A.C. + Julia Burnham House
Demolished: Formerly in Champaign, Illinois
The Burnham House was designed in 1883 by the world-renowned architectural firm of Burnham and Root for prominent residents and local benefactors A.C. and Julia Burnham. A subsequent minor remodeling was designed by the significant architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp. When the house was converted to apartments in the 1940s, careful attention was paid to fitting the units into the existing spaces with minimal negative effect on the historic spaces and elements.
The house remained relatively unchanged as a collection of unique vintage apartments until the Champaign School District purchased it along with many other adjacent historic buildings with the plans of expanding the Central High School campus and adding athletic fields.
Following a sometimes-contentious preservation advocacy campaign aimed at saving the Burnham House, we proposed a win-win situation, in which the house could be moved to a nearby vacant lot, allowing the school to expand, while preserving the architecturally and historically important structure.
The existing building was carefully documented, and plans were made over several months including engaging consultants, contractors, engineers, a mover, and the work was begun in earnest. As we know firsthand from previous building relocation projects, there are countless moving parts and logistical obstacles to surmount when taking on a project like this, particularly one of this size and complexity. When a seemingly arbitrary deadline was passed, the School Board seized the opportunity to immediately terminate the project. The School Board proceeded to spend significant taxpayer money to demolish this and the many other viable historic structures. The timeline proved exceedingly arbitrary, illustrated by the fact that following the demolition, the site remained largely unused for several months.
The crushing defeat of this loss at the hands of short-sighted local officials proved to be a significant professional setback, making us question our previously entrenched views about history, preservation, and sustainability. After enough time had elapsed, we decided to turn this devastating loss into a galvanizing moment, and redouble our efforts to save important places, to preserve history, and divert materials from the landfill. From the rubble of this Burnham and Root designed mansion, we decided to indeed “Make no Little Plans” and the Burnham Group was born. We will work tirelessly to acquire, restore, repurpose, and come up with creative (and sometimes out-of-the-box) solutions to save interesting and significant places.
