Young preservationist Bernice Radle helps Historic Kansas City celebrate (and protect) some grand old ladies of local architecture

A few years ago, when Bernice Radle first set out to preserve historic buildings in her hometown of Buffalo, New York, she brought attention to them the best way she knew how — by covering them in dozens of pink paper hearts. The “heart bombs,” as she calls them, bore messages such as “fix me” and “love me, don’t leave me.”

The stunt worked, and since 2012 Radle and her friends have maintained an ambitious preservation slate, buying historic homes off Buffalo’s demolition list (for as little as a dollar) and fixing them up. The projects have been as varied as a small Italianate cottage and a 600,000-square-foot former windshield-wiper factory in downtown Buffalo.

Meanwile, heart-bombing campaigns have been replicated in 30 cities, and Radle’s projects have been featured in The New York Times, Huffington Post and a six-episode HGTV series (American Rehab: Buffalo). The mayor of Buffalo recently appointed her to the city’s board of zoning appeals. It’s an impressive resume for someone who hasn’t yet turned 30.

On Saturday, Radle delivers the keynote speech at the Historic Kansas City Foundation’s annual Old Homes Expo. In addition to her speech, titled “Preservation 2.0: Combating the Vacancy Vortex,” she will moderate a Q&A session featuring local experts in home rehabilitation and give a happy-hour talk about her experiences shooting the TV show. (Tickets for the daylong event are $20 at historickansascity.org, along with a list of seminars, vendors and workshops related to historic home restoration.)

Radle credits her interest in preservation and urban planning to her childhood in a low-income household in Niagara Falls, New York, about 20 miles from Buffalo.

“Even though I grew up in poverty, I valued the walkability and the historical character of a city,” she tells The Pitch by phone. “I saw that city decline, and I vowed to do what I could to help provide affordable, quality housing to people.”

Radle earned a degree in urban planning from Buffalo State College while consulting on energy efficiency projects on the side. In 2012, she and Jason Wilson founded Buffalove Development, which purchases vacant or underutilized historic properties and renovates them with an emphasis on energy efficiency and quality.

“There are a million reasons preservation is important,” Radle says. “A lot of people love the history, or learning about who the architect was. But for me, I believe that the greenest buildings we have are the ones that are already standing there. These are often the buildings that were built the best, with materials that can’t be replaced. There’s something especially beautiful about buildings that were built before the car. They have an urban focus and a historical character about them.”

“We’ve got to learn from our mistakes, so that we can take care of what we have left,” says Jeff Zumsteg, who won a preservation award from HKC for his restoration of the Stevens House, a 1902 colonial-revival mansion at 3223 Gladstone Boulevard. Stevens first saw the mansion on Historicproperties.com, then purchased it from Deutsche Bank after using tax records to identify the owner.

The Stevens House is one of four stops on Friday’s Grand Old House Showcase, a dinner event that offers the public a rare chance to see the interiors of some of the Northeast’s grandest historical residences. (Tickets for the showcase, which benefits the nonprofit HKC, are available through historickansascity.org, at $75 a piece.)

Historic Kansas City was founded in 1974 by a group of citizens concerned about the demolition of the city’s historic buildings. The organization releases a list of the city’s most endangered buildings each year, with notable saves including the Coates House, the New York Life Building, the President Hotel and the Cosby Hotel.

Bob Myers, a realtor and a board member of Historic Kansas City, says he has seen a surge in interest in preservation efforts across the city, especially among young people.

“When people hear the word ‘preservation,’ they often think of older neighborhoods like Hyde Park or the Northeast,” he says. “But you also see it a lot in neighborhoods like Prairie Village, with some of the Cape Cod homes. Anything above 50 years old could be considered historic.”

Myers says a controversial topic in Northeast Johnson County and other inner-ring suburbs is teardowns, and what kind of houses will be allowed to be built in their place. “How do you protect the integrity of the neighborhood while still allowing for the conveniences and features of what buyers want today?” he says.

In Kansas City, Missouri, preservation often involves identifying and saving historic homes before they are demolished by the city or a private developer. It’s an issue that’s been in the public eye recently; Kansas City, Missouri, Police Chief Darryl Forte has proposed razing hundreds of vacant buildings in blighted neighborhoods, and the City Council last month voted against an ordinance to preserve three historic apartment buildings on the Country Club Plaza.

“You can’t win every battle,” Myers says. “There’s always going to be change, teardowns and development, but it’s important for there to at least be a dialogue.”  

Radle knows this firsthand. But if not every heart-bombed house makes it, she can also point to saves that make their own bold statements about preservation. A building she heart-bombed in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia, was spotted by a visiting Washington, D.C., lawyer, who wound up buying it, relocating his practice to that city — and running for mayor.

Radle says the best way to turn a passive interest in old buildings into active involvement is by looking people in the eye and saying “I need your help.”

“I think the best thing to do is to jump in and do it, because you’re never really going to be ready,” she says. “The more you know, the more gunshy you get, because you know it’s daunting, and you know it’s a headache. Some of the best decisions I made were made with a more naive mindset. Sometimes I have to tell myself to put my 25-year-old head on rather than my 29-year old head.”

If you’ve never swung a hammer before, Radle says, you might want to give that a try first, too.

“And,” she adds, “hire an accountant.”