Great Unveilings – Kalamazoo, Elgin, Rock Island

While some homeowners are still covering up their distinctive old houses a growing number of others are doing just the opposite. Entire neighborhoods are gathering together to assist historic home owners strip off unoriginal siding including aluminum, “style stone”, cement fiber, asphalt and even more recent vinyl siding. In the process they’re  revealing character and beauty long-lost, hidden beneath that unoriginal siding.

ILLINOIS

Elgin – I have friends down there and just found out their community is turning out on May 1st to do SEVEN (7) homes, all in one day!

Pics from these 2010 Elgin Great Unveilings here.

(May is National Historic Preservation Month) Past Elgin Unveilings.

Rock Island – They just got written up in “The Commissioner” for their legacy of hosting 1-3 Great Unveilings each year for nearly 20 years. Conversations with the folks there indicate that they’ve begun running out of homes to do.

The Broadway Historic District encompasses 580 homes in the Mississippi River town of Rock Island. Many of these historic homes were covered over with artificial siding in the 1930s and 40s, with the promise of low maintenance. In Broadway in particular, many of these homes were also turned into duplex and apartments over the years, and the neighborhood lost much of its character in the process. In the 1980s, a small group of dedicated homeowners decided to take action and bring Broadway back to life, by advocating home ownership and historic preservation.

Michigan

Kalamazoo – While checking something else out entirely I stumbled upon Kalamazoo doing “Great Unveilings“. This one sponsored by their “Old House Network“.

Curious and always interested to speak with like-minded folks in other communities I reached out to the coordinators about their program and their experiences with Great Unveilings.

I had a very pleasant conversation with Sharon Ferraro who serves as the Historic Preservation Coordinator / Downtown Design Review Coordinator. Evidently her avocation is neighborhood preservation and involvement with the Kalamazoo “Old House Network”. You should check out their website and facebook page. They’ve been very active for many years now, sponsor some great programs and have a very nice website. All this stands to reason as I found out that Kalamazoo, with over 2,075 individually listed properties spanning six historic districts has the largest volume of historic properties per capita in the state of Michigan.

Anyway, I was curious about their Great Unveilings. Turns out they’re getting ready for their third one. They are big fans of the program and it’s been working out very well for them. Their last one, last year evidently was written up in the Old House Journal for July 2009.

The way they work it is in collaboration with their local Habitat for Humanity who “loans” them their volunteer supervisor who runs the days work and also provides ladders and scaffolding. And while they schedule six hours to complete the job it’s only taken them about four hours with prior projects. Sharon says you’d be amazed at how quickly it goes.

The home owner covers the cost of the dumpster and lunch (unless donated as has happened for them). The Old House Network provides crowbars, eye protection and face masks. Importantly, OHN also carries their own insurance that covers their yearly unveilings along with other workshops, expo and such.

So, while some are still wanting to cover over the distinctive character of their old house there are others who are doing just the opposite and uncovering scalloped, decorative siding, banding and other character long-lost, hidden beneath unoriginal siding.

Beloit – Here in town the homeowners at 641 Church are in the midst of doing this on their own.

I’d love to help them however we as an association need two things.

1. We need to complete our not-for-profit application.
2. Once that’s in place we’ll need to carry our own insurance. $300-400/yr.

Your membership donation will help us get there.  We still need ~$200 to submit our NFP application. You’ll see the “Donate” button in the right-navigation.