2320 Colfax Ave. S. aka the Orth House, as it appeared on the Healy Project’s first Wedge walking tour, May 2010.–Photo by Trilby Busch

The previous post showed how owner Mike Crow repeatedly gave false testimony during public hearings and in court in order to get a demolition permit for his property at 2320 Colfax Avenue South. His lies were then passed on in the testimony of City Planner John Smoley.

This post turns to the others who perpetrated these lies:  the Lander Group’s hired credentialed preservation expert, Amy Lucas; the owner’s real estate broker, Tom Dunn; and Pete Keely of Collage Architects, head of the Lander Group’s development team.

In the fall of 2012, Michael Lander’s architect Pete Keely made a presentation of the plans for a proposed apartment building at 2316-2320 Colfax before the Lowry Hill East (Wedge) Neighborhood Association. Most of the meeting was devoted to showing plans and explaining the project. The meeting was packed with local residents, of which a sizable majority were opposed to wrecking the two houses on the site.

As controversy grew over the proposed demolition of the Healy-designed house at 2320 Colfax Avenue South, the pro-demolition forces seized on Crow’s public statements about its condition, setting up an echo-chamber effect in their individual statements.

Amy Lucas of Landscape Research, who had been hired by the developer to assess 2320’s historic importance, agreed with City Planner Smoley’s findings in the initial Staff report (September 25, 2012), specifically, that the property did not meet the criteria for local designation “due to lack of historic significance.”

In a letter to Pete Keely (December 12, 2012) Lucas reports: “Fires in 1991 and 2011 have left little interior fabric. The second and third floors have been completely rebuilt; the first floor entry hall retains some wood paneling and stair railing. . .The house at 2320 Colfax Avenue South has extensive integrity issues and is no longer representative of an intact Healy design.”

Neighborhood showdown vote: The Lander apartment proposal fails to win the approval of the LHENA Board. Lucas and Keely testified for the developer. January 16, 2013.–Photo by Anders Christensen

Lucas presumably went through the house, yet for some reason she did not observe any of the appointments and architectural features that remained in the private rooms on the first and second floor, and instead repeated what Crow had said about the house, namely, that fire had destroyed the upper two floors.

Throughout the hearings on 2320 during 2012-2013, Lucas’s opinion remained completely in line with owner Mike Crow’s testimony.  In her Historic Evaluation of 2320 in March 2014, Lucas reports: “The second and third floors were burned and the 1992 rehabilitation removed flooring, walls and doors. The plan of the upper floors was also changed during the renovation. At the interior, the second and third floors were completely reconfigured after the 1991 fire; all historic fabric was removed from these floors. [. . .]The house at 2320 Colfax Avenue South maintains its historic location, but possesses poor integrity in setting, design, materials, and workmanship. The house burned in 1991 and has been converted into a rooming house. The majority of the historic features and historic materials have been removed and/or covered.”

At the Heritage Preservation Commission’s hearing on March 18, 2014, on Crow’s appeal to issue a demolition permit for an historic resource, Lucas testified: “I don’t know if any of you have been in the house, but when it burned the second and third floors burned completely. So they were rebuilt as small rooms upstairs. [. . . ] [The house] today no longer has the integrity of its original design. The interior has been muddled greatly.”

Ironically, she allegedly had been inside the house, examining it for her report, yet somehow she did not see that the layout and rooms on the second floor were intact in their original configuration.  The existing cove ceilings and baseboard trim revealed during salvage operations strongly suggest minimal to no changes there.

In District Court in May of 2014, Lucas gave similar testimony.  Although John Smoley acknowledged to the court that Anders Christensen’s research is the primary source of information about T.P. Healy’s work, under cross-examination,  Lucas would not acknowledge Christensen’s expertise, suggesting that somehow she got her information from other sources.

The main staircase looking down from the second floor, February 2013.–Photo by Trilby Busch

In preparation for that March hearing, Collage Architects, represented by Pete Keely, submitted a memo to the HPC on behalf of the Lander Group Development Team (February 17, 2014). This memo contains the same inaccuracies as Lucas’s, and throws around some figures for good measure: “Although this property was designed and constructed by T.P. Healy, the home is nothing close to the original construction. Over 75% of the original materials in the home have been replaced due to extensive fires, and insensitive remodeling.[…]2320 Colfax has extensive integrity issues and is no longer representative of an intact Healy designed home. Nearly all of the construction above the first floor and most of the first floor are not Healy constructed components as these have all been replaced.[…]

Over 75% of the home has been changed. This house is beyond restoration and would require re-construction [sic] to bring it back to the home originally designed and constructed. Approximately 80% of the original siding is severely damaged or missing and was a major cause for the re-siding in 1960 and 2003.”

