A grassroots effort to save Kenyon Hall took on new importance Wednesday afternoon after the Emporia City Commission voted 3-2 to allow the building to be demolished.
The decision is not what Mary Reber-Charboneau hoped to see.
“I understand that if it’s going to exist, it still needs to have a useful life,” she said. “But I don’t want it to go away. We tear down way too much in this town.”
Reber-Charboneau is a member of Rock of Life Church, the previous owner of the building. Back in 2004, she explored ways of placing the building on the National Register of Historic Places, intensifying her research after the Kansas State Historical Society told her the building would likely qualify.
But the application wasn’t finished before the building was sold Feb. 22 to Mitchell-Markowitz Construction, which applied for a demolition permit about two weeks later. The Kansas State Historical Society filed an objection to the permit because Kenyon Hall, the former administration building for the now-defunct College of Emporia, sits near Anderson Library, which is on the Historic Register.
The objection meant that Kenyon’s demolition permit had to come to a city vote before it could proceed.
Stay or go?
The news that Kenyon might be torn down produced mixed reactions among those who know the building.
Paul James had a lot of fond memories of the building. He attended the College of Emporia from 1957 to 1961 and then taught there from 1969 to 1973. But despite many good times, he said, Kenyon Hall’s day may have passed.
“I’m not opposed to Kenyon Hall being razed,” he said. “I went through it a few years ago and it’s in such disrepair that frankly, unless a philanthropist just puts money into it and gets it back in shape, I don’t see that there’s any way it can be viable.”
“It’s like a lot of old buildings,” James added. “They have to serve their time and then they’re gone.”
Edward McKernan, a student at the college from 1966 to 1970, agreed that it would be a shame for Kenyon to go.
“It was just a nice, big old building,” said McKernan, who came to the college from New York and ended up remaining in Emporia. “I wouldn’t want to see that happen. ... I’d hate to see them tear it down.”
Kenneth Lerman graduated from the College of Emporia in 1972, coming to the school after service in the Vietnam War. He is now a management consultant in Wichita.
“The steps all the way to the third floor were worn down perfectly by the loving spirits and souls who traveled them, some to receive a first-rate education, others to provide a first-rate education,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette. “I found a richness, a wife of 31 years and a Kansas home and career that started with the College of Emporia and Kenyon Hall. You can take the building, but you can’t take the warmth and supporting memories of Kenyon Hall and Emporia, Kansas from me.”
School days
Kenyon Hall was not part of the College of Emporia when the Presbyterian school opened its doors in 1883. It was built only after the college’s first building, Stuart Hall, burned down in December 1915. Modifying a school cheer, a sign was placed at the site of the devastation, “C of E (still) fights.”
Work on Kenyon Hall began in 1917 and would continue for 11 years. The first part to be completed was a music conservatory toward the back, playing to one of the school’s strengths. The head of the music department, Daniel Hirschler, was well-known and the campus had played host to the New York Philharmonic and composer-musician Percy Grainger.
The new building, which housed offices, classrooms and a chapel-auditorium, was completed 1928 and named for local businessman John Spencer Kenyon, who left $100,000 to the college in his will. The money was used to pay for the facade of the building.
Kenyon Hall’s high windows and central chapel left an impression on many. But there were a few other tricks to the building as well. Gazette publisher William Allen White, who was a trustee of the college for 30 years, established a browsing library there. Much of it consisted of poetry, mythology, philosophy and other works he considered uplifting for college students.
More familiar to some students was “Pete’s Parlor” or “Presby Pete’s,” the snack bar in Kenyon Hall’s basement.
“That was where you could eat, dance, socialize a little bit,” said James. “They even had a jukebox in the evenings.”
In a 1993 Gazette article, Don and Elaine Ek talked about how they met at the Kenyon Hall snack bar and soon began dating in the spring of 1949.
“He kidded around a lot,” Elaine Ek told The Gazette in the article. “And so when he asked me out, I thought he was kidding and said no.”
Kenyon Hall even gained some national exposure in 1944, when White’s funeral was held there. The coverage included a feature in Life magazine.
Keeping Kenyon
Financial problems finally closed the college in 1973, just after the end of the winter semester. For the next several years, Kenyon Hall and the rest of the campus would be owned by The Way International, a religious group accused by some of being a cult.
Shortly after the takeover, Kenyon received some refurbishing. The auditorium was carpeted and the stage floor refinished. A new lighting system was put in along with new dressing rooms.
Enrollment at The Way College of Emporia had dwindled by the late 1980s — at one point in 1987, the school had 90 students. By 1991, the building had been taken over by the C of E Development Co., a group intent on finding a new use for the building.
The group at first intended to donate the building to the city. But estimates were that the building would cost $1.8 million to remodel and more than $100,000 a year to operate.
The company hoped to find a new owner in one year. It took two.
“It’s D-Day for Kenyon,” Don Hill, a partner in C of E Development Co. told The Gazette in 1993. “We have a decision to make ... either sell it or keep it in our inventory. There’s not a great likelihood we’ll continue to own the building.”
The building was purchased that year by the Rock of Life Church for $15,000. The church was granted occupancy in 1994 after completing a 50-car parking area.
But in the end, a financial squeeze pushed the church out as well. The church sold Kenyon Hall to Mitchell-Markowitz Construction.
“We used to get money from Birch and the National Teachers Hall of Fame to use the parking,” said Reber-Charboneau, a church member who was married in Kenyon. “Without them, there weren’t enough people going to Rock of Life to pay the cost of operating that boiler in the wintertime.”
Both sides
Supporters on both sides of the issue — preservation or demolition — spoke to city commissioners at their meeting Wednesday afternoon.
Dave Markowitz told commissioners that the ground was valuable, but that the building would cost far too much to restore. In addition to roof and masonry work, he said, Kenyon would need new mechanical, electric and plumbing systems as well as modifications for handicapped accessibility.
On top of that, partner Rick Mitchell said, he couldn’t see what the building could be used for even if it were restored.
“We appreciate the history of the building and the architectural value of it, but there just isn’t an end use,” he said. “It’s a great old building. You don’t like tearing old buildings down. But if we don’t have a use for it, we don’t need another old building sitting empty.”
But Lyon County Historical Society board member Steve Hanschu said he was trying to find someone to buy the building and save it from the bulldozer.
“I did talk to Dave Markowitz and Rick Mitchell afterward and they said they were willing to sell the property if somebody’s willing to buy it for what they paid, plus 15 percent,” Hanschu said. “So I was going to contact some developers who have done similar projects or larger ones and see what the interest is.”
Roll call
Commissioners Ray Toso and Bobbie Agler, along with Mayor Jim Kessler, voted for the demolition permit. They were opposed by commissioners Julie Johnson and Tom Myers.
“Perhaps it’s irrational, but I cannot vote for this building being destroyed,” Myers said. “I would urge my fellow commissioners to ... give it another year or two for someone to save a unique piece of architecture.”
But those in favor said there was no other prudent course remaining. Since the college closed in 1974, Toso said, nobody had really found a solid use for the building or been able to keep it up.
“Unfortunately, sometimes we have to move on,” Kessler agreed.
Under state law, the city has to give notice of the decision to the state historical society within five days, after which demolition can begin. Anyone wishing to block the demolition has the option to sue at any time, forcing the matter into the courts.
Hanschu said he’d prefer to find someone willing to take the building off Mitchell-Markowitz’s hands rather than open up a legal battle.
“With the other, no one comes up a winner,” Hanschu said.