Historic Projects

My folks’ building was one of my earliest federal historic tax credit projects. We rehabbed the 2nd floors into a residence for my parents & an early guest suite. The stair from Main Street up was replaced with a residential elevator. The tin ceilings & walls in the 202 retail space was deed restricted & protected through a program administered by LPCI so that it must remain in place forever. The Fox Family have been my parents go to contractors since we moved to Galena in 1970. They’ve sen it all & rebuilt it all for my folks.

Rehabilitated an old dubuque industrial building with a poorly design structural system that had been cobbled multiple times, all exposed for your enjoyment. It was fun working with the owner, Jeff Burds, & learning all about the micro brew process. Winner of the Iowa Main Street Award for Best Total Building Rehabilitation & a Dubuque County Historical Society 2019 Preservation Award. Chris Miller of Miller Development Group was the General Contractor & he really did a professional job pulling all the different subs & suppliers together to get Jeff in on time. Robyn McDermott was the designer & MEP engineers ran the numbers to make it all work together.

This addition provided Grace Church with an attached rectory with improved accessibility for the congregation with ADA parking on site. We removed 35 feet of limestone to set this addition as far back as possible. The 3 stained glass saints were moved to the front of the addition. Louie’s Trenching did an enormous job removing 20’ of the solid rock without rattling a window in the church. Galena Builders were the general contractors & they were very patient with me as we worked through all the twist & turns.

One of my 1st Iowa tax credit projects was a good one to learn the rules & the limits. All the upper windows were restored & were fitted with new storm windows. Two of the apartments were built without window because the SHPO would not allow new dormers on the front. The developer and the bank decided to build the apartments & wait the 5 years to build them after the recapture period. But they never got around to it.

My folks’ tax credit project to rehab this historic building into an art studio with an apartment above. The center portion of the house is built around the original stockade for defense during the Blackhawk war. The Fox Family were the general contractors for the rehabilitation. The upright logs of the stockade gave the poor carpenters fits & nothing was plumb or level. My Dad opens a few hours a day for a couple of weekends a month, so check his website for that schedule.

After years of the rain washing off the street, the foundation needed to be replaced. Dan Balocca was a courageous owner & dedicated himself to making it all work. Bill Fawell, later candidate for US House, was the general contractor with boundless energy. Together they tackled everything from sawing stone for veneer to salvaging brick from a Dubuque school. Heritage Building Movers from Boscobel placed the shoring that held the 2nd floor & roof in place while the steel frame was installed. It’s almost worth moving a building just to work with them. We saved the roof & rehabbed the building into new B&B suites. The two guest suites incorporate historic portions of the original stables. This project won the 2018 Galena Preservation Award.

Near total interior rehabilitation along with restoring the storefronts made this tax credit project interesting. The old maze of apartments was blending with the new maze of apartments & it became more subtraction than anything.

I helped with plans to focus the vision for rebuilding and improving the business after a fire. Jeff Schmidt is the hardworking general contractor on this job, willing to get dirty cleaning up after a fire.

Over the years I helped expand & restore the Fach’s old brewery. I designed the large building on the south which created new studio space & rental units above while stabilizing the original vaulted basements dug into the hillside.

A tax credit rehabilitation where we took over from a previous owner that as lost in a decade’s long odyssey. We created some apartments but left the main floor public spaces open for receptions. A true monument to Dubuque’s history of refining the forest products floating down from the virgin forests of Wisconsin. Who needs plaster when you have wood panelling?

A soap opera of a tax credit project with a happy ending. I learned a lot about dealing with tax credits & the SHPO.

New retirees rehabbed the small brick building into guest quarter & rebuilt the rear addition to the log cabin to create a larger kitchen. Nick TImmerman & Josh Montgomery were the general contractors here, working with a lot of separate parts.

A father & son team did all the general contracting on this project and they bit off a good one. For City funding we had to prove that the apartment above the bar was habitable, so we contacted Talaske Sound Thinking out of Chicago for the floor ceiling design and the 14 layer design they provided really provides sound good sound deadening. We used State & Federal historic tax credits to totally rehab the upper floors into modern apartments and did a bit of structural clean up in the basement, without too much change or disruption in the Bar. This project received a 2019 Dubuque COunty Historical Society Preservation Award.

This a a complete rehab of a building which has been abandoned above the 1st floor for 20 years. It will end up a mixed use building with apartments above. The Main Street facade will be totally restored & painted historic colors.

