History, architecture appeals to Old West Lawrence leader

A job for his wife brought Dale Slusser to Lawrence.

But it was his love of history and architecture that drew him to Old West Lawrence.

“The neighborhood is important to me, and, from my history of working in historic preservation, I really feel committed to doing what I can to make the best of our neighborhood,” Slusser said.

“So when I came here, I right away started going to (neighborhood) meetings and being involved. They needed a new president and they cornered me into doing it,” he said, laughing.

Slusser, the new president of the Old West Lawrence Neighborhood Assn., spoke recently about what brought him to Lawrence and about one of Lawrence’s most architecturally interesting neighborhoods.

A KU recruit

Slusser, 42, and his wife, Sherry Fowler, moved to Lawrence nearly two years ago from Portland, Ore.

“My wife was recruited by KU,” Slusser said. “I came out to take a look at Lawrence and to decide if it was some place I was interested in living as well.”

Slusser, who had worked for five years as a fund-raiser for a historic preservation, non-profit organization in Portland, was inspired by the rich history of the area.

“One of the things that has been real impressive to me, coming from the west coast, was the degree of history,” he said. “As you move east, there’s more history. And it’s pretty dramatic between living on the coast my whole life and coming here. So that’s been a lot of fun.”

Being close to downtown was appealing.

“We have lived in big cities for a long time and I like to be able to walk to things, he said.

And he liked the quality of the architecture in Old West Lawrence.

“In comparison to the house we had in Oregon, we were able to get something that was much more interesting,” he said.

He also found a position in Lawrence and is a fund-raiser for the Kansas University Endowment Assn.

Under renovation

The couple found a home at 627 Ohio St., a Victorian transitional house built in 1901.

“It’s got some pretty nice architectural features. It was in pretty bad condition, so we’re bringing it back,” he said.

He took advantage of a state program designed to help older neighborhoods retain their aging housing stock. (See story.)

The state’s rehabilitation tax credit program, “is a real incentive because all contributing properties in a historic district qualify for rehabilitation and maintenance on a home.”

He said any project that meets the qualification and costs in excess of $5,000 can qualify for a 25 percent tax credit from the state.

A mix of housing

Much of Old West Lawrence’s housing stock have been renovated and are well-maintained.

“A lot of people think of Old West Lawrence’s larger, grander homes,” he said.

“But really, that’s just a few blocks of the neighborhood. If you extend over west of Mississippi, there’s a lot of smaller homes. There’s a real variety of housing stock and a real variety of people.”

Boundaries

Official boundaries for the OWL neighborhood are from Sixth to Ninth streets on the north and south and from Tennessee to Michigan streets on the east and west.

A portion of the Old West Lawrence neighborhood was placed on the National Historic Register in 1972.

The historic district consists of about 50 Italianate, Renaissance and other styles of residences built between 1850 and 1899. The historic area is bounded roughly by Tennessee, Eighth, Indiana, and Sixth streets.

Issues

“Things are alooking pretty good for us,” he said. “We’ve just gone through a great effort to rezone part of the neighborhood.”

The western half of the neighborhood had been zoned for duplexes, although 70 percent of the dwellings were single family residences. (See story.)

“So we’ve changed the zoning to match what the reality of the neighborhood is,” he said. “And at the same time, that protects smaller, older homes from being demolished to create duplexes. That was a very important thing for the neighborhood.”

Coming up

Slusser said he wasn’t sure what role the neighborhood association would play in upcoming months.

“Neighborhood associations tend to kind of work in a crisis mode, where you’ve identified something that seems like a real threat and everyone gets organized and you get active and you do things. And right now that isn’t the case. Who knows what’s coming in six months. But we don’t see anything coming at us,” he said.

The neighborhood association has a core group of 20-25 people.

Volunteers are solicited to be block workers on every block. They distribute the newsletters and let those on their block know of upcoming issues.

Friendly atmosphere

“People walk around the neighborhood a lot,” Slusser said. “People sit on their porches. A very appealing aspect of the neighborhood is that there is that interaction.”