- Okay, welcome to our 2026 Bloomington Restorations Incorporated annual meeting celebrating our 50th
- anniversary. Yay!
- So we do want to recognize preservation partners who are here. If I don't name your name, feel free
- to stand up and shout your name at me anyway. We have Noah Sandweiss from the City of Bloomington Hand
- Department. Noah. People from the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission. Who here is from the
- Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission? Okay, we got some members out here. Very good.
- and the Monroe County Historic Preservation Board of Review. Any of my fellow Monroe County Historic
- Preservation Board of Review people? Very good. Get those reaccreditation points there. And anybody
- else working with us in historic preservation, feel free to wave now or forever hold your piece. Okay.
- We would like for the BRI Board of Directors to please stand to be recognized.
- Thank you, thank you. What we're going to do is we are going to move into the election of board members.
- So the nominees are James Capshaw, Karen Duffy, Pete Kenney, and me, Devin Blankenship. I just need
- a motion to approve that slate and a second. So can I get a motion?
- Okay, so moved. Can we get a second? Okay, and seconded. So all in favor say aye. Any opposed?
- Any abstentions? Okay. So you do it fast, so that's how it goes. Okay, and then we're going to move
- into the election of officers. So the nominees are for president, me, Devin Blankenship, for vice president,
- Pete Kenney, for treasurer, Elizabeth Cox-Ash, and for secretary, Jan Sorby.
- Can I get a motion? Okay. Can I get a second? Okay. And all in favor say aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions?
- Okay. What we're going to do next is we're going to transition into the BRI Historic Preservation Awards.
- So our executive director, Steve Wyatt, will come up here for that section. Let's welcome Steve.
- Again, we call these the bricks. And tonight, I'm going to start off with an Outstanding Preservation
- Project. OK, tonight I'm going to start out with the Outstanding Preservation Project Award. The Princess
- Theater, it was getting to be in not so good shape. There was reports of pieces falling from the parapet.
- The city got involved, and luckily for the community, a new owner came forward at the same time and
- tackled the project. His name's Neil Panzer. He's not here tonight. He's out of town. But he really
- deserves praise. And we have a brick form when he gets back for what he's done for this theater.
- It's probably what the only terracotta facade in downtown. So it's very unusual for Bloomington. It's,
- it's definitely worth preserving. We have a BRI preservation Eastman on it too, from the early eighties
- when it was renovated back then. Okay. The next one we have is also outstanding preservation project
- award. And this one
- It's going to Dave Harstad and Chris Minow for the restoration of the Harbison Farmhouse on Woodyard
- Road. Here's a picture from 2014 when the state did their historic survey. So you can tell it's a beautiful
- brick eye house, but it needs a lot of work. And it had been this way for quite a while. And there we
- go. It's cleaned up now, but still ready to start.
- And fortunately, the old windows, you might have noticed in those pictures that the old windows weren't
- there. But they're stored inside the house. And here's the after. Would you come forward for the award,
- please? Dave and Chris? It's beautiful.
- Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. I won't speak long, but first, this process... I'm sorry, can
- you hear me all right? All right. So a lot of thank yous to people in this room. All we did was write
- checks and get in people's way. And so we apologize now for all the...
- harm that we caused people, but bottom line is Sam Solar was our architect, unbelievable job helping
- us through all the design challenges. Chris Stirbaum and Golden Hands were amazing on all aspects of
- the process. Chris was great to work with and Ben is not here, but we try to break things around the
- house every now and then just so Ben can come over and help us because he's just
- an unbelievable person. Duncan, we've got an old, not shown here, is we've got a barn that's possibly
- even older, and Duncan gave us a lot of really great advice. As everyone knows in this room, Duncan
- is a real barn expert, and we're blessed to have him here in Bloomington. So not only were we able to
- preserve the old house, but thanks to Chris and Duncan and others,
- we preserved the barn. And then I apologize if I'm missing anyone else, but someone who's not here that
- I want to thank, Jose and Raul Chavez. I'm sorry to get worked up, but I don't want to be too political,
- but preservation and construction does not happen without immigrant labor. We had so many wonderful
- laborers on that project who were from Mexico,
- And it would not have happened without them. So please join me thanking them as well Our next award
- is for the Rosemary Miller preservation activism award and this year is a pretty easy selection with
- what's been happening in the cottage Grove neighborhood and
- This house here was purchased by a developer who planned to tear it down and build more of the things
- we've been seeing all over 10th Street and other places near the campus. But John and Amy Butler weren't
- having it. They lived next door and they stepped in and worked on it. I know we talked to the owner
- of the house
- about possibly moving it, but the better solution is what they came up with was to keep it where it
- is, where it belongs. They actually bought the house to save it and got it through historic designations
- for local protection too. And they extended that work with creating a district for the entire neighborhood
- to save it from the encroaching development of these multifamily buildings that
- in keeping with that historic district there and that's coming as a recommended for approval by the
- Preservation Commission and coming towards the City Council next. So I'd like you to come forward and
- give you a brick. Thank you so much for all you've done.
- Thank you very much for this award. We are honored to even be considered, let alone to win it. It's
- been a long road. We never thought that we could accomplish the things we accomplished. And really,
- there are a lot of heroes in this story. And I want to thank the members of the Historic Preservation
- Commission for believing in our project and for backing it.
- And that was heroic. I truly believe that. And I'd also like to thank James Ford for being with us every
- step of the way, and everyone else in the Cottage Grove neighborhood for believing in this project,
- and also for stepping up for preservation. So thank you all very much. We have one more award tonight.
- And this one's closer to home. It's for volunteerism at the Hinklegarten Farmstead, our headquarters.
- I'd like to ask Leanne Luce, our Farmstead volunteer coordinator, to come forward to present this award.
- Leanne? She's acting in her other capacity as a volunteer.
- Where are you? Would you come up? Thank you. Did you know this? Did Elizabeth keep this quiet? Yeah.
- Good job. Good job. You want to come up to you? OK. Well, Elizabeth helps me very much with the volunteer
- and the open days. But this is about Paul.
- So I want to read this. He gets the award. He is a wealth of help and knowledge. He is a silent, calming
- presence at the farmstead open days. He is knowledgeable and shares information with visitors and volunteers
- about the farmstead, gardening, local history, and the longstanding preservation efforts of BRI. He
- and Elizabeth are a faithful team I can count on.
- He also entertains visitors and serves as the bouncer on open days. And I have also accused
- him of maintaining a liar's bench when it's nice outside. He's a book lover and very generous in passing
- them on to others, and I've been a lucky recipient. I truly appreciate you and the longstanding association
- with BRI and the farmstead. So congratulations. OK?
