John and Kimberly Pederson flip through an album of photos from the early years of their family.
The snapshots are misty mirrors of the hopes and dreams of the past, the kind we all collect of toddlers and Christmas trees and bright summer days.
For the Pedersons, there also are pictures of cracks in the walls, a little water damage on the ceiling, a light switch plate and stripping years of paint from a hardwood door. Building a fence, a pile of concrete, the lush spring lawn and the sagging porch before John fixed it.
And all the stories that go with them.
This was their first house: 628 W. 20th St.
It was at the top of their price range when they bought it in 1991. It needed work, to be sure, but John saw an opportunity to make something for his young family by pouring energy, muscle and determination.
It was the chance at something better.
“I put in 10 years of my young life to make this,” John says, standing with Kimberly on the Duluth Avenue side of the corner lot, pointing out small details and features, the colors of the paint they chose, the five layers of shingles that needed to be removed.
“It wasn't a house, it was our home, so it was just a passion.”
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Now the house, designed by Sioux Falls architect Wallace L. Dow, is at the center of a public conundrum over the value of historic preservation and the responsibility to maintain core neighborhoods.
The house is in disrepair. Photos show ceilings caved in from water flowing freely through holes in the roof, which is scantily covered by long-gone or peeling shingles.
The Sioux Falls Board of Historic Preservation last week declined to give Sanford Health permission to raze the house, citing its status on the National Register of Historic Places.
The conversation isn’t over, however. After an examination by the State Historic Preservation Office, the fate of the house will come before the Sioux Falls City Council.
That’s the future.
On this lovely April afternoon visit to their former home, the Pedersons are immersed in their past.
John loved the story. The more he learned, the more he loved, the harder he worked.
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Dow designed the Victorian Queen Anne-style house in 1898 for veterinarian Daniel Lund and his wife Betsy.
It wasn’t fancy, even by late 19th century Sioux Falls standards. But it did have character, extra details here and there, prominent dormers on all four sides, stained glass and stunning floors.
A bit of tile for the hearth imported from Spain.
The chimney was carefully assembled with a stone from every county in South Dakota.
In 1998, John decided it would be appropriate to have its significance recognized. So he looked into listing it on the National Register of Historic Places.
It wasn’t a simple process. For one, there needed to be someone of historical stature who had lived there.
It turned out that former Mayor Rick Knobe had owned the home for about a decade beginning in 1975.
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“I thought well that'd be kind of neat, if I could get this put on the historical register on the 100th birthday of the home,” John says. “That's exactly what went through my mind.”
When the Pedersons moved in, they had a young daughter, but by the end of the 1990s they were four with the addition of a son.
It’s a well-worn path from your first house in the city’s core to something larger to accommodate a growing family. That was true for the Pedersons as well when they moved into blossoming western Sioux Falls in 2000.
John has spent more than 30 years working in customer service, in retail and the automotive industry. But he always had an interest in fixing things, which has included owning, improving and selling rental property.
That skill germinated on 20th Street, a realization that settles in as John and Kimberly take in the current state of things.
“I didn't make a career out of working on houses, but it was our first home. That's what makes it special, and then all the time you had into it … to kind of…”
John trails off for a moment.
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“... and just the allegiance that I think I gave to the home, you know, the way it was born, when it was new, bringing it back with some character and stuff like that.”
Kimberly seems to sense the moment in her husband.
“It just makes you tearful now, seeing it,” she says, “after all the hard work he did.”
BELOW: The Pedersons walked through the house when it was up for rent in 2017.
John’s not lost in sentimentality.
“That's how things are,” he says. “I drive by, just checking on the old house, just seeing the condition of it. And up until recently, when they quit renting it due to that water, it always looked just about as good as it did almost 20 years before, when I owned it. I felt really good about that because people took care of it.”
Sanford, through a handful of business entities, owns nearly all the homes in the neighborhood. It’s a residual of abandoned plans to expand 20th Street into a grand boulevard entrance to the Sioux Falls hospital campus.
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Today, Sanford owns 186 parcels – about 70 percent of the land mass – from Grange to Minnesota avenues, between 18th and 22nd streets. Some of the houses are in better shape than others, but many aren’t occupied.
Sanford has said they have increased the repair budget by 15 percent and are committed to being good neighbors, while maintaining their options for future expansion.
The Pederson’s former home – because of John’s passion – is the only house in the neighborhood with the historic designation, however.
Saving this one house would be expensive, John says, and he’s not certain it’s even possible at this point. But the ideal situation would be if Sanford helped find someone who wanted to do the hard work to make that happen.
It’s the hospital system’s responsibility, he believes, because they decided not to fix the roof at some point, which let the water flow in and slowly destroy everything in its path.
Other landowners would not have been able to let things slide this long, John says.
“Sanford provides great health care, but what we all know is that it's all about the American dollar,” he says. “And when it comes time to, I think for them to fix a mistake, they're not above the law.”
The photo album is a before-and-after historical record. The living room, the kitchen and bathroom, once an expression of old-world detail, now covered in collapsed plaster.
From the roof, a resident squirrel chatters loudly at the perceived intruders.
In the sky, a bald eagle glides in diagonal, northwest to southeast. The couple watches as it rides the afternoon breeze against a peaceful, pale blue background.
“That’s cool,” says John. “My dad loved eagles.”
Kimberly shades her eyes against the sun’s glare.
“Maybe he’s checking up on you.”
The eagle banks above the house and turns a few circles before dropping below the tree line and out of sight.
The Trust Project
