The "New" Wisconsin Trust

While we are busy planning events to bring together former members with a new generation of Wisconsin citizens concerned with historic preservation, we need to keep a focus on what unites us. While there have been gigantic leaps in the methodology of historic preservation over the past decades, the landscape has changed markedly. With more groups competing for scarcer resources, we have come to rely increasingly on the private sector to revitalize our historic buildings and neighborhoods. While study upon study has shown that historic preservation makes economic sense, that is not enough of a catalyst to motivate developers to rehabilitate the old in favor of building new.

Historic preservation is inextricably tied to environmental sustainability, which is becoming an increasingly widespread core value in our society. As advocates for historic preservation, we need to work to achieve a similar status for our cause. We must make the retention and rehabilitation of our significant historic structures and sites the norm, rather than the result of a series of hard-fought battles.

While the Trust plans to work with communities across the state to save the places that matter to all of us, the ultimate goal of the "New" Trust is that historic preservation become more of a commonplace standard in the ongoing development of our communities.

A Tribute to UW Professor Emerita Jane N. Graff

Jane N. Graff's life's work had been to provide program support to UW Extension Faculty as a professor in the Department of Related Art within the University of Wisconsin School of Home Economics (currently known as the School of Human Ecology). She worked in this capacity for 32 years, following which she received professor emerita status.

Beginning her career with the University in 1959, Professor Graff lived "the Wisconsin Idea" through her to outreach to Wisconsin families by way of newsletters, radio, television and other media. Her principal focus was the home environment and its impact on the Wisconsin family. By the 1970s her passion for textiles led to her work with 4-H groups in textile design and fueled her research into historic quilts. She was deeply involved with the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection in the School of Human Ecology. In fact, her commitment to the collection is reflected in her endowment of a position for a research assistant to work with the materials.

Professor Graff passed away on August 7, 2008 at the age of 81. In death, she demonstrated the same generosity that characterized her life. Her generous bequest to the Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation, Inc. has been the central impetus behind the current revitalization of the organization. As we carry the mission of the Wisconsin Trust forward, Professor Graff always will remain an inspiration for her dedication and generosity.

Photograph of Professor Jane Graff (1972)
working with UW-Extension group courtesy of
University of Wisconsin Archives.

Why the Preservation of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin Matters

"It is my candidate for the title of the greatest single building in America.”(Robert Campbell, “House Proud,” Boston Globe Magazine)

Taliesin is, in many ways, Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography, architectural manifesto, and sketchbook. From its original construction in 1911, Wright continually changed, experimented with, and rethought Taliesin until his death in 1959. It was an intensely personal building and became the crucible for many of his ideas about Organic architecture, the “complete expression of Wright’s integration of architecture and nature.” (Neil Levine, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright).

Recognition of Taliesin’s national significance came in 1976, when the residence, and the 600-acre Taliesin estate with four other Wright-designed structures, was awarded National Historic Landmark status. In 1999, the American Society of Landscape Architects awarded the Taliesin estate with a centennial medallion, recognizing it as one of the most important landscapes in the United States. In 2008, the National Park Service placed Taliesin, along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright-designed structures, on a tentative list of sites that was submitted to the World Heritage Committee in 2009 for World Heritage Status.

While the architect was onsite for much of the initial construction, the structure was not built in a conventional manner: there are very few construction drawings, no contract documents regarding the building, and few specifications related to it. In addition to Wright’s initial approach to the building, it suffered two devastating fires (1914 and 1925), from which he had to rebuild.

The preservation policy used by Taliesin’s owners (the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation) and its stewards (Taliesin Preservation, Inc.) is the result of approved standards and procedures developed by the United States Secretary of the Interior. This policy allows us to consistently balance appropriate remedial measures with Frank Lloyd Wright’s approach to his home as it evolved through the second half of his life.

Article provided by Taliesin Preservation, Inc.

Not Always a Happy Ending

Oshkosh's Coles Bashford House (constructed in 1854/no longer extant) was the residence of Wisconsin's first Republican Governor, who was known for his strident anti-slavery stance. Elected in 1856, Governor Bashford served a single term. He later moved southwest and was the first appointed attorney general, and held a number of other positions, in the territorial government of the Arizona.

Bashford's Oshkosh residence, which reportedly had been constructed in a Greek Revival style, was modified by subsequent owners into the Gothic Revival residence seen in the circa 1887 photo (above) provided by the Oshkosh Public Museum. In 1911, the residence was purchased by the Elizabeth B. Davis Trust to be used as an orphanage for girls.

Continuously maintained by the E. B. Davis Foundation, the house later was used as a half-way house for boys. It was functioning as a daycare center in 2004, when the foundation built a new facility and vacated the residence. Despite the efforts of a group formed specifically to save the house, which included a successful fund-raising effort and its listing on the 2006 Wisconsin Trust's "1o Most Endangered" list, the house was demolished that same year. As one of the oldest houses in the community, and one that also had a significant association with a prominent Wisconsin citizen, this was a big loss for the City of Oshkosh.

It is part of the mission of the Wisconsin Trust to impart the idea of historic preservation as a core community value, and that demolition (as opposed to rehabilitation) be considered only as a last resort for much of our historic building stock. This is especially true for our historically and architecturally significant structures, such as the Coles Bashford House.

Taliesin in Spring Green included on International 2010 "Watch List"

The World Monuments Fund included Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin, on its 2010 Watch List. The U.S. based organization is dedicated to bringing attention to threatened historic structures of international significance. For over forty years, it has worked in more than ninety countries establishing partnerships with local communities and governments, banks and other funding sources, to inspire an enduring commitment to the stewardship of the built environment.

Please click here to see the Press Release.

Working to Preserve Wisconsin's Historic Architecture

In upcoming months, the Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation will assume a new presence and stronger voice in promoting historic preservation as an important core value in our state. The Trust will be reviving old programs, including advocacy for our state’s threatened historic structures, and implementing new ones such as social networking opportunities and on-line information sharing. A generous bequest from the estate of University of Wisconsin Professor Emerita Jane N. Graff has given the WTHP new impetus to fulfill its long held mission to do “all things necessary to educate and encourage the citizens of Wisconsin, present and future, to enjoy with pride their cultural heritage as is embodied in the built environment . . .”