‘Campbell House’ earns state preservation award

PALMER — For Sheri and Darrin Hamming, restoring the historic Campbell House was a labor of love.

Their love of the Palmer community and local history led the couple to purchase the house in 2011 and spent a year bringing the Matanuska Colony home back to better-than-original condition.

Their efforts led the 1935 Campbell House to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, and have now earned the project another accolade. The Alaska Association for Historic Preservation has named the Hammings and Campbell House winner of its 2013 Historic Preservation Award.

The Hammings will receive the award Saturday at the annual AAHP members’ meeting, 2 to 5 p.m., at the Pioneer School House, 437 E. 3rd Ave., Anchorage.

“I love history and I love Palmer history,” Sheri Hamming said in an April Frontiersman interview.

As then-president of the Palmer Historical Society, she and her contractor husband said they saw the potential of the historic home when they purchased it. It’s now a cozy vacation rental with an attention to local historic detail that made it the 16th Matanuska Colony property to make the National Register.

“When I walked in here at first and thought, ‘Wow, you know, we could probably do something with this,’” Sheri said. “We saw the potential and I felt like I couldn’t let it go. We love Colony houses, and with (Darrin) being a contractor, I came up with a lot of ideas and could do them.”

The Campbell House is one of historic significance to Palmer’s Colony days. It’s named for George and Onabell Campbell of Michigan, who moved into the home in 1935. They drew Lot 54 in the Matanuska Colony Project, located a little less than a mile from the Glenn Highway on Inner Springer Loop. The Campbells left after one winter, then in 1938, the house became home to William and Lulubelle Bouwens and eight of their 11 children. They had Lot 53, but a fire burned their house and they moved over to Lot 54. The house remained in the Bouwens family until the Hammings bought it.

Although close attention was paid to make sure the house retained its rustic feel — Darrin hand-crafted a copy of the original front door, the original staircase and newel post were preserved, along with much of the hardwood flooring — the new Campbell House also now has a few amenities the Campbells wouldn’t have imagined in their era.

The indoor bathroom boasts a large, wheelchair accessible shower and has modern plumbing (albeit with replica fixtures atop a restored antique vanity); a full modern kitchen was built; and a 40-inch flat-screen television helps people wind down in the living room. When the house was put on the National Register of Historic Places, Sheri said it was gratifying to know their efforts to preserve local history didn’t go unnoticed.

The house is still gaining attention. The AAHP has presented the Historic Preservation Award since 2007 “to recognize a project, organization, agency or individual who exemplifies the highest standards among Alaska preservation efforts,” the group says in a statement announcing the award.

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.