- Just a little hint. Could always use volunteer, so talk to me. Thank you. Talk to me or Paul or Elizabeth.
- Thanks, Paul. Here. This is for you to keep so you've got proof. Don't you laugh. OK, let's see.
- I'd like to give a brief update on some of our projects, starting off with Back to the Farmstead.
- Let's see. This is the carriage house. Last year, we showed how we had it tuned up carpentry-wise, had
- it stabilized and re-supported with improved foundation and all the wood tuned up. And so now we've
- got it painted so the project is finished.
- And this coming year, we're moving on to the dairy barn, which is the largest barn. And you can tell
- it needs some work. We're going to rebuild doors and repair the carpentry and then paint it. So that's
- the project for this summer on the farmstead. We also continue to work to find solutions for houses
- that we've acquired that were endangered with destruction.
- We picked up another one this past year. This one's on West 6th Street. So we're looking at, if we don't
- find someone to buy it and restore it, we're also going through the process of specifying work to look
- and see about the feasibility of having it as an affordable housing project. So we've got a couple paths
- there. And it could work, I think, for affordable housing. We don't know yet until we get estimates
- from contractors.
- And with that, I'll also mention like I did last year about we find that there's more demand than ever
- for BRI because of all the development happening with student apartments. It's a matter of the houses
- are going down pretty rapidly. And I mean, compared to the way they used to be, things have been rezoned
- and the path for
- demolition is smoother now for these kind of projects. So we continue to work with developers to try
- to find solutions. If it can't be designated historic, then possibly move the house if there's time,
- or at least salvage out architectural materials that could be used for other houses and other projects.
- So that continues to be something we are spending time doing.
- So if anybody is handy and wants to help out with pulling doors and hardware and other architectural
- items out of houses, we can use some more volunteers. So just let me know. And with that, I'm going
- to turn it back over to Devin for our presentation tonight for the anniversary. Thank you very much.
- Just so you know, this is my drink of choice, a Monroe on the rocks. It's not secretly vodka or anything.
- Okay, well thank you to everyone for being here this evening. I do have a quick question, and I'm not
- singling anyone out. Who has been in Bloomington longer than 50 years? I've been here 50 years. Look how 50.
- Longer than 50 years. Okay, so anybody come to Wilmington in 1976? So that was the year BRI was founded.
- Okay, who has been here for 45 years? Okay, and then 40, 35, 30, 25, 20,
- 15, 10, five, anybody less than five? Okay, well thank you everyone for being here this evening. I promise
- I won't take 50 years in the presentation, so. I do have to work tomorrow, so. So this is 50 years of
- BRI. I'll be nice to our cast people too by coming back to the microphone here.
- So what we're going to look at this evening is the 1970s, progress versus preservation, our restoration
- loans program, our affordable housing program, options to buy, and the Hinkle Garden farmstead itself.
- And then at the end, we will have time for questions, comments, memories, anything you want to share.
- So this is very much what Bloomington looked like in the 1970s with car culture. This is East 3rd Street,
- if you recognize the McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, the historic, no longer with us, Kentucky
- Fried Chicken. Many of the businesses from the core of downtown had moved out to the east side for the
- big expansion of the mall area and everything else there. When you think of stores like Blocks,
- and pennies, and some of those had moved from downtown, including things like Bloomington Hardware,
- had moved out to the east side. So that was very much still the trend in the 70s. And if you can name
- those cars, more power to you, but you can tell it's the 70s. One of the main things that happened was
- the destruction of the Morton Hunter Mansion. And this was 11th and Walnut.
- And it was really kind of considered the start of the historic preservation movement in Bloomington
- and Monroe County. There was a huge outcry after it happened. Thankfully, those columns in the front
- were saved and have been repurposed on another house. But it was sort of the beginning of historic
- preservation. A lot of times previously, historic preservation had been about, did President George
- Washington live here? OK. Did Abraham Lincoln sleep here? Only once.
- Okay. So a lot of that until we got to that bicentennial point, it was we weren't focused on normal
- people. We were focused on presidents or other other famous people. So here's the Morton Hunter mansion.
- And it was demolished, demolished back in the 70s. Like I said, that's when people began organizing
- to save old buildings. And Bloomington restorations was created in 1976 as a result of
- those movements going on. So some of you may remember those of you who've been here longer than 10 years,
- probably remember High Point, you know, the strip mall that everybody needed to go to all the time for
- everything. That's where the mansion used to be. So those of you who've been here since before the mid
- 90s, probably remember the showers factory looking something like this.
- In order to save the showers factory. It took a lot of A lot of effort from the community to get behind
- the notion of historic preservation as being worthwhile This is one of those cases where you look at
- things like the embodied energy of what did it take to build? Build the buildings that are there. What
- role do they have? Obviously, we're never going to have the world's largest furniture factory again.
- So what could we use a building like this for?
- And those of you who live in Bloomington today know exactly what we use it for. One of the early examples
- was the Cochrane House. You can barely recognize it behind that storefront there on North Roger Street.
- The newly formed BRI group learned the house would be demolished, and then sounded an alarm in the newspaper.
- Bill and Gail Cook purchased it, and it was their first Cook preservation project.
- They used it as the office for their product liability and insurance company. And if you don't recognize
- it yet, that's what you will recognize it as. So that is the Cochrane House. So our fledgling organization,
- after its first couple years, had had enough fundraising and drives
- to finally purchase its own property. So the first property that we purchased was a property down by
- Lake Monroe, or Monroe Lake, if you're really technical, Mount Ebel Church. How many of you have seen
- Mount Ebel Church? Yeah, most people in here. So there's a nice group of preservationists there together
- in the pews.
- Another area that was starting to gain attention was the old library Because you know, it's not the
- early 1970s. You've just built the most beautiful brutalist structure in downtown Bloomington And you
- don't need that dank old Carnegie library 1910s they didn't know what the big drafty windows and those
- squeaky hardwood floors and Yeah, so
- So there was a big effort to save the old library. And so BRI was involved in the advocacy of getting
- support for saving the old library. How many of you have been in this building within the last year?
- Yeah, a lot of people. So you know it today as the Monroe County History Center. It's one of our treasured
- Carnegie libraries. There's the old view from Washington Street before the addition went on.
- So I was told I must brandish these awards, otherwise the people come up here and do them for me. So
- one of the awards that BRI received was in 1979 from the once called Historic Landmarks Foundation of
- Indiana, now known as Indiana Landmarks. And we have Rosemary Miller and Gail Cook accepting the award
- on behalf of BRI.
- Williamson you said okay very good oh yeah okay Sandy sir boss thank you it's called the service award
- so this is why we have to get together it's to share this knowledge oh here's another we should probably
- tear that one down um yeah it's another drafty house with lots of intricate woodwork and
- you know, North Walnut, maybe luxury apartments. So this is the Morgan House. It was BRI's second project.
