When you think of a landmark home in Riverside, your mind goes to a magnificent Victorian on a large lot along Longcommon Road. And they are beauties.
However, early this month one of the village’s more modest and most unique homes was designated a local historical landmark. Situated at the front of the property line on Barrypoint Road, the white clapboard home with the angled display windows and just a bit of Queen Anne detail was built as a neighborhood retail store, a use that would certainly not be allowed in the middle of a residential neighborhood these days but was common in many communities for decades.
The home at 169 Barrypoint Road has an apartment upstairs, from the living-above-the-store era, and also a barn out back. That mix of factors was enough to satisfy the necessary four-of-six criteria required for landmark status in Riverside. The home, and its owners Sonia Lin and Matthew Kerkhof, spent the past four months working through the village’s many boards and commissions, including historical, planning and zoning, and preservation. The final OK came June 6 when the village board unanimously approved the designation.
Riverside Village President Doug Pollack touted the home at the meeting saying, “I love the old pictures of when it was a storefront.” We fully agree and applaud the village for honoring this modest, handsome and historical structure from a bygone era.
Ogden’s slow roll
Brookfield has rightly had its mind on Ogden Avenue for a long while now. A mixed bag of ill-defined commercial and residential uses, a road designed with the sole purpose of moving auto traffic fast, not a thought for pedestrians or cyclists, a gigantic missed opportunity for growing retail, property taxes and a sense of community.
That is Ogden Avenue’s history.
Through a combination of smart zoning changes and thoughtful property assemblage, with some good fortune courtesy of private owners such as Doc Mack and his Galloping Ghost empire, Brookfield is making headway along Ogden.
But the wholesale physical remaking of the stretch — underground infrastructure, streetscaping, parking changes — is on a long calendar. That became clear recently when a village-hired engineering consultant laid out the long-term plan for the design phase, approvals on multiple levels of government, funding solutions and, finally, possibly in 2029, actual construction.
This is the definition of the bureaucratic long game. We are not complaining. We get the complexities of this project and the many hands with a role in the game. We credit the village government for a purposeful and patient effort to make Ogden Avenue a valued and productive destination in Brookfield.