Saving Tuthill House brings neighborhood together

Kathy English doesn’t remember a time in her more than 40 years living in the Tuthill neighborhood when the city parks board hosted a meeting just to talk about Tuthill Park.

So when she noticed Tuthill Park was the main topic of discussion in a late-October meeting last fall, she wanted to know what was going on.

She rallied her friend and neighbor Margaret Blomberg, and the two women were among about a dozen in the small conference room at the Prairie Green Golf Course.

“They just casually mentioned, ‘Oh, we’re demolishing the (Tuthill Park) house in December,’” English said. “That didn’t sit very well with us.”

They set out to save the more than 140-year-old house, and they succeeded.

Today, nine months later, English and Blomberg are working with contractors to plan both interior and exterior renovations of the house.

They’ve raised nearly $300,000, and they’ve formed a neighborhood association they hope will continue to bring neighbors together for years to come.

“We hope it generates a sense of community,” Blomberg said.

Neighborhood associations have been around in Sioux Falls for years, and it’s not uncommon for them to start when neighbors unite around a common cause, said Diane deKoeyer, neighborhood and preservation planner with the city of Sioux Falls.

But starting with a six-figure historic home renovation project?

“It’s unique,” deKoeyer said.

How neighbors came together

After the initial parks board recommendation to tear down the house, English and Blomberg began knocking on doors in the neighborhood to let others know about the city’s plan to tear down the historic home.

The duo also began working with the Sioux Falls Board of Historic Preservation to figure out a path forward for saving the house.

Initial plans involved restoring just the exterior of the home with new siding, a new roof and new windows with an estimated cost of $120,000.

With that goal in mind, the women began taking pledges from donors, asking people to write letters to City Council members  and collect signatures for an informal petition to save the house.

Their efforts worked.

Councilors in December voted unanimously to save the house from demolition, and they gave their blessing to gift the home to the neighborhood association with the plan that after restorations it’ll be gifted back to the city.

The city also plans to invest in the park with a new restroom and a location where parks department staff can report to work.

Earlier this year, English and Blomberg expanded their efforts to form a committee to talk about the house’s future and plan restorations.

In those conversations, the plan changed from renovating just the outside of the building to doing a full interior restoration as well to get the house closer to its original look but with amenities up to modern codes.

The new price tag was an estimated $300,000, and in the months since, it’s likely the costs have increased by $75,000, the women said.

Funding also came in the form of a $50,000 Dorothy Day Davenport grant through the Mary Chilton Daughters of the American Revolution.

“We are excited about the positive impact the Tuthill House project will have in promoting historic preservation as a community asset,” local chapter regent Judy Goetz said  in a statement announcing the grant winner.

Winning that inaugural grant helped “tremendously,” English said.

What happens next?

Restoration of the Tuthill House’s exterior is expected to start around Oct. 1, just less than a year after the initial meeting announcing the home’s demolition.

Interior renovations will continue through the winter, with a projected open date of June 1, 2022, English said.

The hope is that new leaders will take over the neighborhood association and carry English and Blomberg’s work forward by hosting events at the house and bringing more activities to the park like music or get-togethers.

“That’s the value of having the association in place,” Blomberg said.

It’s possible the new neighborhood association will also be able to turn its attention to traffic concerns, deKoeyer said.

“I could see where they might have a request to do something like a solar speed sign,” she said.

But, at the end of the day, the new association is an outlet for these neighbors to come together and unite around the strong identity of living where they do.

“I think it is just really a great sense of pride in what they’re doing,” deKoeyer said. “All the people that live in that area have a lot of pride just in having the park right there.”

How could the Tuthill House be restored? Here’s a look