- I believe the Morgan House had one of the first in-ground pools in Bloomington, very small in-ground
- pool out the back. So it was in pretty rough shape.
- As a person with a very far back memory, I can say I've never seen it look like this. I've only seen
- it the way that it looks today. According to Steve, the word on the street is you could stand in the
- basement and look up and see the sky. So it was not long for this world when BRI purchased it. That's
- another thing. When you hear people with the rhetoric of reasons to tear down houses, it's always the
- same, like five or six things. It's drafty. They're worried about the foundation.
- You know haunted whatever so So this is the Morgan house before And this is the Morgan house as you
- know it today at 10th and walnut Yeah, sure
- Yeah. What was the, do we know the sequence of when Guy Loftman moved in or? So he bought it directly
- from BRI. Okay. So, um, oh, here's another drafty old structure. Uh, you know, those 1907 courthouses,
- uh, you could build something modern instead of that, but, uh, there was a discussion in the early eighties
- to tear down the courthouse.
- I believe to build a parking garage downtown because we needed more parking and And so then there was
- a ground 12 support to save the courthouse So the courthouse is our 1907 bow arts. It's our third courthouse.
- We've been through some courthouses people We don't we don't really need to crank through many more
- courthouses. I think you know Having this one is very good
- Now I know it can't hold all of our stuff, but it can do some things. So we're fortunate to have Rosemary
- Miller have an opportunity to go up on top of the courthouse. So we have some pictures from that experience.
- Notice the dinginess of the dome there, not brightly illuminated as you've seen it before. Even here
- at BRI, we've heard accounts from people like
- Gail Cook saying that the murals were totally covered up, and you couldn't recognize them, and they
- had filled in the rotunda with a courtroom. And so it really wasn't showing the best side of itself.
- Look at the dome there. You've got one of the scrolled features in copper. You can see the Graham Hotel
- in the background there on that middle picture. And then the courthouse fish, which is said to be six
- feet long. Believe that if you want.
- It's true. Rosemary took these pictures as she scaled the ladder. That's not a fish pun, I promise.
- And this was her view from atop the courthouse. The dome was since replaced. It was around 2007, 2008,
- with that renovation project that we resurfaced the dome. And there's probably a few pieces of the copper
- hanging out in some closets around town. And you'll notice the Grand Plaza was a later cook project
- as well. Okay, I'm going to welcome up Duncan Campbell to talk about the Paris Dunning House. So please
- welcome Duncan up here. Yeah, so this is
- about 1983. And Rosemary and her continued efforts to save just about everything that was barely standing
- managed to get this away from the Craig family really just in time. And I was a carpenter in those days
- with partnering with Michael Yocum.
- We were called to this site by Dee McIntyre, who at the time worked for what was not the, it was, well
- it's Han now, what was the old name for it, Redevelopment Office. And Dee was a folklore PhD student,
- friend of Henry Glasses and Warren Roberts and the stalwarts at the, at IU at the Folklore Department.
- I don't know how well it's understood now how close a relationship the growing BRI had with the city
- of Bloomington, but the redevelopment department and BRI worked hand in hand on several projects, the
- Morgan House and so on. And of course, our affordable housing program much later has done the same in
- terms of getting HUD grid funds to help us. But that really started with DMACC entire
- And he was a very concerned preservationist. And the first person I met who sat me down and said, let
- me tell you about the Secretary of Interior's standards. And he had seen some of the work that we had
- done. And he liked the work we'd done. And he came to me and he said that they had acquired this building
- and that he was going to be the manager of the project.
- for BRI slash city. And in those days, he didn't really differentiate that much between his paid job
- and his volunteer job. It's where he used his influence in both directions, which I'm not sure how easy
- that would be to do anymore today. But there was not really a conflict of interest. There was an affinity
- of purpose. So Michael and I go over to this house.
- We were remodelers, but we hadn't ever really done any historic preservation work, and I certainly wouldn't.
- At that time, I've called myself a preservationist. And we took a look at this, and we were like,
- oh my gosh. But Rosemary came with us, and I didn't really know her at that time, but I've never met
- that kind of enthusiasm about, well, anything.
- And I said, so what's going to make the difference about doing this? She said, oh, we're doing it. We're
- doing it. We're doing it. And I'm just like, OK. So we sat down. It took us a week or so. And we put
- a bid together. And they didn't want to do time and material or anything. They wanted price. So we were
- frightened.
- I wasn't ever sure if you did the job too high or not. But the way that you met with Rosemary in those
- days was you went to lunch somewhere. And I've been in BRI for a long, long time, not quite 50 years,
- but pretty close. And I've been to lots of lunches with Rosemary and other parties. And I'm sure many
- of you have also. But they were somewhat formal affairs. And so she had put together a committee
- watch over this project, and we all went to lunch, and she said, so how much do you think, what can
- you do this for? This was just for the shell, just the outside. But you can see both the back porch,
- this is the back, both the back porches are gone. On the left side, there's a build out that was some
- kind of bathroom. The brick has been plastered over, a lot of it, and or painted.
- And there you can see the side. And this one wing on this side was in such bad shape, we had to tear
- the thing completely to the ground. I mean, dismantle all the bricks, stack them and clean them, and
- then hire some masons to put it back together. By the way, that's our crew at the ripe age of 33 or 34.
- Rosemary was on hand all the time to take pictures, so. Sorry? Which one's me? Yeah, on the left. You
- can't tell that? And then Michael Yocum on the right, and that's Drew Antilla. As we're working as our
- assistant. He was only 17, yeah. Anyway.
- So this is the other side of it. And the roof was terrible, everything was terrible, but it was pretty
- much all original. And so the way that work got done was we had these weekly committee meetings. Oh,
- let me finish my story about the money. So I said, well, it's gonna be $88,000 to do the shell. Remember,
- this is 1983.
- I don't know if that was a good price or not. I had no idea. And she just sat there and shook her head
- and said, well, it can't be that much. And I was actually, I'm proud of myself. I said, well, that's
- what it's going to cost. Because I didn't know if she was trying to just get me to lower the price or
- whether she just, yeah, I didn't know. And I said, well, that's what it's going to cost. So you're not
- going to be able to do it.
- or at least we're not going to do it. And she said, well, we have $77,000. And there was kind of silence
- and the whole committee was there. And I said, and Michael and I were there. I said, well, you know,
- you're $10,000 short. And I mean, it's funny, it is funny, but at the time, it wasn't. Because we really
- wanted to work. I mean, this is two years of work.
- But I was pretty sure that she was waiting for us to say, oh, 77, OK, we'll do it for that. But I didn't.
