Preserving jewel is neighborhood aim

By Randy Hanson

The first thing the organizers of the Hudson Vintage Neighborhood Alliance want you to know about them is that they aren't the paint police. They're not going to tell you what color to paint your house or what kind of wood to use to repair it.

"We're very interested in preservation, but we want to do it in a resource way," explains Lee Wyland. "Rather than promoting (the preservation of historic homes) through ordinances, we're promoting through pride."

The alliance wants to be a place to turn if you have questions about how to restore your older home, or want to know what the house looked like 75 years ago or who lived in it.

Their goal is to provide information and suggestions, members say, not the adoption of a heavy-handed ordinance telling people what they can do with their houses.

The newly named Vintage Neighborhood Alliance began last October as a handful of people getting together to talk about preserving the residential character of their neighborhood.

The founders, including Lee and Laurie Wyland, Jacque Cloninger and Karen Neset, all live in the older part of town commonly referred to as Hudson's historic residential district. The borders, roughly, are from 10th or 11th Street to First Street (east to west) and from Lake Mallalieu to Walnut Street (north to south).

Only a small part of the neighborhood is officially protected by its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cloninger was disappointed to learn that fact. She bought a historic home at 1021 Third St. in March of 1998 believing that it was on the National Register, as stated in the Hudson 1998-1999 Area Guide.

The Area Guide says the entire Third Street neighborhood, with its 19th century homes and churches, in on the National Register. But Cloninger discovered that just a two-block stretch of Sixth Street and a cluster of downtown commercial buildings are Hudson's only two official historic districts.

She, Neset, the Wylands and a few others were concerned about what they saw as the gradual encroachment of businesses into the bigger historic residential district.

"We're a group of people who live here and recognize the uniqueness that this neighborhood brings to the city," Cloninger says.

A representative of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin who visited the neighborhood last fall also saw its worth. In a letter he sent following his visit to Hudson, Geoffry Gyrisco wrote, "I drove around town after the meeting and was impressed by what I saw. You have among the finest groups of historic buildings of any small city in Wisconsin, and so many of them are so well preserved."

After numerous discussions, the homeowners decided that forming a neighborhood alliance was the best way of protecting the integrity of Hudson's residential areas.

In late April, they distributed a flyer to neighbors asking them if they were interested in joining the alliance. Forty-five homeowners had responded as of last week.

Between 20 and 25 people attended the first meeting in the First Baptist Church fellowship room July 8. More showed up for the second meeting July 27 at Bethel Lutheran Church, the organizers report.

City Zoning Administrator and Planner Dennis Darnold will speak at the next meeting, set for Tuesday, Aug. 24, at 7 p.m. The tentative location is Bethel Lutheran. The leaders say that from now on the alliance will meet the fourth Tuesday of the every month at 7 p.m.

The flyer distributed to neighborhood residents included a proposed mission statement that says the purpose of the alliance is "to encourage the preservation and protection of the character and integrity of Hudson's historic residential areas."

The flyer suggested that the objectives of the alliance be to:

"1. Work in cooperation with the City Council and applicable committees to officially designate historic residential districts within Hudson;

"2. Encourage the enforcement of residential zoning in these designated areas;

"3. Promote awareness of the value and importance of these designated historic areas to the community; and

"4. Act in a support and advisory capacity for property owners in these historic areas."

The mission and objectives of the alliance aren't set in stone yet, however.

"We're in such an initial stage of formation that the mission statement and objectives aren't formally acknowledged by everyone. It just gave us a form of reference, really," Neset says.

The alliance doesn't have any bylaws or officers either, the organizers say, calling it a group of peers.

Share love of old homes

A love of old homes is the element that unifies the founders of the Vintage Neighborhood Alliance. All of them are relatively new to Hudson and own a historic home.

The Wylands say their house at 719 Fifth St. and the surrounding neighborhood is the reason they came to town in 1995.

"When we walked into this place, it felt like home," Lee Wyland says of their Italian villa style house, built around 1850. "It just felt comfortable - even with the green shag carpeting and the peeling wallpaper and paneling."

"It had character. You could see the potential," Laurie Wyland adds.

After much restoration work, the house was one of those featured in last year's Christmas Tour of Homes.

"You also have to appreciate a little bit of the history of the people," Lee says. "We're not just sitting in a neighborhood of houses. We're sitting in a neighborhood of people. You build a brand new home and you have a brand new home. You restore one of these and you have a piece of history."

The Wylands house was once the home of a 19th century Hudson mayor, Calvin Coon.

Neset calls the houses in her neighborhood works of art. The details on the front pillars of her residence at 727 Third St., known as the Boyden house, are hand-carved, she notes.

"Until you get close to them, you can't see that they aren't exactly the same, the way houses are made today. I mean, you have to appreciate that level of craftsmanship."

Cloninger says it's noteworthy that cities like Stillwater, Minn., are trying to replicate the neighborhoods of yore.

"And here we have the real thing. It's like discovering an antique," she says.

Creeping commercialization

What the founders of the alliance fear is that their neighborhood will be gradually invaded by offices and shops as the demand for commercial property increases in Hudson. They believe it's already happening and point to an assortment of shops, offices and home businesses interspersed among the homes along Second and Vine streets.

"All of a sudden you have no neighborhood. What you have is a mishmash," says Lee Wyland. "When they wrote the zoning law to begin with, they had a purpose in mind. They knew that residences and businesses don't belong together."

Neset says that every time a zoning permit is issued for a business in a residential neighborhood, that business becomes the rationale for allowing another one.

"It's a domino effect," she says. "That is really our concern. We want a residential neighborhood. Private businesses, to us, don't belong in a residential neighborhood."

There are a couple of types businesses that don't bother the founders of the Vintage Neighborhood Alliance, however. They say Hudson's bed and breakfast inns set the tone for a well-maintained neighborhood, and the child daycare businesses serve community residents.

The agenda

The founders say their initial concern was getting their neighborhood recognized as an official historic district. But after thinking about it, they decided that a strong neighborhood alliance could do just as much good.

Their goal is to encourage neighborhood residents to voluntarily restore and preserve their houses, and to provide them with the information to help them do it.

They want the alliance to be a resource that homeowners can use to find a contractor to roof a turret or a craftsman to make custom millwork. They plan to bring in speakers to talk about restoring homes and getting them listed on the National Register. They would like to assist the Hudson Public Library in managing its history room and present awards to owners who do an exemplary job of preserving historic homes.

And they'll continue to watch for public notices about requests for rezoning and conditional use permits to operate businesses in their neighborhood. They'll oppose the changes if they detract from the residential quality of the neighborhood.

Their object isn't to alienate, and that shouldn't happen if people look at the issue objectively, Lee Wyland says.

"If you look at the rules, and you look at the logic behind them, there shouldn't be enemies," he says. "This isn't a personal battle. This is a neighborhood."

The neighborhood, the founders of the alliance add, includes everyone who lives there. That means the owners of smaller and more modern houses are just as welcome in the alliance as the owners of Hudson's grand old homes.

"We want first of all to be a neighborhood. We want that sense of community that a neighborhood organization can encourage," Neset says.

The leaders say that someday the alliance will hold an old-fashioned neighborhood party to celebrate that sense of community.

For more information about the alliance call 386-3363.