Our Town did something: Pandemonium and mayhem will ensue !

Our town "did something" this week...it elected a 28 year old Republican as Mayor and in the only contested city council race, chose a 19 year old Republican for city council.

In less than two minutes after this earth shattering event, and my messenger and my email began filling up with people in a panic..."What does this mean? How could they do this? They elected a kid? We are doomed!!!" Now to be fair most of those people are the same people who don't understand bike lanes either.

Everyone was looking for "meaning". I had a feeling this could happen and had told several people this was possible, although I try to avoid politics as much as possible, don't ever endorse people because I am communication director for Logansport Landmarks, but there was some handwriting on the wall.

The reason? Well there were many. Low voter turnout ( a lot of people are burnt out from the 24/7 political cycle our country is in). This was not considered an "controversial election", there were no big policy issues here. It is hard to tell the difference from the typical Republican or Democrat in this town...typically moderate to conservative, common sense people on either side of the aisle. People will also tell you our soon to be former mayor, Dave Kitchell is a great guy who really cares about his community and has accomplished  a lot  in his four years, He has done a good job,  and I have worked with him on preservation issues and found him to be very responsive. ...however I think the reason for this change is the changing demographic in our community and the people who see Logansport's future,  rather than clinging to its past.

Since 2014 when we moved our home and business here from Indy, MUCH, has changed in Logansport. Our Midtown neighborhood  now has few vacant homes, new ones being built on vacant lots and property values have close to doubled. City wide real estate grew at over 30 percent this year. and of course last year, Logansport was named the number 1 small city you'd actually like to live in....in the United States! by realtor.com . Our business continues to grow and we have had visitors from 40 states now.

But a lot more is going on since we opened. The downtown has two coffee houses downtown. Black Dog Coffee and Intersection  Coffee Shop. Both draw a new crowd, young and old, who "see possibilities" in the downtown.

The Record Farm has become a regional icon among collectors and aficionados of vinyl bringing people in from all over

Air B&B has come to Logansport with several air b&b operations ranging in style from Period traditional to urban loft offerings.

The State Theatre draws crows from far and wide with an eclectic offering of music.

In short, the demographic and perhaps expectations of Logansport are changing. People are moving here from Indy , Chicago, Carmel, Fishers and Westfield. I recently met someone who moved to Logansport , from San Francisco, and loves it here. There are more people here living here now who never hung out at our now dead mall on the east end, never road the railroad, and they don't wax eloquent bout the good ole days downtown, because they are too busy enjoying today and think Logansport, and our downtown, is coming along just fine.

So am I concerned about a young mayor? Yes and no. I understand there will be a learning curve. Most 28 year old's don't probably know that a police car cost 70 grand or a firetruck can run a million, but the fact is that the city council is the primary decision maker of the city. The mayor is basically the ambassador or cheerleader for the city, and hopefully our new mayor may be able to throw a lot of energy into that mix. Time will tell but I'm optimistic. If nothing else we have shed the image of politics as usual and perhaps this is a new beginning and a great start as the city grows and expands.

At a time when the "old guard" is still complaining about bike lanes and waiting for the 'magic factory' that will give everyone without a high school diploma some high paying job...maybe, just maybe...things are changing and a new "brand" for Logansport may occur. A city looking forward, not backwards and not afraid to 'take a risk' to make this city better.

Preservation 911: Logansport Historic Schneider Building Endangered

Preservation 911. The historic Schneider Building in the 800 Block of 15th has had a condemn order issued against it due to a corner collapse. This property is on our Most endangered list . 

We believe it can be saved and this corner safely rebuilt. It looks like this was caused due to prolonged water infiltration from the upstairs bathroom rather than a systemic structural issue. We have been in touch with our Mayor and this issue was brought up before the historic commission yesterday, and Indiana Landmarks has seen the building .

Several people have expressed interest in this building as a potential Live/work and there may be a pathway to save it if we can convince Indian Landmarks to take it and stabilize it.