- I said, no, you can't do it for that. And she said, well, we're going to do it anyway. And I didn't
- know what that meant. I said, well, you're not going to do it with us.
- because that's not enough money. And she said, well, will you do it until we run out of money?
- And I said, yeah. And she said, OK. OK, we'll get the money. And I mean, at the time, I thought, well,
- at least we'll get 77, and they won't be done. And they'll have to. I don't know what they're going
- to do, but I'm not. So we, I'll just shorten this a little. We worked for a year and a half,
- and we got to 77,000.
- And we're having this weekly meeting. And each of us, I'll talk about that in a minute, but each of
- us made a report. And when it came around to us, we were the lead on the job, I said, when you pay us
- the next payroll, that will be the end of this. That will be the $77,000. So we're done. And if you
- get more money or you have more money, we'll come back.
- This was like a Wednesday afternoon. We always had them on Wednesday at lunch. And Rosemary, she didn't
- even blink. She said, okay, you don't have to worry. You show up on Monday. We'll get the money. This
- is the second time she said this to us. And I said, okay. And we showed up on Monday. And I said, so,
- how'd you do? And she said, well, we walked the whole neighborhood
- over the weekend with our committee, and we raised $15,000. I mean, cash. And we said, OK, we went back
- to work. And it cost $88,000, I mean, to the dime. So, and she was, you know, obviously I was flabbergasted
- that she could do that, that they could do that.
- I don't know, I didn't know that. She didn't give tips. But my point about all this is really is that
- that's the way BRI has always functioned. And Rosemary was always like, we're going to do this and we'll
- get the money. And people say, Rosemary, we don't have any money. And she'd say, don't worry about the
- money. And if you want to do preservation, don't worry about money. I mean, I've been doing it now a
- long time.
- And she's still writing. And I've done a lot of projects that didn't have the money until the project
- really got rolling. And then, inevitably, it did. So anyway, we had these wonderful meetings. And we
- had this committee. This is Rick Lofman in the foreground. That's Guy Lofman's father. He's no longer
- with us. But he was on the committee. And Jean, the woman in the yellow skirt, whose name I can't remember
- for a long time. Who is that?
- Sorry? Yeah, Jean Anderson, who was local. The woman next to her was not on the committee, but she did
- show up a lot, and I don't remember her name. Richard Jenkins is the one with the notebook in the plaid
- shirt, who's still a painter. He had the paint contract, and he's still painting in Birmingham. Larry
- Dahl is sitting down behind him. He was the mason. He did all the foundation work, including
- on the back of the house, dismantling almost the entire porch foundation and rebuilding it by hand.
- And he also was responsible for repairing it everywhere else. All the porch foundations had to be completely
- rebuilt. And he worked by himself most of the time. And Rick, I won't remember his last name in the
- blue jeans, was the electrical contractor.
- And Dean McIntyre in the green jacket, whose face you can't see, was the lead. And he worked with the
- DHPA to make sure Secretary of Standards were being followed. And he would come to all the meetings.
- And if we ever had questions, he would just explain to us what the preservation protocols were. And
- we never doubted it, because that's just the way you had to do the work. That was the scope. And if
- we didn't really know how to do it, we'd look at the Secretary of Standards and argue over the details.
- The reality was for the two of us, for Michael and for me, we started in the middle of the winter. There
- was no heat in the house. We took all the windows out. We stripped them all by hand. We took all the
- glass out and cleaned it and put it all back in by hand. It was about 10 degrees in that house most
- of that winter. It was really cold. And we didn't have any heat. And we didn't have a budget for heat.
- As you know, we're already $15,000 short.
- we decided to start a fire in one of the fireplaces. Because we thought, well, we got in these fireplaces,
- you know? So we were pretty smart. We took some paper, and we put it in there and lit it. And about
- half the smoke came right back out into the room. And the rest of it was drifting across the second
- floor. It never did get out the chimney. So that didn't work. So we got a propane heater, and we would
- run it for five minutes, and then it would
- The room would fill with carbon monoxide. Fortunately, we had the windows out a lot of the time. Anyway,
- we were supposed to do all the windows and doors, and then all the rest of it was exterior, which was
- essentially the carpentry was rebuilding all the trim, rebuilding all the porches, doing all the woodwork,
- and then we trained a group of IU folklore students, predominately folklore students, to do the tuck pointing.
- And basically, we had these college students who had never done it. And Larry Dahl and I and Michael
- basically showed them, taught them how to do it, how to mix mortar and stuff like that. And they did
- all the tuck pointing. I mean, 100% of the house. And as you can see in this picture, the porches are
- significantly built. And then, of course, we have the famous picture of Rosemary, who had sold it
- to the law firm, which ended up buying it and putting it on the national register. And we bid to do
- the interior of it, but we didn't get the job. The law firm hired somebody who probably only did it
- for $77,000. I don't really know what happened to it. But for me, I mean, it's an important job for
- the city, for the town, because I don't think that Prospect Hill would have been preserved and turned
- into a historic district if that house hadn't been done. It is absolutely the anchor.
- of that neighborhood. And if there's ever an example of where one project can affect hundreds of projects
- and hundreds of citizens, that's it. When I first started, I was in Rogers Building Supplies. How many
- people remember when we had lumberyards? And I was at the contractor's desk, and somebody I knew, another
- contractor, came up and he said, I saw your cars over
- in front of that old house on Third Street. And I said, yeah, we're gonna restore that house. And he
- stepped back and he said some words I won't repeat. And then he said, that should be a gas station.
- And I mean, he was, you know, he thought we were, well, he thought we were crazy and I wasn't sure that
- we weren't. But anyway, it's really been an important thing for BRI. Put BRI on the map as did
- some of the other projects that you've mentioned. And I think that's all for me. So thank you.
- Thank you. So there's a good before and after. The before is of the back. The good thing with symmetrical
- houses is you get the impression either side. And that's Rosemary receiving the deed for the house.
- OK, next we're going to have another speaker, Chris Sturbaum, come up to talk about restoration loans
- and his family's work with restoration loans. Everybody welcome Chris up here. Can you hear me OK? I'm
- going to talk about a little bit of politics. 1966, Penn Station.
- demolished. You know, the whole country was shocked. And the National Preservation Act was passed in
- 1966. And at that time, there were 12,000 properties that the state, I mean, the federal parks department
- had said were important properties to save. By 1966, half of them were gone.