A wonderful project where we removed an entire facade of corrugated metal siding that had “modernized” the owner’s business 30 years ago. Local craftsman rebuilt arches & had to create new masonry details to match the originals that had been destroyed before. A great place to visit.

This project connected the B&B on the left with a new spa in the totally restored building on the right with satisfying results.

Truly an honor to work with the devoted owners on their cause to restore this country store & original railway station. GO SEE IT NOW. A must visit into the past & present where the locals now gather again by the piano & wood stove.

A tax credit rehabilitation very similar to a previous rehab around the corner.

Concerted apartments back into a single family home. The contractor got into trouble lowering the floor in the basement & ended up losing the permit. I had to go before the Chicago Zoning Board of Appeals to argue for a new permit. It was a fun experience after approval.

A tax credit rehabilitation of the DISCO Building just off the Highway 20 Bridge, this project won the 2018 Iowa Main Street Award for Best Interior Design. The apparent monolithic building is actually a bunch of additions & a sea of columns. Chris Miller of Miller Development Group is the owner & the general contractor and developer of 40 Main across the street (not my project) so I think he made this work to help clean up his neighborhood.

This tax credit project also received an Iowa Main Street Grant. The porch on the left had been totally enclosed and turned into an apartment.

This tax credit project includes replacing the windows & interior remodeling.

Not exactly what was there but the owner had a vision.

Upgraded the apartments with new systems & more appropriate finishes.

I provided facade design to restore some details that had been lost on this once abandoned building. City of Dubuque & Dubuque Main Street worked together to get the building back in useful repair.

We doubled the space of this little brick house with the frame addition.

I worked with the owners to provide preliminary planning & early tax credit drawings. During the project ownership changed & I was replaced by a firm with more experience with the new partners. This building is part of a complex of building that grew organically & had a fascinating history.

We used a very traditional approach to restoring the porch & additing the screen porch to this historic home.

A bomb shelter of a building that I worked on but nothing got done. We tried to get it listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places as the 1st fireproof hotel in Iowa. it has an interesting history.

A huge amount of work went into rehabbing this old school house into a modern home. The owners got a 12 year property tax freeze through the NPS program administered by the SHPO.

Tried to add one more addition onto this historic home at Green & Prospect so the owners could get in & out of their car out of the cold.

This bungalow had been cobbled & a garage addition had changed the functions in the house. We removed the garage& built a new addition with new garage which provided a new entry porch.

You wouldn’t think historic but I helped assess 3 or 4 high rise buildings in older downtowns around the midwest. These late 60s building are just over 50 years old, making them eligible for historic tax credits. This developer was using the credits to replace the aging & failing glass facades & then converting them from office into new apartments for a lump sum tax credit of pretty darn good.

This rehabilitation was mostly interior reworking of the existing plan for new upgrades. The porches were rebuilt based on photos.

This house received a new new foundation around the rear and was totally rebuilt.

I provided existing plans & proposed plans for an interior rehabilitation.

I designed the new restrooms & helped rehab the upper structure.

The screen porch added some space for the B&B guests to spread out.

An addition to the rear added some needed space.

I provided existing plans & preliminary plans for an event space for this until recently working mill. This was really fascinating to measure up an old wood mill. It felt like being in the heart of a farm community.

Here I worked with the owners to develop a plan for prioritizing the renovation of the house & adding on.

This house was rehabbed & the little historic addition on the right was saved.

Now lost, this early house went through a demolition process that didn’t seem quite fair.

We expanded the living space in the Coach House apartment with that little addition poking up over the original roof.

A new garage addition to the rear with living space above gave this house additional living area.

This old house needed an interior update to provide new systems & create useable spaces.

This house underwent a total rehab. We tore off the old garage with a basement below. We added the new front porch & the sunroom on the back.

This house ended up being torn down to the stone foundation & the basement room. It was rebuilt to match the photo.

A work in progress, I helped the owner reconfigure the plans of the 3 apartments in the house.

I designed an addition & 1 car garage for this little house.

I designed an addition for this home in 2018. Hopefully, the owner can put the budget together for additional space & a 2 car garage.

I assisted with tax credit application by providing floor plans & details for louver restorations in the bell towers.

I provided the new owners with plans to finish the rehab of this Galena Mansion.

This house had been remodelled into apartments & we used historic tax credits to rehab it & added the garage to the right with an additional bedroom above for the 1st floor apartment. I designed the side & rear porches based on best evidence. This house has incredible wood work with a paneled wood cupboard under the stairs perfect for Harry Potter.

Ambitious intentions ran into reality budget, but I helped expand 1st & Main into the 2nd storefront & more of the basement.