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Show Architects pot a new face-on old Park City by DAVID HAMPSHIRE Record contributing writer The firm didn't even exist when the buildings went up. Nor, for that matter, did any of its employees. Yet the name Wallace N. Cooper n and Associates is synonymous with Park City's best-known remaining historic structures. Architect Wallace N. Cooper II (he prefers to be called W ally) has made a specialty out of rescuing old buildings. Take a stroll through the firm's portfolio and you'll find virtually every major Park City historic building rehabilitated reha-bilitated within the past five years: the Miners' Hospital, the old City Hall and Ten O'Clock Whistle, the Washington School Inn, the Masonic Hall. Cooper is quick to share the credit for the work done by the company. He says a crucial role in all the projects has been played by fellow architect Allen Roberts, best known in Park City as a member of the Historic District Commission. Ironically, neither Cooper nor Roberts has ever lived in Park City, and their firm's headquarters head-quarters is a refurbished storefront store-front a few blocks from Temple Square in Salt Lake City. But its involvement in Park City predates many of the town's current residents. The year was 1976. Cooper and Roberts were approached by Park City photographer Nick Nass, who owned a squat, dingy l&W . 4-fc22fe S to . NanChalat "Pretty soon, the very thing they wanted to be part of is gone." On the other end of the spectrum, Cooper said, are those who believe that older necessarily means better. While the detail work in older buildings is often well crafted, the basic structures may be very shaky. "Masonry walls are often filled with rubble, joists are over-spanned," he said. "We should, I believe, save our older buildings, but sometimes it's very hard to do." Roberts has a name for it: Rule of Thumb Architecture. "I remember getting into the interior of a building in Ogden and finding an exterior wall." The problem is especially difficult in Park City, where many buildings are made of wood and have little or no foundations. An example was the old house that Jim and Tina Lewis bought shortly after Tina had completed her term on the council. Cooper and Roberts were called in to help. "It ended up being more time-consuming and expensive than anybody had imagined," Roberts said. "We thought we had more structure to work with than we actually did." COOPER SAID THEY even turned down one project because the building was in such poor shape: the Imperial Hotel on upper Main Street. "We said, "We're not even sure the building can be done because it's totally rotted off at .1 i one-story building on Main btreet across from City Hall. Nass wanted a new look for the building. The finished product was the facade of the Main Street Deli. The strong vertical lines of the false front make the building pretend to be taller than it is, like many of the old storefronts. On the other hand, it contains enough unique elements to set it apart from the surrounding mining-era structures. Their success with the Deli led to other iobs. Thev were given a ' (ill KJU i U frS I ' I Above: Former City Ul I l FV?r Councilwoman Tina Lewis I 1 ii fnnrli sPurred pians to restore rr5v X.. ' '!? !j 1 MJI ig Miners Hospital. Left: ' VQfeS S.Ir fc Wally Cooper (dark suit) yVO Mf AulL- llRrittKni'w. and Allen Roberts gave Vi ' & II PO 11 II El 1 Fir the Main Street Deli a tall 1 i ; kx? - I piiippplirjt facade- David Hampshire Nan Chalat "We were the bearer of bad news. So they went and got another architect." THE REHABILITATION OF THE IMPERIAL HOTEL is now taking place under the direction of Park City architect John Carbine. But Cooper said it isn't being done with the same budget or time constraints he was given. "Those wood frame buildings have a lot of problems," Roberts said. "And yet those are the buildings that give Park City its character." ' contract through the city to draw up plans for 10 other Main Street storefronts. "Out of those drawings, I would say about 50 percent were completed as drawn, another 25 percent were done not as drawn and the other 25 percent were not done at all," Roberts said. BETWEEN 1977 AND 1979, Cooper and company won contracts for a couple of residential projects in Park City. But the big coup came in 1980 when they were asked to study the feasibility of turning the old J b Miners Hospital into the city library. One of the company's blueprints was turned into a poster to promote the project. It was approved by the Park City voters in a 1981 bond election and the reconstruction began. The interior of the pld hospital was stripped to its bare bones, then rebuilt as an elegant home for the city's books. The exterior was meticulously restored to its original 1904 appearance. City residents celebrated the completion of the i project in September 1982 by forming a human chain from Main Street to City Park to pass the books from the old library to the new. The so-called Book Brigade was the inspiration of then City Councilwoman Tina Lewis, the library project's biggest booster. "Tina figures prominently throughout our involvement (in Park City) because she believed in us," Cooper said. The National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized the significance of the project by giving it an award of merit. It was the only such award granted that year to a building west of the Mississippi. While Cooper and the city worked together on the library propect, they found themselves disagreeing over the treatment of the Washington School property on Park Avenue. The firm was approached about five years ago by a California developer who had bought the old 1889 stone building and surrounding property to develop as condominiums. Cooper and Roberts drew up a plan to put several units inside the old building and several more in two adjacent new buildings. THE PARK CITY PLANNING COMMISSION asked that the new building copy the architecture of the old school. "The first meeting we had with them we said, 'We're not willing to do that," Cooper recalled. "That was one project where we did run contrary to the city's wishes." That was also one of the first public debates in Park City over the merits of imitating historic structures versus designing "compatible" modern buildings. The argument still goes on. Although Cooper's philosophy has won converts in city government, many residents still seethe over the appearance of modern buildings like the Main