- So I think what some people don't understand is the climate of the time when BRI came into being. I
- won't say it was war, but it felt like war and things were just being torn down. You know, that courthouse,
- my dad, I grew up two blocks from here and I was 10 when we moved here. So I've watched
- The whole preservation movement of Bloomington happened because my father was involved in it, and I
- was at the same dinner table. So I heard what was going on, how it was happening. So until the Preservation
- Act happened, there was no law. There was no rule. There was nothing to protect older property. And
- the revolutionary thing about that act was that now law says,
- What a community feels about a historic property matters just as much as the profit that that guy's
- going to make by tearing it down. And that was real. And Rosemary knew that was real. And she knew Reed
- Williamson, who also, in 1966, formed the Indiana Landmarks. And when she needed money to go get money,
- she drove up and saw Reed.
- And they were loaning the city, they were loaning BRI money at that time to create something like a
- revolving fund. So she knew the rules and she, I remember we were, interestingly preservation
- of neighborhoods was happening at the same time that preservation of property was happening. And it's
- like BRI was the older sister for the historic commission as well, which came in
- maybe 13 years after BRI was founded. And this law came to life in Bloomington. Duncan helped write
- the local ordinance. But it was 13 years from 66 till BRI came along, 10 years really. But until the
- Historic Commission came along, that we had real rules here. Before that, you could put it on the National
- Register, which Duncan got very good at doing,
- And then once BRI touched it, they put covenants on the deed. And those were real, too, and that protected
- property. So I remember our neighborhood association meeting with Rosemary, and she said, what you need
- to do is get this on the National Register because the city is planning a road that goes right through
- Prospect Hill neighborhood that'll take out 40 houses. And once you put it on the National Register,
- The National Preservation Act says the city has to review that as it applies to a historic property.
- So it was a classic chess move to block. And Rosemary knew exactly what to do. She told us what to do.
- We were just like, we don't know what to do. Rosemary knew exactly what to do. So there are a bunch
- of times when I was in the room with Rosemary deciding things.
- I'm a little off script, but let me see if I have a couple other stories. Oh yeah, well, this is more
- recent. When BRI needed money for the deal to buy their property, BRI, let's see, by those headquarters,
- she just went and got the money. And when she, we had to do the downtown,
- They're just a list of properties where Rosemary found the money. So, BRI really came in at the right
- time and put out the fire. And the story of the courthouse is, you know, my dad just happened to be
- on the council at that time, the county council, filling in an interim position. One vote is what saved
- the courthouse. I think it was a four to three.
- And they were serious that that was going down. And they had stupid plans. But that's the kind of war.
- Everything was on the table. Everything could be demolished. So meanwhile, back at what I'm supposed
- to talk about. But you really had to know what the time was when BRI came in and played that important
- role. Let's see if I know how to do this.
- Okay, this house back here, when we moved into the neighborhood, there was a cut out of the hillside.
- There was a trailer, old rusty trailer sitting in the hillside. It was a single room occupancy. Someone
- died of an overdose in that basement. And that's the neighborhood that my dad bought into. He wanted a house.
- He was a teacher with five kids. They wouldn't show him anything on the west side. The west side was
- horrible. The west side was where you did not want to go. They wanted to take him around and show him
- all the suburbs. But he grew up in a house that his dad had fixed. And he recognized the value of a
- house on the west side that had enough rooms for all the kids. So what BRI's project turned into was
- a revolving fund, because
- Once dad bought a house, then the old lady next door to him told him, buy this house, and she loaned
- him money. And then after that, the banks wouldn't loan money to get these other houses. So BRI would
- loan the money, put their covenants on the house. The house would get restored. And then here's what
- tricky thing my dad did. He sold it to people that wanted to live in the houses. He didn't own them
- as rentals. He didn't maintain them. And by the time he passed,
- We celebrated his passing in my mom's house, which we had worked on, and Nextdoor had worked on. And
- the people that came to see him were the people that got the houses. It was really touching. But that's
- how we built a neighborhood around ourselves, by getting these houses. And BRI financed almost all of
- them. And Dee McIntyre helped me learn how to do houses, too. He was a master. Just, he knew how to do it.
- Oh, I don't know if it was a dozen. But at one point, we made a little key thing for him that had a
- monopoly board on it. Little hooks and reeds. But what he didn't do was keep them, pass them on, get
- the money back, revolving fund works. That's how it revolved. So Rosemary helped us save it. And then
- we held on that way until the Historic Preservation Commission was formed.
- like 13 years after BRI started working. And then there was the work to designate the neighborhood.
- But everyone was kind of working together. The mayors at those times were working with the neighborhoods.
- BRI was working with the neighborhoods. And there was a real conscious way of bringing life back to
- these old houses. So I'll show you a couple things if this will advance. Dude. OK.
- That's how it looked when we were starting to fix it. But there used to be a little bathroom outside
- of that pink, orange area, because there were no zoning rules either. So we've remodeled a bunch of
- things that have crazy bathrooms in the basement, crazy bathrooms on the side. Anyway. That's Third
- and Rogers. Let's see.
- Oh, I know what this one is. Oh, no, this isn't. This is right across the street from Fairview School
- on 7th Street. And on the left is what it looked like when we found it. And what's behind that restored
- sign was an Airstream trailer that was built into the house. And someone probably would have restored
- that if they could have found it. But it was crazy.
- And what was really weird and nice, all the Victorian details were in the basement. Someone knew better
- when they took them down then to throw them out. And they all were there, and we put them back.
- Let's see, I guess before and after is the classic. So here we go. Let's see. Rosemary told Cindy, don't
- worry about the money. No backward loan.
- That's why the revolving fund mattered so much. I don't know if it's called redlining, but they didn't
- want to loan any money on the west side because these houses were decaying. People were buying them
- as rentals and not maintaining them. So we saw it as a neighborhood. We want ownership. We want people
- that buy into the neighborhood. It matters to our neighborhood. And that was the little mini war that
- was going on in the neighborhoods. Let's save our neighborhoods, get people in them,
- And BRI's money made that happen because the banks could care less. Okay, let's see. Oh yeah, so there's
- that beautiful little porch. You can't see all the details, but it was a great house hiding inside of
- a 50 years of weird treatment. Okay, Harrodsburg, we had a lot of good dreams about this house. But
- something happened.
- And we had a roofing company that used to release people from jail. And one of them didn't think about
- smoking on top of a 150-year-old lath with no plaster, dropped a cigarette in there. And by the time
- we found it, we realized why Harrodsburg had lost so many houses over the years. There's a fire department
- can't get there. We turned on the hose. It went pshh.
- The hose went from next door and it shot about 10 feet ahead and went, psst. And in about 15 minutes,
- I said, get the tools out of the house. And it burned to the ground. It was insured, which is good.
- Oh, yeah, this is on, what is this? Is this West 7th too? West 7th. Right.
- It was a lodge. More people know the details about that than I do. VRI money went through that. Oh,
- I think I'm out of my time. They said they'd get a hook if they needed it. Thank you, Chris. Thank you.
