2007 Historic Preservation and Restoration Award Winners Announced

Camp Randall Rowing Club and Madison Parks Department Win Historic Preservation Award
Preservation of the historic Brittingham Boathouse by the Camp Randall Rowing Club, working in concert with the city of Madison Parks Department, has earned both partners in the project the Wisconsin Historical Society's 2007 Historic Preservation Award. Originally built in 1910 by the Madison Parks and Pleasure Drive Association, the boathouse was nearly razed in the 1970s after years of deterioration.

In 1979 the Madison Landmark Commission designated the boathouse as a Madison Landmark. Many years later the Camp Randall Rowing Club partnered with the city of Madison's Parks Department to raise $685,000 for restoration of the building. Work included building a new foundation nearby, moving the structure, and duplicating a 1921 addition on one end of the building that had marred its symmetry. The duplicate addition restored that symmetry and preserved the wooden structure's many historic features.

A four-member panel of Historical Society preservation professionals selected the Camp Randall Rowing Club and the Madison Parks Department for the historic preservation award from a field of three candidates.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Board of Curators' Awards Committee conferred the award at its meeting in Wisconsin Dells on Saturday, June 9.

Building Restoration Projects in Milwaukee and Fort Atkinson Win Historic Restoration Awards
The painstaking restoration of historic buildings in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward and in Fort Atkinson's Historic District have earned three property owners a pair of the Wisconsin Historical Society's 2007 Historic Restoration Awards.

Commission Row Property, Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward
Commission Row is an almost block-long, three-story building that was once home to an active wholesale grocery market. A fire in the 1950s had compromised an integral portion of Commission Row, owned by Mei-Lyn Nelson and Lori Gensch of Brookfield, but the owners worked carefully in keeping with local, state and federal requirements to rebuild the second floor, reconstruct the third floor and cornice, install new windows, and rebuild the characteristic metal canopy to match the other buildings.

The Wisconsin Historical Society worked closely with the owners from start to finish to ensure that the project qualified for historic preservation tax credits and met the Secretary of the Interior's standards of rehabilitation. The ambitious project returned the so-called "missing tooth" in Commission Row to its historic appearance.

The Creamery Building is the largest building in Fort Atkinson's Historic District, which is listed on the National Register. The vacant brick and concrete industrial building had been modified with metal siding, covering an entire wall of a side street elevation and hiding its five stories of steel factory sash windows.

The Creamery Building, Fort Atkinson Historic District
Owner Dave Young of Fort Atkinson removed the siding and replaced the deteriorated windows with replicas, thus restoring an important part of the downtown district's historic appearance. The Wisconsin Historical Society worked closely with the owner from start to finish to ensure that the project qualified for historic preservation tax credits and met the Secretary of the Interior's standards of rehabilitation.

A four-member panel of Historical Society preservation professionals selected the winning candidates for the historic preservation awards from a field of four candidates.

The Wisconsin Historical Society Board of Curators' Awards Committee conferred the award at its meeting in Wisconsin Dells on Saturday, June 9.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society