What made—or destroyed—history this year

Story by Preservation editors / Dec. 27, 2002

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Ca D'Zan (pronounced CAH-duh-ZAHN) reopened in April after a three-year restoration (Ringling Museum of Art)

Preservation magazine's editors took stock of the year and selected 10 events, trends, and losses that made news in 2002.

Paradise Regained at Florida Mansion
A beautiful but deteriorating Florida mansion that was the backdrop for the 1997 film Great Expectations reopened in April after a spectacular three-year restoration. Completed in 1926, the 32-room Venetian-style mansion on Sarasota Bay was once the home of circus founder John Ringling. Today Cà d'Zan ("House of John" in Venetian dialect) is part of the Ringling Museum of Art, administered by Florida State University.

Collisions:Cars Crash into 1782 House Museum, Civil War Monument

In the early morning hours of Aug. 5, the driver of a sport utility vehicle crashed into the parlor of the recently renovated 1782 Butler-McCook House, the last 18th-century house in Hartford, Conn. The house museum had opened two months earlier after a four-year $1.3 million restoration. Although several pricey antiques were destroyed, Butler-McCook House officials vowed to restore it—again.

An October car chase in Lynchburg, Va., ended when the driver shattered a 1919 obelisk dedicated to the city's Civil War veterans. The granite structure had made the National Register of Historic Places in January 2002.

Historic House Demolished for Target Parking Lot
Why restore a house and then tear it down six years later? Logic lost on Nov. 7, when an 1834 Greek revival house was demolished in East Greenbush, N.Y. The Defreest-Church historic homestead underwent a $1 million renovation in 1996, but was sold to an Albany developer after its owner died.

The structure was torn down to make way for a parking lot for a new Target store, the Albany area's fourth. Minneapolis-based Target Corp. presented its development plan for a 125,000-square-foot store to the town last year, but East Greenbush's planning board did not act to protect the 1,800-square-foot house. A local group wrote letters to the owner, Target, and town officials, but the house was demolished anyway.

Lexington, Va., Church Regains Steeple
Destroyed by fire in July 2000, the wooden steeple of a 158-year-old Greek revival church in Lexington, Va., was replaced this March. Workers reconstructed a steeple with wood from the church's interior. Thomas U. Walter, one of the architects of the U.S. capitol, designed Lexington Presbyterian Church.

The Mount (© Edith Wharton Restoration)

The House that Edith Wharton Built
Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth in the classical revival house in Lenox, Mass., that she designed and decorated. The Mount, completed in the fall of 1902, was renovated in time for its centennial anniversary; it opened to the public on June 5.

Walter Griffin House Lost
It wasn't just another teardown that occurred in a suburb of Chicago last summer. Prairie school architect Walter Griffin designed the 1910 house whose owner wanted a bigger home on the lot. Because the house had been significantly altered over the years, the Walter Burley Griffin Society gave up its fight to protect it, declaring it "too far gone" to save.

Duke Ellington Landmark Demolished
In Washington, D.C., the owner of a cabaret where Duke Ellington had performed during the 1920s demolished it on Aug. 17. The city declared the c.1875 brick Victorian townhouse unsafe, and it was razed three hours later. The Washington, D.C., house where Ellington was born in 1899 had also been torn down.

Native American Site in Montana Protected from Drilling
The National Trust now holds the lease to drill for oil and gas in Montana's 4,000-acre Weatherman Draw Rock Art Complex and Archaeological District, the site of 1,100-year-old pictographs. In January, Anschutz Exploration Corporation agreed to back off from drilling near the site that is sacred to Native Americans. The leases expire in 2003 and 2005.

Fire Destroys Bridge of Madison County
The covered bridge in central Iowa that was featured on the cover of Robert James Waller's 1992 bestseller The Bridges of Madison County was destroyed by fire in September.

Of the 19 covered bridges that once served Madison County, only five remain. Built in 1883, Cedar Bridge was renovated four years ago. The 76-foot-long bridge was the county's only extant bridge that cars could cross. The bridges were built in the 1870s and 1880s and renovated in the 1990s. All are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Merc, built in 1926 (Preservation Chicago)

Trouble in Chicago
While Chicago residents protested the impending demolition of a downtown landmark, the 1927 Mercantile Exchange Building, others rallied to save a house that had survived Chicago's Great Fire of 1871. Nonetheless, the Huntley House, a two-story Italianate structure built in 1858 in the city's West Town neighborhood, was demolished in September.

Although supporters gathered at the house last Thursday night to protest its demolition, the owner and developer moved forward with plans to construct a seven-unit building on the site.

Late this year, however, the city of Chicago announced that it would try to do more to protect its historic buildings, suggesting a demolition delay. "This is a great first step toward full reform of the system," says Jonathan Fine of Preservation Chicago. "Unfortunately, the Mercantile Exchange was the price we had to pay."

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