PROFILE | Julie Cellini
“What did I know about restoring old buildings when I started out? Absolutely nothing,” recalls Carolyn Oxtoby, who is often called “the patron saint of downtown Springfield” for her work as a real estate developer. Recently Oxtoby was in Chicago to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from Landmarks Illinois as part of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation’s initiative to recognize Illinois citizens and communities committed to protecting their architectural heritage.
Oxtoby says she probably became a preservationist before the term was widely known.
Although she liked history, she studied French language and literature in the 1950s at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass. Then she came home to Springfield and married Bob Oxtoby, an up and coming young attorney.
“I spent the next 20 or so years raising three kids. Nothing I’d ever done prepared me to save historic structures from demolition. I guess you can say I learned on the job. In the process I found the passion that has carried me through the past 40 years.”
Oxtoby, 79, credits local history enthusiasts Jim and Edith Myers with igniting her preservationist sensibilities in the mid 1970s when they asked her to help them buy and restore the Lincoln Herndon Law Office at Sixth and Adams streets.
”I learned a lot doing the law office,” she says. “We hired then state historian Jim Hickey to research and authenticate the building using what sources were available, including the Library of Congress. The state owns it now, and they know a lot more now about how the building was actually configured in Lincoln’s time. We put our time and resources into it, but our priority when we took it on was saving it.” Oxtoby doesn’t recall how much the project cost them.
“The Myers had their Prairie House art gallery and shop there, so there was commercial space in addition to historic interpretation space. But we never charged admission for visitors to see the office or court rooms. It was something we considered important to anchor historic downtown.”
Oxtoby credits her husband’s legal and financial knowledge for helping her learn the basics of real estate development. She likes the hands-on involvement of construction, but relies heavily on local architects to manage her projects.