- We didn't have to get a black cane or anything. Chris and Duncan and I could probably do a revolving
- show for quite a while. So one thing that we're really proud of is that BRI nominated the Maple Grove
- Rural Historic District to the National Register. So what you see in the protection of Maple Grove Road
- comes from a BRI effort. It was the first listed rural historic district in Indiana. And I will just
- say from the
- Rural perspective as someone who works on the county historic preservation board Oftentimes our districts
- in the county are single properties. So having something like the Maple Grove Road rural historic district
- on the National Register Is one of our biggest recognized districts in the county because otherwise
- it's house by house generally speaking
- We do have our wall expert in the room Susan Snyder Salmon who's done a lot of effort on not only documenting
- the walls but getting deep into the history of walls so check out her presentation from the history
- club and anything upcoming about about walls from Susan. Affordable housing so affordable housing continues
- to be a major topic.
- here in Bloomington and Monroe County. And thankfully, BRI has been part of the affordable
- housing conversation for several years, and a lot of it has involved restoring the old houses like we
- talked about on Prospect Hill, but also looking at some infill as well. So the first affordable housing
- project was completed in 1998. That was just like, what, five years ago, right? 1998, almost 30 years ago.
- There are 29 houses that were restored or built So yes, BRI will build new houses. So you see some new
- houses there in Steinsville We also had a new house built on 15th Street And that's one of those interesting
- areas when you talk about neighborhood density where we've been able to take multiple lots
- like in Steinsville we were able to get three lots from purchasing one house or in on 15th Street we got
- Two lots and we moved one house. I believe we moved that one bungalow to the one lot and then we built
- the other bungalow. So that's one of the ways that we've been able to increase that neighborhood density
- and having infill that matches the neighborhood.
- A lot of the grants come from the city or state. So anything you can do to support that kind of money
- coming in helps us with affordable housing. We need to rehab the houses up to code with new roof,
- new wiring, plumbing, kitchen, bath. So as Chris mentioned before, a lot of times we'll have weird bathrooms.
- I have a side porch bathroom myself. But especially in our rural communities that didn't have plumbing
- Early on, and this is for low to moderate income household so our affordability covenants are usually
- on there for about 10 years that if they go to resell the house that needs to be sold under the same
- affordability criteria as well.
- And it's also is the same neighborhood revitalization focus. So we know if we can get affordable houses
- into existing neighborhoods, that's really what we wanna be doing. So we still look at the core neighborhoods
- in town and see are there areas where we could do, where we could move a house, where we could have
- sensible infill or support efforts going on in those neighborhoods. And like was mentioned earlier,
- usually when one project happens, other projects start to happen. So the Paris Dunning House was a major project,
- But even if you restore a gabled L on 7th Street, then the neighbors think, you know what? They're painting
- the house. I bet I could take off this metal siding and paint my house too. So you'll kind of see a
- ripple effect from BRI projects. So I'm going to show you a few examples of affordable housing. You'll
- recognize a lot of these from around Bloomington.
- I can tell you where some of them are, and if I can't tell you, Steve can probably tell you. This one's
- out, yeah, South Rogers. That's West Kirkwood. This one was for sale like three years ago. There is
- one on South Rogers that is painted green. Is that also one of ours on South Rogers? Yeah. That's Howe
- right there. South Lincoln.
- See, we could have made it a trivia game. That's a sixth, yep. That one's Ellisville, right? Yep, Oak
- and Walnut. Yeah, if you know where Oak and Walnut is in Bloomington, congratulations, because it's
- in Ellisville. A nice double pin house there. This one is on
- was 7th. That's not affordable housing. It's in the wrong slide. It's a loan project. This was the doctor's
- office in Steinsville. And so that was an Ellisville one. You're thinking the Ellisville? Yeah. These
- rural doctor's offices, we were just
- Got him out the wazoo. But yeah, so this is the doctor's, everybody's got a doctor's office in their
- backyard, you know. No, but this one is the doctor's office in Steinsville. And this was a BRI project.
- And so it made a great small house. And so that's one of those things that we've done pretty well is
- having a variety of different sized houses that we work on. This one is Steinsville.
- You can sometimes just tell by the scale of the hill. You're like, eh, that looks like it.
- And then here, here's the interior of that one. So you can see a lot of the finishes are taken back
- to the time period with transoms and wood trim there. And it's great to have those houses livable again.
- This is that example from Steinsville. I do want to point out, in the picture we have our friend and
- realtor, Deb Tamaro and Don Grandbois.
- And Don was the head of the Affordable Housing Committee for many, many years and took on projects himself,
- which I will point out to you. And then there's the new houses that we built in Steinsville as well.
- This one is a gabled L where the chimney had collapsed into the kitchen. Again, a lot of times people
- say, well, you gotta tear that house down. But don't tell us that.
- So we've also had to move a lot of houses to save them. So sometimes you'll see pictures like this.
- The bungalows are the easier ones to move, not like the university court's two-story brick houses. So
- a lot of times our efforts to save houses involve moving them and putting our covenants on them as well.
- Oh, here's the gabledell. Somehow the slide got out of order. That's the one where the chimney collapsed,
- right? Yeah.
- Got out of order. I didn't drop my slide deck on the way in or anything. It's just PowerPoint. This
- one's an interesting project. If you just saw this house by itself, it looks like a very typical suburban
- Bloomington limestone house. This house was actually over on East Gate over by 10th and the bypass.
- And the developer was able to work with us in moving the house
- to West 8th Street. And so this was part of our affordable housing program. I think we just had to take
- four feet off the house on the front. Yeah, to make it fit the lot. Yeah, to make it fit the lot. So
- we're flexible people. Right, so. OK. Yeah.
- Yeah, the developer paid for the move, which we like when they're willing to do that. So yeah, where
- you see the East Bay apartments that are three-story tall apartments just south of the railroad tracks,
- there were several ranch houses there. And so this is one of them. So it made a great affordable housing
- project that we were able to plug into the neighborhood on the west side. And again, it used to have
- a basement in its old location, so we adjusted it to be a single-story house.
- Another thing we do is just the notion of buying time and getting those options and the options to purchase
- and purchase for resale So this is where we buy and hold properties and we just wait and wait for somebody
- and we advertise but we also wait for somebody who's the right person to to work on the project and
- to meet our criteria so we'll purchase a property and then we will select a qualified buyer and
- And sometimes that can fall through a couple times before we get get somebody that sticks we provide
- the consulting for restoration were there to help and then we apply for we apply our bri covenants to
- that property. So, for example, we have the Steinsville church.
- This was, Don Grand Boys did this project on East 45. So it was a Tudor revival cottage and the county
- had condemned it. But when you see that front door, you're like, well, they can't condemn it forever.
