In the nationally registered historic district of North Rhode Island Street, nineteenth-century homes resembling dollhouses are the norm. Along a stretch from seventh to eleventh streets, a small apartment building or new multiplex dots the neighborhood every so often, but most of the houses are the same ones that were there in the late 1800s.
1211 Rhode Island is one of 63 homes considered to be contributing structures to the district, meaning that the house has remained essentially the same since its construction.
The two-story, wood-frame house could probably use a fresh coat of cobalt blue paint, but it stands tall about 50 feet from the original brick street with multiple bedrooms and a porch that wraps around one side.
The "historic" tag usually protects buildings from developers, but Reed Brinton, the owner of 1211 Rhode Island, seems to have something different in mind.
On Thursday, the Historic Resources Commission will review a demolition permit application that Brinton, a Johnson County real estate agent, filed on Feb. 16.
The prospect of losing a historic house has some community members up in arms.
"I think it's completely unprecedented. I don't think anyone has tried to demolish designated historic property in Lawrence," Mark Kaplan, who lives near the neighborhood, said.
The house was built in 1870 by the Rev. Henry Belmer on a lot that cost $200. In its present state, the appraised value of the house is more than $150,000.
Brinton, who is $6,000 behind on property taxes for the house, declined to comment on his reasons for wanting to demolish it, saying only that the issue was "too preliminary to talk about."
Both Kaplan and Phil Collison, president of the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association, said Brinton is proposing to build a sixplex on the lot that is surrounded by single-family homes. They said that would subtract from the atmosphere of the neighborhood, which consists of a mix of students, families and older citizens.
"No towns in America have neighborhoods left like this one in East Lawrence," Kaplan said.
Collison said Thursday's meeting would likely not produce a concrete decision. If the Historic Resources Commission rejects Brinton's application, he can appeal to the city commission, at which time preservation groups across Lawrence would begin lobbying the city to deny the permit.
Though he said he did not see any way the commission would approve the permit, Collison said that if it should decide to allow the demolition, "I think we'd be chaining ourselves to the outside of the house to prevent the bulldozers from coming in."
The burden of proof for someone who requests a demolition permit is to show a clear picture of why the house is uninhabitable and to have a plan for what to build next.
"We think the house is in pretty darn good shape,” Collison said. "There would have to be an incredible rationale to having that demolished."
Kimberly Simonetti was part of the last group of tenants to rent the house from Brinton. She said that when she moved out at the end of the summer of 2006, it was in good condition, and she said she was not sure how Brinton could justify tearing it down.
"Granted, there were a few problems," Simonetti said. "It's an old house, but it's still a house, and it functioned just fine."
Simonetti said she thought the proposed demolition was all about money and moving more people into the area, which she felt would change the way people in the area live.
"It's a good place to live," Simonetti said. "It's going to utterly change the makeup of the neighborhood."
Sven Alstrom, architect and member of the Historic Resources Commission, said sometimes a house can be moved to another site as a last resort.
"If it's physically possible to move a house, we should not let it be torn down,” Alstrom said.
But Kaplan said moving the house was not good enough.
"In a historic place like this, it's like 'give me liberty or give me death,'" Kaplan said. "If this place is forced to be moved or demolished, historic preservation is dead in Kansas."