The House On Hill

THE HOUSE ON HILL

First Presbyterian Church has right to decide fate of former coffee house

What may be the hottest piece of property in town is in disrepair, unoccupied and living on its past.

The house at 1421 Hill St. is known by several names. Historic preservationists know it as the Henry Carter Adams house, dating to 1894. Other people nostalgically recall The Ark coffeehouse which was located there from the early ’60s until its relocation in 1984.

For others, mostly people connected with the First Presbyterian Church - the house’s owner - the place is known simply as Hill House.

Whatever its name, the property is becoming a controversial public issue. The North Burns Park Association, among others, is determined to save the Adams house and turn it to some useful purpose.

But what? The association’s suggestions include conversion to family home, condominium, group home, day-care center and bed-and-breakfast inn. In the meantime, the house is awaiting official designation as a site on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historic designation is protection. The house would have to be included as part of a larger historic district to warrant special status. That is a process which takes time, legwork and action by City Hall.

For the preservationists and similarly-inclined Hill Street neighbors, time is an ally. Not so, necessarily, for the church whose governing board, called the session, is eager for resolution of the Hill Street property after years of debating the matter.

From the church’s standpoint, the house Is increasingly a liability. Opinion is divided as to its structural soundness. Getting the place shipshape, up to code and habitable would cost, conservatively, $200,000 to $300,000. Most churches don’t have that kind of money to sink into “improvements,” and neither, apparently, do the Presbyterians.

Church Administrator Carl Geider put it in terms of “choosing not to rehabilitate an old structure that would require too much in financial funds and energy to be practicable.”

The church’s needs include more parking. Even though the parking structure on Forest Street, one side of busy Washtenaw Avenue and both sides of Hill Street are open for parking on Sundays, the church is looking for ways to more easily accommodate its parishioners.

Demolition of Hill House and turning the grounds into a parking lot may be objectionable to the purists and lovers of old structures, but at some time sentiment must yield to practicality. Over the years, the church has been generous to the Ark and its resident managers. The church has been patient on the matter of the disposition of Hill House.

Offers to buy the property have been solicited. Once the church thought it had a solid sale, but the deal fell through. Other proposals from prospective buyers have had to be rejected for various supportable reasons. The church’s concern at this point is less with the building itself than with the property on which it sits and retention of access to Hill Street through an alley.

If a theological metaphor may be permitted, the church is between the devil and the deep blue sea. It knows the public outcry that will result from a sale which ends in demolition of the house. It knows that public memories are short relative to the church’s role in sponsoring a coffeehouse which grew to national fame.

But as titleholder to the property, the church holds first claim to Hill House. The church can rightly ask: Where were all the people who want to save Hill House when the issue first came up years ago? When the Ark had outgrown its original purpose and was being urged to relocate and become independent, why didn’t its supporters rush in with open checkbooks?

Memories are lovely but these aren’t the ’60s any more. Admittedly, every decision of this nature is a judgment call, but not every old structure in town is worth preserving, Waterman Gym being a fairly recent example.

Now the church is being asked to put its own needs second while waiting for a community consensus to emerge on Hill House. That seems unfair in light of two decades’ history.

It’s the church’s turn to call the tune; whatever it decides to do with Hill House will be a decision on which great thought and care have been taken, and therefore fully defensible.

THE ANN ARBOR NEWS

The Ann Arbor News Editorial Review Board includes the publisher, editor, metro editor, editorial page editor and editorial writer and members of the newsroom staff who serve on rotating six-week terms.