- And so Don, wonderful Don, put his blood, sweat, tears, heart, soul,
- Probably more than $77,000 into this Tudor house, which is over on East 45, as you head out of town.
- Here's another one. He asks, we've got a fan favorite. Call in to request your favorite VRI house.
- Dial 0102 if you like the house on North Walnut Street that moved to South Henderson. So this one was
- by our very own Jan Sorby and John Lawrence to move this house to South Henderson where there was an open lot.
- And so that was a big labor of love for them to move that. That's where the Hallmark Properties office
- is on North Walnut. This one is another neighborhood anchor, a lot like the Paris Dunning House is.
- You might recognize this from Seventh and Rogers. Yeah. Oh, Fullerton House. This is Fullerton. What
- happened then? Something got inverted. These got inverted somehow then.
- We have this Victorian on Fountain Drive, formerly Vernal Pike. The house was formerly on Vernal Pike
- and moved. Fountain Drive was formerly Vernal Pike. We have to be really clear about these things, sometimes
- with our house moving. We'll say, but what about the house on North Walnut? Oh, you mean the South Anderson
- house? No, I mean the, you know. It's a real who's on first when you start moving houses around. And this was,
- One of our great ones on the Beaumont house this one we held on to for quite a while we had some interested
- buyers we had some disinterested non buyers. This this house just so happens to be built in a low enough
- area that the basement was an indoor pool most seasons of the year.
- And so that was something we knew we had to have done was fill in that basement. It is surrounded by
- the Porter Reserve. So that's one where we worked with Sycamore Land Trust when they got the land for
- Porter Reserve. And so this is the house property. This is as far west on 48 as you can go while still
- being in Monroe County. You are almost to almost to Whitehall.
- And across the way is where the Hoosier football team got their holy water. So this is neighboring a
- sacred site. And we held onto this one for quite a while. And then we had the Cardwells purchase it.
- And they did a lovely job. But you see in the before picture, look at the beautiful light streaming
- into that lovely room there. So it just inspires you. But a lot of work went into that house. And it
- is currently a bed and breakfast. So if you have friends from out of town staying or you just want to
- have a little staycation,
- Definitely check it out. This was another big win for us, the Hayes Market and Sanders. So we had an
- opportunity with the family selling it. And we already had an interested buyer before we had even closed
- on our end of the deal to have an interested buyer. And so they did a lovely job. Kay and Rudy Fields
- did a lovely job of restoring the Hayes Market and Sanders and even restoring the gas pumps. So we were
- very appreciative of that.
- I don't know if there's a family relation between hazes or if every haze feels compelled to go into
- the grocery industry. I don't know. Yeah. I believe this one was also a teacher at the school in Sanders,
- this haze. Yeah. OK. And then another one that we held onto that neighbors occasionally complained about
- was the Gable to Elle on Smith Avenue. Glenda and Patrick Murray.
- were our fabulous buyers who converted this gabled L back into looking like a gabled L. It was a bit
- of a tricky one because it kind of initially felt like it was facing a weird direction. So getting it
- to feel right on that lot was important. And creating that housing in a dense, core neighborhood was
- important as well. You'll notice they did a little shamrock for their vent up there. The Murrays, there's
- a shamrock.
- So the other one that I have to brandish is the award that we received in 2010, the Servos Award from
- Indiana Landmarks for community preservation group lifetime achievement. When you receive a lifetime
- achievement award before you're 50, that's pretty good. So we got it like 16 years early.
- There's our lovely, lovely group there. You'll recognize some faces, I'm sure. And then our Hinkle Garden
- Farmstead. So if you're familiar with the Hinkle Garden Farmstead on East 10th Street, that
- is our headquarters and has been our headquarters for the past 20 years. One of the cool things about
- it is it still functions as a farm in our partnership with others.
- We also have the museum on site, which is open multiple times a year. Check out our museum open days.
- And then we also have a rental property there as well that's the little house next to the bigger farmhouse.
- We recently finished painting the exterior. Those are the colors from the 1920s. But there's been farming
- on the land to the
- East of the house there at 10th and Pete Ellis and also that's where we have our maple syrup production
- as well. So that's been our home for 20 years. That's a kind of nice in the city glimpse of a farm.
- And that is all I have for you this evening. Thank you very much for being here and for listening. But
- we'll also entertain questions or comments or memories that people want to share with us. So thank you
- very much. Yes, you over there, you have a question. I do not know.
- Okay, the Rose rosemary asked the owner of the Paris stunning house to just donate the house to us
- There were a lot of cats in that house, too. And not like jazz musicians, like, yeah, feral cats, yeah.
- Yeah. A lot of cats used to hang out in that house. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say maybe she didn't
- even take the owner out to lunch at all, you know. It's just a... Okay. Yeah. Lunch was cheaper back then.
- Okay, other questions, yeah. How many directors of VRI have there been? So how many directors of VRI
- have there been? Well, Steve is the only one I've known and heard of. Steve, did anybody predate you?
- There was nobody who predated you. It was all volunteers before. And I'm sure there's times where Steve
- feels like he's volunteering a lot too, so we appreciate all he does, yeah. Nancy Easton had the idea
- that VRI needed someone to run the show. It was all volunteering without Liz Mary. I don't know what
- would have happened.
- And one of the things from Duncan section talking about the Paris Dunning House that I didn't get in
- the transition there is the Paris Dunning House was kind of the beginning of the end of BRI board members
- saying like, yeah, let's all roll up our sleeves and manage a construction project directly. And so
- that's when it transitioned into the revolving loan.
- process and then also eventually to getting an executive director because if you can imagine a ragtag
- group of historic preservationists trying to all manage a construction project, you can see why the
- Paris Dunning House might have been the end of that notion as an efficient notion. Yes.
- We used to talk about the saving of the courthouse. I, at one point, got involved with that. And one
- of the interesting things about it, at least at that time, was as far as I know, it was the first ERI
- project that really pulled in the entire community. There was kind of a celebration down the town. There
- were bands playing, students, music.
- came into play, we had games for kids, and one of the people involved, not a part of DRI directly, but
- definitely pushing it, was Charlotte Zilko. And really, she could be recognized. She would seem big.
- Yeah. Yeah, for sure, yeah.
- Charlotte Zitlow and Gail Cook are two people we've lost recently who were strong forces in historic
- preservation and community as well. Yes, Elizabeth. I was a banker for 30 years, and when I first started
- with BRI, I ended up financing just about all of its affordable housing projects because the other banks
- would not finance those because they had historic coverage.
- So I was doing it until it was OK for those other banks to do it. By then, I'd lost my job. I'd been
- there for 30 years. So now other banks will finance them. But this took a long time to convince the
- banking community that those covenants were OK to finance.