Street Marketplace mall in the Park City Historic District. "Part of the argument is that it's deceptive to create something in the 1980s that looks like the 1890s," Roberts said. But many merchants contend that filling Main Street with modern-looking buildings will drive the tourists away. THE WASHINGTON SCHOOL property was eventually sold to Park City developer Malcolm "Mac" MacQuoid. Cooper was retained as the architect but plans for the new buildings were dropped. Instead, MacQuoid asked for a more intensive use of the school building itself. It was refurbished as a luxurious 15-unit bed and breakfast break-fast inn, and rededicated last June. One of the firm's biggest challenges came in 1983 when it was asked to direct the rehabilitation of the old 1885 City Hall. "It had gone through a fire (1898)," Cooper said. "The structure was shot. The mortar was deteriorated..." The walls needed heavy reinforcement. Layers of paint had to be removed from the exterior masonry. Bricks and concrete ornamentation had to be replaced. Part of the problem, Cooper said, was that he didn't know what the building would be used for. Nevertheless, it was completed in time for the city's centennial celebration in March 1984. It now houses the Park City Museum and the Chamber of CommerceConvention and Visitors' Bureau. AS PART OF THE centennial festivities, Cooper gave a guided tour of the City Hall and another building immediately to the north, the Masonic Hall, on which his firm had also worked. In that project, Roberts and Cooper were guided by a set of the original plans provided by owner David Krajeski. The architects also found, to their delight, that much of the 1908 facade was intact under a layer of siding. The interior of the Masonic Hall also required relatively little work. Krajeski asked that they save as much as they could to keep the integrity inside and out. Cooper emphasized the quality of the work is a reflection of the enthusiasm of the client, whether it is a municipality or a private individual. "It's interesting that our best projects come from our best clients," he said. "That's been consistently the case." Roberts agreed. "I think we've enjoyed Park City as much as anywhere because of the progressive nature of the people." "And, of course, you have the financial base," Cooper added. "The ski industry makes all that possible." Among other local projects, Cooper and Roberts have studied the feasibility of turning the War Veterans Memorial Building, now a recreation complex, into a theater, and turning the Union Pacific Depot into a restaurant. Roberts said his interest in preserving Utah's architectual heritage was sparked by the demolition of the Coalville Tabernacle in the early 1970s. At the time he was a student in environmental design at Brigham Young University. "I got an old Volkswagen and started driving around the state in my free time and took pictures, mainly of religious buildings." THAT WORK LED to a job offer from the Utah State Historical Society as an architectural historian. At the same time, Cooper was working in the office of Salt Lake architect Steven Baird. From there he went to work for the Utah Bicentennial Committee. His first big break as an independent architect came when he was awarded a contract on the Wheeler Historic Farm in Murray. "In fact I went up against two of my former-employers," former-employers," he smiled. Cooper and Roberts joined forces in 1976. Their first office was above the Gutherie Bicycle Shop. Rent was $35 a month. Several moves later they bought an old building at 202 West 300 North in Salt Lake City which had originally served as a corner grocery store. Later tenants had included a radio station and a laundromat. "It raised the biggest cockroaches in Salt Lake City," Cooper grinned. Now refurbished, the building houses a staff of six. Roberts said he finds a striking contrast between Americans and Europeans in their attitude toward preserving old buildings. "We have sort of a no-deposit, no-deposit, no-return society." HE POINTED TO MAIN Street in Park City and South Temple in Salt Lake City. In both cases, he said, developers are knocking down old buildings so they can build new ones which make more efficient use of the land. But, in the process, they are erasing the historic climate which made the land so valuable in the first place. Cooper agreed. "It's not an easy issue, and Park City has wrestled with it for a long, long time... The more development is allowed, the more character is lost." Roberts said Main Street is full of case studies where different approaches have been used in an effort to preserve the historic integrity. "And it's not done yet. I think a lot of key battles are still in front of us." ONE BATTLE IS NOW GOING on over a request to demolish the wood-frame building which once after a three-month waiting period, Bernolfo can known as Art's Hardware). Ironically, Carbine also is the architect on this project, representing owner Jody Bernolfo. As a member of the Historic District Commission, Roberts voted to deny the demolition permit. But, after a three-month waitinp period, Bernolfo can bring in the bulldozers. "We have powers of persuasion but our legal powers are quite limited," he said. Cooper and Roberts argue that an architect should be more than just a mechanism for translating the desires of a developer into reality. "There's a social responsibility that we as architects don't always accept," Cooper said. "Sometimes you walk away from a lucrative job because it violates your sense of integrity," Roberts added. HE SAID PART OF HIS JOB is trying to interpret the-desires of the community, not just the desires of an individual owner. "And the community is not a holistic organism. So you (as an architect) have to assume some of the responsibility." Making their job, more difficult, Robert said, is the shift by the federal government away from providing incentives for refurbishing older buildings. "There are virtually no incentives for restoration of public buildings," he said. Reflecting this change in attitude, Cooper and Roberts are moving more and more into designing new buildings. Some are modest, like the bus shelter next to Dolly's Bookstore. Some are more elaborate, like a passive solar home in Ridgeview. After all, Roberts said, there is good new architecture as well as good old architecture. But it's not difficult to see where his sentiments really lie. David Hampshire recently was appointed director of the Park City Museum. |