One wonders where they got the figures from–clearly, not from looking into the rooms and under the top siding.

At the hearing Pete Keely reaffirmed the claims articulated in the memo:  “We are here to say that the integrity of the home, the usefulness of the home has gone away. [. . .]There is really not much left of that original home, and so in terms of the integrity which has already been talked about, the dollars put forth into it already muddy waters as to what is real or not real.”

One can certainly agree about the “muddying waters” aspect of this testimony, not to mention the ironic “what is real and what is not”.

Humans and canines assemble in front of the Orth House to proclaim, “This Place Matters” to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, May 5, 2014–Photo by Bradley Lemire

Another person who stood to reap significant gain by bringing 2320 down is real estate broker Tom Dunn. His aptly named company is called Terra Firma, that is, Latin for ‘land”–not Domum for “home”. Dunn contended from the beginning that he had tried to sell the house as investment property, but failed. He asserted over and over that the rooming house rental model is no longer financially feasible, and that he could not find a buyer interested in the house as a residence.

When asked point blank at a Zoning and Planning Committee hearing if he had offered the house for sale via the Multiple Listing Service, Dunn answered, “Yes.” ( May 21, 2013). However, a check of MLS records finds no evidence that Dunn ever listed the house on the service, revealing a lie that is solely of Dunn’s doing.

Anders Christensen being interviewed by a KARE11-TV reporter in front of the Orth House after the HPC rejected Mike Crow’s appeal to demolish an historic resource, March 5, 2014–Photo by Ceridwen Christensen

At the March 2014 HPC hearing on the appeal to demolish an historic resource, Dunn waxed metaphorical in an extremely ironic plea for commissioners to see through the “myths” about 2320:

“I want you to listen to the facts as they are being presented. Did you know that the Vikings didn’t have horns on their helmets? They didn’t have horns on their helmets. That was a rumor started by ancient Romans and that’s a myth that’s been perpetuated  throughout time and that’s  essentially what’s being done. A myth of the historic nature of this building when there really is none. So I really want you and encourage you to listen to the facts. [. . .]

There is just no reason to stand in the way of allowing this project to go forward, other than based on some logic that you’re committed to a cause of some kind. But in this instance it really doesn’t have any relevance. So I just want you to listen to the historic nature, to what the experts are saying about the historic significance of this property. There just isn’t any.”

Dunn went on to repeat similar testimony in District Court. If we can believe Crow and his attorney, the sale price of the two parcels at 2316-2320 Colfax as land  is $950,000.  When the sale to the Lander Group closes, Dunn will receive a commission well into five figures.

As the icing on the cake of lies, at the hearing in District Court on December 18, 2014, Crow’s attorney Stephen Harris told the judge that closing on the property would take place on December 22, 2015. Harris asked for a bond of $950,000 should the judge grant an injunction against demolition. Yet as of January 20th, no sale had been recorded, the house was still standing, and Crow has been seen repeatedly going in and out of it. UPDATE: The demolition permit was issued on February 19, 2015, after it was sold to Lander. The house was wrecked on the 25th). Why did Harris tell the judge that the sale was closing just days after the hearing? Is that what Crow told him, or did he make it up in order to get the judge to require a very high bond? Did both of them know that Lander would be doing the demolition?

The Orth House did matter to many of us, but for certain City officials, it mattered only as an obstacle to their plans for new development.

Throughout the two-year-long process of hearings, demolition advocates repeated the same false testimony: that fires had completely destroyed the second and third floors; that the upper floors had been completely rebuilt and reconfigured after the ’91 fire; that remodeling had removed the “historic fabric” of the house; that what was left of the original features was visible in the public spaces; that the house was so far gone it would take a fortune to rehab. Not one of these claims could be supported by a close examination of the house itself.

Owner Mike Crow was careful to allow access only to the entryway, hallways, and front parlor when he showed the house. But does this excuse those whose testimony apparently was based only on the appearance these spaces? Did these people, who will benefit financially from getting the Lander development project through, bother to question Crow’s assertions? Did they examine the private spaces of the house? If so, how did they fail to see and to report what was revealed by the salvage operations in December?

Jonathan Swift’s observation that “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it” is a good assessment of what happened during the process of testimony regarding the importance and condition of the Orth House at 2320 Colfax Avenue South. It’s both infuriating and heartbreaking that the truth was revealed only as the house was undergoing demolition.

Some of us have little trust in the City’s resolve and even desire to correct this corrupted process.  Will truth have to keep limping behind lies in public testimony? Only time will tell.

–T.B.

The Orth House awaiting demolition on New Year’s Eve, 2014.–Photo by Bob Roscoe