- and actually increase the value of the property to have those covenants on it. This was just extremely
- important. Yeah. Well, thank you for being an early believer and an early advocate and continuing in
- your many roles and supporting BRI and all the things that you do, because we definitely appreciate
- all that. Jane. Yeah, a couple of things to follow up on that. First, is it true, since we're talking
- about the courthouse,
- I think I saw an article in the paper that the city council wanted to replace it with like a three-story
- parking garage. Is that true? I had always heard parking garage. I don't know if anybody else has any
- other version of the story that they've heard or anything they remember as well. Yes, Elizabeth, do
- you remember? Maybe there were offices in the park below. Offices in the park below, yeah. I saw a headline
- that said, this monstrosity must
- It's always interesting to see the tear down rhetoric. And that's the other important thing too with
- looking at adaptive reuse. When you're looking at things like the Showers Brothers factory, when you're
- looking at things like the space where we are today, when you look at all these spaces around town that
- maybe have outlived their original function, that's when we look at adaptive reuse. And so even looking
- at something like
- the courthouse. Obviously, the courthouse cannot serve all of our functions that we need for Monroe
- County government. We've just grown big enough that not everything can be in that building. Some towns
- do the thing where they add on hideous, hideous additions to their courthouse. Or like Terre Haute,
- they tear down their whole town square and then put little other buildings around the courthouse that
- are related to the county government. But
- That's one of those things to always consider when you when you see a building like that, that you're
- not sure about if it can be useful again. Usually it can be useful, you know, whether it's a Coca Cola
- bottling plant or like I said, a furniture factory or an industrial building of some kind. Other. Yep.
- I have Jefferson Street. And I'm just curious, how did that happen?
- There's always there's always a very delicate dance between the
- preservation and development and what agreements can happen and what scale of agreements can happen,
- whether it is one of those things like saving one of the houses, moving a house, saving all the houses
- in place, things like that. Yeah, Chris. Yeah, I'm sure you all know that the climate has changed and
- that people are even seeing preservation as an obstacle to density.
- Yeah, Wendy, I think what happened was the city rezoned that section of the neighborhood for that kind
- of development. So then when the developer tried to build it,
- There is nothing to stop them, except historic preservation in the Green Anchors neighborhood. But that
- wasn't successful, the effort to designate that historic as a neighborhood. Does the Planning Commission
- have as much or not more power than the City Council? No, they work together. The City Council sets
- the plan. The City Council sets the plan. The Planning Commission administers it.
- But anyway, we tried to find a way to get some of those houses saved by moving, and we had someone in
- the neighborhood that wanted to move one or more of them, and then he changed his mind. And at that
- point, it was too late. Yeah, sometimes the time is not on our side to save certain things that we would
- like to save. The other thing I'd once heard, and I'm not sure this is probably less true now that there
- are more apartments downtown,
- But at one point in time, the density, the residential density of downtown Bloomington was less than
- it had been since before World War II because of all the parking lots and specifically a lot of I.U.
- parking lots. So a lot of times when you travel around downtown, kind of take note of the parking lots
- that would have been, you know, 12 or 16 houses around around town. So yes. Yeah, Paul.
- And sometimes adaptive reuse is not necessarily historic, and it's not always pretty. 714 South Rogers
- and Bloomington Commonwealth Center is bruneless architecture. I wanted it torn down until the idea
- came. Well, why don't we make that police headquarters? And I'm sure that not everyone was happy about
- that in my neighborhood.
- I think it's a brilliant reuse of an old structure. Not everyone was happy with what happened with the
- McGraw Baptist Church. It's now a Hoosier Heights climbing facility. But 100 years from now, somebody
- can tear down that big ugly building, the steel building that was added to the rope room, and something
- else can be done. But I wouldn't be around to see that.
- Yeah, that's another thing to consider too is we all have our pet favorites with historic preservation.
- Word on the street is that Herman Wells didn't like Victorian houses too much or didn't really care
- about them that much. A lot of times you're not a huge fan of the houses that were the ones that maybe
- your parents or grandparents lived in as newer houses. So bearing in mind with the National Register
- standards of 50 years, that means anything built in 1976 or before,
- and then picture some of the houses built in 1976 and how you may or may not feel about them. And realize
- that that house from 1970 is also, yeah, it's also antique. It's also showing a time period in US history.
- So, okay, any final thoughts? Yes, Jan. I do have a final thought. And I'm wondering, how is people
- right here
- obviously care about historic preservation. What can they do, like if they see a building that's laid
- out, what can they do to help us? Yeah. So we often compare ourselves to an animal shelter for houses.
- This is the first time tonight we've made that analogy. But if you see a stray house, and it's giving
- you that look,
- And if you think it might have fleas, probably has fleas. It's looking a little bit raggedy. That's
- one of those where you can always contact us at BRI. You can email Steve. We do keep our eyes out for
- endangered historic properties. And a lot of times then there's a connection to other people in our
- world. So for example, we purchased a house in Ellisville very much because it had cats in it. That's
- how somebody knew about it. They're like, I know about the cats in that house.
- And also, your eyes should consider purchasing that house. So we do ask that you keep your eyes and
- ears open. A lot of times, the issue for us is time and or money. So either securing enough money or
- having the time to address to something is the big thing. But we do like when you report those things
- to us, because we don't live everywhere. We live in our own neighborhood. So there's times that, and
- I would say that a lot of times about the house on 48,
- that not very many of us drove by the House on 48, so we didn't really know how the House on 48 was
- doing. But it's always good to get reports from our membership and from the general public about any
- structures of concern. Yeah. With her comment about green acres, in a few weeks there will be a vote
- of the city council to decide whether the conservation district or the cottage neighborhood will go
- forward. It would be really nice to have everyone in this room show up. Please.
- Very good. Some cottage grove, cottage grove advocacy there. So the other thing too, it's our, it's
- our 50th year. We love to hear from you. We love to hear your ideas. We are doing the pandemic bounce
- back that every organization is doing. So we love to have you involved. We like to hear from you, whether
- you're volunteering for open days,
- Whether you have an idea for a project we could do Whether you see a need that we can help fulfill We
- would definitely love to get that sort of insight from you as well So with that Steve, do you have any
- other announcements that you'd like to make before? Okay, so yes, so please eat cake eat pizza celebrate.
- Yes. We've got another announcement from Olivia. Oh
- Yeah, and there's adaptive reuse. If you don't use your name tag, we'll use it for somebody else. So
- adaptive reuse. So please, please have some pizza, have some cake, mingle, continue to mingle. Thank
- you so much for being here. Thank you for helping us with this 50th year of VRI. We appreciate you being here.