Stripped house spurs search for answers

By James Briggs

How did Milwaukee’s historic Zander House transition from “a remarkable state of preservation” in July, as a city report states, to being ravished and left to rot?

The disparate answers are as porous and crooked as the house itself, which is missing at least 16 steel side panels and more than 30 pieces of its roof.

But there are a few facts upon which everyone can agree.

Ronica Pozdol of Brookfield paid $13,000 to buy the Zander House at 3645 S. 20th Place on Milwaukee’s south side. The house, built in 1949 and named after the original owners, is a prefabricated Lustron house. The Lustron Corp. briefly was popular after World War II but went bankrupt in 1950.

Lustron houses in the late 1940s cost about 25 percent less to build than traditional homes. They were marketed toward military veterans returning home from war.

Built with a sturdy steel frame, Lustron houses promised fast assembly and low maintenance. More than 2,500 were built across the United States. There are about 1,500 still standing, including 16 in Milwaukee.

Pozdol, though, was interested in neither the history nor style of Lustron houses. Instead, Pozdol said, she bought the house July 25 to “take the house down and build a new one there.”

The rest of the details, though, as well as the future of the house, are unsettled.

Pozdol and her fiance, Steve Hyland, want to demolish the rest of the structure, but city staff members want the house restored. Milwaukee’s Historic Preservation Commission has granted an interim historic designation, meaning no more work can be done for at least 180 days.

Barring a successful appeal by Pozdol and Hyland, the HPC has 90 days to decide whether to make permanent the historic designation, which would block any construction other than restoration.

Pozdol and Hyland say the condition of the house is beyond restoration, but city officials argue that’s because the couple performed illegal demolition work.

Since late July, Pozdol and Hyland either began dismantling their unwanted Lustron house without a permit, as city officials contend, or they were the victims of a thief, or thieves, who descended upon the house and stole the signature steel panels.

Hyland, said Michael Demski, a condemnation inspector for the city, “stopped in for a demo permit (in mid-August) and he had told us that parts of the house had been stolen. I asked if he had called the police or filed a police report or talked to any neighbors, and he had not.”

Soon, though, Demski found Internet posts attributed to Hyland — which he acknowledged writing — soliciting buyers to purchase pieces of the Lustron house.

“There are somee (sic) parts missing already,” Hyland wrote Aug. 8 in an online forum (right), adding, “16 of the outside tiles have been sold and 33 pieces of the roof have been sold as well. There are still lots of original parts of this home for sale. Call for pics and I can email them to you.”

Hyland signed at least two posts with his name and phone number, but now says he used erroneous wording. Rather than already having sold pieces of the house, Hyland said, he merely had lined up an interested buyer and therefore considered the pieces sold.

“I told (the prospective buyer) I can’t do anything with this property until I have a permit issued,” Hyland said. “But not thinking straight, I gave the guy the coordinates of where the house was located.”

Hyland said he thinks one interested buyer, whom he said lives out of state, stole pieces of the house. But, Hyland said, he doesn’t have the person’s name or phone number, because he since has changed phone services and lost his old contact information. Hyland also can’t remember exactly where the person lived.

“I don’t know if he said Michigan, Montana or Minnesota,” Hyland said. “I know it starts with an M. I can’t make accusations — I just know there was only one person I gave the vicinity of the house to.”

Because of the lack of information, Hyland said he hasn’t called police to report a possible crime.

“Is it going to do any good to call the police when someone’s stripping your house?” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Hyland admitted to at least some wrongdoing — sort of. He acknowledges stripping pieces from the roof of the house.

“I made a mistake, yes, I did,” he said. “It wasn’t on purpose. I don’t know what I should say.”

Yet, Hyland added, the illegal dismantling of the roof wasn’t entirely his fault.

“I was told that wouldn’t be a problem by the Department of Neighborhood Services,” he said.

Demski, who works in the DNS, said no one in the department would have green-lighted any level of demolition without issuing a permit.

Alderman Terry Witkowski, whose district includes the house and whose office submitted the request for an interim historic designation, said Hyland’s story has changed too many times for Witkowski to keep track.

When they first met, Witkowski said, Hyland denied removing any pieces from the house — including the roof.

“I find it odd that a house that sat vacant for a long period of time had no parts stolen off of it, and suddenly parts seem to be missing,” Witkowski said. “Everything I heard (while meeting with Pozdol and Hyland) doesn’t necessarily jive with what I’ve heard now.

“There were no parts sold, according to him, yet we have evidence that says he did sell parts. Now he gives a different story.”

Hyland counters that Witkowski also changed or forgot details between their private meeting and Tuesday’s public HPC meeting. For instance, Hyland said, Witkowski criticized plans for a replacement structure on the property because they included a one-car garage, but the alderman failed to mention that Hyland offered to build a two-car garage instead.

Hyland said he only wants to improve the neighborhood.

“We wanted to put a brand-new residential house in the city of Milwaukee,” he said. “We want to bring up the neighborhood.”

Even if city officials think Pozdol and Hyland broke the law and dismantled the house, though, they must weigh the true potential for restoration of the house against the benefits of a new structure.

“Because someone proceeded extra-legally, we have a situation where you have a half-demolished house that nobody had the opportunity to evaluate,” Alderman Robert Bauman said.

“To what extent do the illegal actions of the owner demolishing a house without the necessary permit affect the status? And does that alter the equity in such a way where we say, ‘No, you proceeded improperly. You just find those panels and put them all back.'”

Even Witkowski said he isn’t sure the historic designation should be made permanent.

“Should we try to save what’s there? Is it restorable?” he said. “These are things that, as alderman, I don’t deal with.”

The legal ground, assistant city attorney Gregg Hagopian said, is murky.

“If no application for an interim (historic) designation were filed and the HPC were not in this process at all,” he said, “then there could be a city citation or DNS order consequence to having applied for a permit and having undertaken work without the permit.”

Instead, though, Hagopian said, “A demo permit has been applied for, and then either sometime shortly after, or shortly before the demo permit was applied for, pieces of this structure were removed. The question is: Who removed them? The owner has stated to several sources that some of it was stolen.”

Like most matters relating to the Zander House, Hagopian said, the truth about what really happened remains uncertain.

“I don’t know.”