This is the LAST brick commercial building left on the 800 block which at one point was largely commercial. With the rebirth of Midtown this structure should be saved.

Updates will be made available on the Logansport Landmarks FB Page: Logansport Landmarks

Saving an Iconic Building. Why places matter: BK East

Small town are unique places. This is why people want to live there. They have memories there too which is why, maybe more than the fact its historic eligible, people want to save this.

Most small towns had "that place". The place where people went  to hang out,  a place that was maybe their first job, maybe their first date, or first kiss. A place where you would load the kids in the car and go to. The drive in restaurant.

The drive in was a product of the post WW2 era. Our highways were expanding and towns were getting closer together. In Logansport that place was BK East. In most cities and towns those iconic places where the community gathered are long gone. Bulldozed, and only a part of a rapidly diminishing collective memory. For Logansport, that place still stands , but perhaps not for long.

The owners want to sell and apparently there is no one to pass the business on to. So it, a house and some lots they own next to it are for sale. the asking price was over 400,000 dollars.

Apparently they have a buyer . Burger King. Burger King is not an iconic place the community gathers, its a place we speed through on our way home or rush into on a short lunch to get something that resembles food. It is not BK East and its not part of a collective memory.
 Burger King won't preserve it, but rather will Bulldoze it and a 1900 era house next too it and build their usual bland chain restaurant on the site.

Now I can bore you with all the reasons the property is historically significant. "Rare example of a Mid century roadside drive in restaurant", sits in the Riverside Historic District and is a "contributing structure" and eligible for individual nomination  based on architecture" but to the people who grew up in this small town, those things are unimportant. It is, and unless the community shows up at the May 21st zoning meeting, WAS, a place that the community gathered and made memories.

It is just one of those things that make this community special, and since Logansport Landmarks announced its immediate peril and hastily elevated it to number 1 position on the Logansport Landmarks most endangered list for 2018, the community outrage is both mighty and deep. Their Facebook page was flooded with views. Over 24,000 in a little over 12 hours, the announcement was shared by over 300 and shared again and again.  For a community that has stood by for far to long and ignored their history, the thought of this loss, may be the final straw. It's too important to them. People who worked there, people who played there , people for whom the memories are too deep and too personal may not stand by and let this pass by the wayside. The people of Logansport are about to fight a big corporate, unthinking, uncaring, chain restaurant to preserve their history. BK East is not about to fade into history without a MAJOR fight.

And the Winner is? LOGANSPORT !

We have always have had a knack for knowing when a place has a future. And people often say where we go, "coolness follows" and much in the way we pioneered in many Indianapolis neighborhoods, restored in old Louisville and in Charleston after Hugo , we have always been able to see the preservation opportunity in places others pass by.

My first exposure to Logansport was in the 1980's when I went to a funeral with a friend of mine and his family and on the way back the route took us through Logansport and , being the architecture nut I am, I was taken by the architecture and I recall seeing the Octagon house and literally said out loud "an Octagon house , do you know how rare those are?"

So Logansport was filed away in the back recesses of my mind and when we began a multi state search a few years ago to relocate our antiques and design business from Indianapolis, well here we are. Everyone knows we found an amazing building, in an amazing neighborhood, that most would not even notice and as usual when we show up the 'gentrification train" follows. People are moving here from Indy, Carmel, Westfield and Chicago. Its noticeable to us, because these people come into our shop looking for an elusive doorknob or stained glass. This migration however is largely lost on many locals who see nothing positive about the place they have grown up in and lament what they see as its demise. They lust for the long dead Mall to revive itself or the "magic factory" to come that will restore the town to some sort of 1960's prosperity.

So while many local people have not been paying attention, things are happening, homes are being bought and restored, new shops are opening all over town like Legacy Outfitters or the Record Farm and lo and behold there are people raising money to reopen an old brewery to be reinvented as a craft brewery.. the trail system is getting better, the farmers market is improving. You have great venues like the State Theatre, and a out of town developer is building market rate apartments in the old Logan hotel building downtown. Things are happening so against this backdrop?

