The original structure was built by James L. Canavan between 1869-1872 as a broom factory. It was one open space on each of three levels: basement, ground floor, and second floor, on a footprint of 1,000 square feet, filling the width of the 25’ lot. Between 1912, when Canavan stopped producing brooms, and 1920, the building contained an unknown number of other businesses, such as a telephone switchboard repair company depicted on the 1918 Sanborn Fire Map (Image 1).
In 1920, the building became one of several corner grocery stores in North Lawrence. This store was owned by the Pine Brothers, and then by the Wiley family until 1960. The Wileys converted the upstairs into an apartment in the 1920s (Image 2). The 1,500 sq. ft. addition, identified as a “workshop”, was also added between 1918 and 1927 (Sanborn Fire Map, Image 3), extending the building to within five feet of the north property line. Many older North Lawrence residents still remember going into Wiley Bros. for penny candy as children.
In 1927, the building was originally zoned single family residential while primarily a retail space. City planners may have simply drawn straight lines on the grid streets layout without much regard for the actual uses of the land (Image 4). For example, neighboring houses facing Locust Street are zoned Light Industrial (because of the proximity to the railroad tracks).
In 1960, the building was purchased by Huxtable Heating & Air Conditioning Inc, which used the full 2,500 sq. ft. ground floor for light manufacturing, specifically a sheet metal shop. The upstairs apartment was converted into two efficiency apartments, where some of their employees lived. In 1966, during a city-wide rezoning effort, the building was again zoned as a single family residence, though most of the building was being used for this light manufacturing purpose.
In 1974, my parents purchased the building for my dad Gunter de Vries’ carpenter’s shop, known as Woodcrafter’s Guild (Image 5), which filled the entire ground floor front to back. The two efficiency apartments upstairs were recombined into a single apartment in 1979. In 1992, the downstairs storefront space was converted to residential use, downsizing the workshop to its current size and configuration.
In 2000, the residence was split back into two separate spaces, one upstairs and one on the ground floor, and rented as two apartments until November 2016. Although I was aware that my ultimate long term goal of having a Artisian makerspace or asmall corner grocery store in the building would require a rezoning requestng. Changing the , I did not know until after the building was condemned that it could not, in fact, continue to be used for anything other than one residence under the current zoni zoning of this property to limited MU reflects both its historic and intended uses.
Image 6 shows the building in 2017.