough and painstaking effort by Evan and Mary!

733 Tennessee

In May of last year, Amanda and Eddie Santos achieved a dream when they purchased this prominent Victorian-style home across the street from the Lawrence Outdoor Aquatic Center. Built in 1894, the home was first occupied by jewelry store owner Frank Hester, his wife and daughter Nina, and Nina lived in the home into the 1980s. The Santos, just the fourth owners of the home, could see that the structure retained much of its original architectural integrity.

Courtesy of Amanda Santos

Porch repair was an immediate need. Unlike most porch repair projects, the structural failure involved the roof framing rather than the floor. The roof joists were separating and needed to be completely rebuilt. Amanda had noticed an LPA PIP sign in a neighbor’s yard last fall and read in the LPA Instagram project writeup that it had benefited from the Kansas Historic Tax Credit. She knew that 733 Tennessee was a contributing property in the Old West Lawrence Historic District, so she contacted the Kansas Historical Society (785-272-8681) and spoke with Mallory Aye, a tax credit specialist.

Individually listed properties on the State or National registers, or contributing properties within State or Federal Historic Districts, are eligible to use the credits, with a $5,000 minimum project cost to qualify.

Courtesy of Amanda Santos

After paying a $200 application fee, the wait for design approval before work could begin took just two weeks, though up to a month is sometimes necessary if the office is overwhelmed with applications. Needing a local building permit, the project received administrative approval by Lawrence’s Historic Resources Administrator without requiring a full hearing at the Historic Resources Commission.

Jordan Brenn of Brenn Luxury Homes did a great job on the repair project, including matching the decorative detail at the end of each roof joist. With the porch now repaired, the house awaits a full paint job this summer that will also be covered by the tax credit, which will reimburse 25% of approved costs. 

In some extensive rehabs—and commercial ones using both state and federal credits—the tax credit process is best accomplished with the help of a tax credit consultant. But the Santos tax credit process did just fine as a DIY. “As long as you follow the instructions, it’s pretty simple,” Amanda says. “I would definitely encourage people to do this. We are contributing to the preservation of our shared history.”

Oak Hill Cemetery

The history of Lawrence is evident in many places across the city, but perhaps none richer and more memorable than the grounds of Oak Hill Cemetery, established in 1865 on a 40-acre plot in part to provide a proper final resting place for those who had died in Quantrill’s Raid two years earlier.

Courtesy of the Watkins Museum of History

In 2017, a small group of citizens led by Shannon Hodges, concerned about years of deterioration of the grounds, monuments and markers, formed the Friends of Oak Hill Cemetery and began working with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department on cleaning up the cemetery. 

The group incorporated in 2019 and began cleanup efforts, but its work recently has accelerated after completing a merger—facilitated by LPA Board member Sarah Bishop of Coneflower Consulting—with the Douglas County Historical Society. Now the DCHS Oak Hill Cemetery Programing Committee is making transformational headway in bringing the cemetery back to a level the community can be proud of.

Oak Hill uses a Rural Cemetery design that was a popular movement in the East but still cutting-edge in the Midwest when Holland Wheeler, the county surveyor and later city engineer, laid out the first plat in 1868. Wheeler continued to be a principal figure at the cemetery until his death in 1920. The Rural Cemetery design emphasized retaining natural landscape features such as rolling hillsides and mature trees, with meandering roadways provided for access. Expansions in 1886 and 1918 stayed true to that design.

Historic Resources Administrator Lynne Zollner wrote a nomination for the cemetery to the Lawrence Register of Historic Places in 2016. City and state funds were then combined to fund a National Register nomination, written by Julia Manglitz, which won approval for listing in 2017.

Courtesy of the Watkins Museum of History

Friends of Oak Hill Cemetery began with a goal of fundraising for restoration efforts, promoting greater community awareness, and coordinating volunteer hands-on opportunities for grounds cleanup and marker preservation. Last October, the Oak Hill Cemetery Program Committee began working in partnership with Pacific Coast Conservation (PCC), based in Colorado and led by Lucinda Linderman. 

Funded by City of Lawrence Capital Improvement Plan funds, a grant from the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council, and private donations raised by the committee, PCC is concentrating its efforts on marker preservation for Quantrill’s victims as well as repair of broken headstones or those categorized as unsafe or unstable. This PCC work is complemented by monthly Sunday workdays, when Programming  Committee members work alongside community volunteers to clean select stones and markers.

Interested volunteers can email Watkins Museum staffer and Programming Committee spokesperson Natalie Vondrack at nvondrak@watkinsmuseum.org. LPA thanks go out to committee chair Rosalea Postma-Carttar and committee members Denise Pettengill, Leslie Beesley, Grace Aubrey, Peter Carttar, Kerry Altenbernd and Kathryn Nemeth-Tuttle for their dedicated work.