Realtor.com makes the announcement that Logansport Indiana is the Number 1 small city in the US being selected out of 500 small cities !

Some people are stunned and amazed their town was selected, but it makes perfect sense to us. It's the beginning of major changes. It means real estate prices go up, It means more new people and it means change is about to happen.

Yes the gentrification train is coming. There is a reason why our neighborhood fought a low income house project a couple of years ago. Logansport deserves better than "development for development sake". We have an ability to chart our future, control sprawl and  keep the quality of the city high. Will local leaders understand this? I hope so, because the next 5-10 years are going to be exciting and I'm personally glad we are here to be a part of it.

Saving Midtown: Tipton School Site and saving it from out of town developers

Naturally even in a small town there are forces determined to change things and not always for the better.

Such is the case in Midtown in Logansport, as Crestline Property Management out of Indianapolis, is seeking  a PUD (Planned Unit Development) in our neighborhood at the old Tipton School Site. The site represents an entire city block that once housed this grand school. Later on they built an elementary school on part of the site and it too was town down. The site now runs from 15th to 16th.

As we can see the school occupied a large part of the site and in fact most of the massive stone foundations are still under that site under the parking lot as in the old days they just collapsed it and put fill over it.

The commercial district on 15th street tells us a lot about the neighborhood. There was a Meat Market and a Barber on the corner at 802, S 15th street,   two residential buildings and large long building that was a foundry of some sort. These buildings were demoed years ago and again, just dropped and covered. So what does this mean? Well in means this is likely an archeological dig site and that should be considered as a part of any digging on the site. This is something the developer are  overlooking and something that we, as preservationists need to be sure is addressed with any development on that site. Important pieces of Logansport history are on that site and they must be preserved.

One of the major concerns of the community is the proposed size of this project is 69,000 sq ft and goes from one end of the street to the other. It would house 42 apartments and be over 40 feet tall. It will tower of the smaller cottages built between 1860-1890 and will negatively impact them,  of particular concern is the negative impact to The Shondinger building at 825 and the small one story at 805 (now a garage )that was originally a Tailor shop as it project will literally block out the sun.

Similarly this will negatively impact the homes on Wright street.

The smallest house is on the NE corner of Wright and 15th  is a 600 sq ft one story shotgun cottage circa 1865 (restorable).

This illustrates what this house might resemble post restoration:

On the opposite NW corner is a yellow brick 1 story storefront that would be part of the Midtown 15th street revitalization project which envisions a future community retail or shop use and redesigned sidewalks

There are also Victorian era assets along Wright St including small 1 1/2 story cottages circa 1875 cottages and a two story (circa 1885) on the  corner of Wright and 16th that still have a high level of interior architectural integrity and just need exterior restore including correct sized windows.

This shows how these street might impact the community if restored.

This is the point.  A large scale 69,000 sq. ft. 40 ft tall, 42 unit apartment building (low income), with only 43 spaces will overwhelm the neighborhood, create traffic and safely concerns and negatively impact the quality of life in Midtown which is why we must oppose bad development.

This project will require state tax credits to move forward and it will be up to the community to let officials know that large scale sprawl is not needed in our community. We can not have historic single family neighborhoods in small towns over run with large scale buildings and traffic.

Burgman Building: Landscape Restoration "we have another pond"

 

We knew there had once been a pond on the North side of the building , we just didn't know where as it had been filled in years ago. Well we found it while clearing out some concrete that was sticking up near our garden spot.

An afternoon spent we had a huge hole and a pile of rocks.

We used the broken concrete and dirt to build a hill for the upper feeder pond and we ran our pump test yesterday to se how it would flow.  Next steps are to fill it the rest of the way up and plant some aquatics but I plan on taking it easy today after moving over a ton of stone.

Facade restoration continues: Burgman Building

Some quick updates: working on the façade, no major surprises and the colors are going on nicely.

As color is added the building seems to get taller.

Elected to use black on the doors. Still trim detail to do there.

More info as it develops.

Frescos work updates and did I mention we have tour coming up?

We now have enough to pull corner stencils

Lots of time spend exposing the ceiling fresco work...an hour here and hour there but its starting to reveal itself and I am now confident we have enough to get good stencils of the banding.

The ceiling banding is almost exposed now

 We should be able to restore the floral work with no problem.

So this is the poster for the event

Oh and we have this tour thing coming up for Historic Preservation week in conjunction with Logansport Landmarks we are opening the upstairs up for guided tours of the restoration work in progress from 3-5 on the 22nd, in conjunction with a Preservation Picnic that goes on until 7 PM that will be held "on the grounds"

Hoping to get the gate and pergola done and then just a few more sections of fence and the future raised bed veggie garden will be ready to plant

This of course means lots more landscape work outside, we got some more fencing up and have been working on the beds.

Transplanting day lilies that were in the shade before is an every day task

This is not an easy task when you have almost an acre sized "private park", we have found huge old Viburnums which are now in bloom (snowball bushes), we have been  dividing and moving Hostas and Daylily's which are huge now and everything is just doing much better since we got some of the choking English Ivy off things.

Can you see the several ton boulder? NO, because the English Ivy covers it. Coming off in the next couple of days

Of course there is still more to do.

Two of these to paint to match the Persian Parlor

This week we got our pair of ceiling medallions for the Persian Parlor which I hope to have painted and up by tour time...hey, sleep is highly over-rated.

Burgman Building Restoration : It's in the details, "The Garland Parlor"

As everyone knows, old house restoration is a process, often incremental and often a compromise and stop gap measure , however it doesn't have to be an obvious one.

Such is the case in  the "Garland Parlor". Originally there was a Pot bellied stove in that room as it was somewhat centrally located to four rooms . Of course as it was available, the Burgman's updated to a more modern system. However the old stove pipe hole was still there and while the obvious repair would be to remove it and drywall it, I did not want to rule out the possibility of eventually installing a small pot belly stove in that location, so for now what to do (especially with a tour coming up).

I had a small cover but it was slightly smaller than it should be to complete cover the offending pipe but it would work. The key was to make it seamless and mot have it stand out too much as we want the focus to be on the fresco work in the room. So while we were repainting the lower part of the wall its original color we also painted the pipe surround .

We decided to paint the cover the same color but the question was what to do with the center which normally has an ad or a design in it?  As luck would have it I had an old periodical cover from the period that was in ratty condition except for part of the artwork.

First we make  blank piece of light weight art board  which we attached with a spray adhesive. This acts as a base for the artwork. A little photography mount adhesive on the back and then it is mounted.

So back on the wall again it serves its purpose...problem solved until I find that stove!

2015: A year of dreams realized

2015 was truly a year of dreams realized for us. After years of searching, we finally found "The One". It had been a  long journey with many twists and turns along the way. But it looks as if we finally got it right. We found the perfect building that combines our need for shop space with a grand residence.

It has been a long road. In fact our first attempt at finding "The One" led us to St Joe Missouri years ago and a falling down beast of building that we bought only to have to fight tooth and nail with the city to save it.  In the end and from several hundred miles of commute from Indianapolis, it proved to be an insurmountable task. Right kind of building, wrong place.

While it had great potential and needed someone like us we moved on. But we managed to save a nearby house from destruction, but it was lesson learned.

In the interim we have restored several homes, help turn around a couple of neighborhoods in Indy and met some incredibly dedicated fellow preservationists.

We even kicked started a neighborhood in Cincinnati that had been down on its luck for years and we kept a piece of Cincinnati history the Nagele Merz house from its fate with a bulldozer.

We did a home tour and we proved that you can change things if you just try. We hope 2016 will be the year we find someone to complete the work we started with that home and make sure the home stands for another 145 years.

Lots of things have happened, lots of preservation battles fought, some won, some lost, but Greg and I both understand that if you do not try, you do not accomplish.

The Burgman Building may turn out to be our greatest preservation accomplishment, time will tell, but I know we have realized our Preservation Dream, we found "The One".