The Hay house

 I’m working on a column about the life of Springfield attorney and public citizen Logan Hay.

Most of today’s Springfieldians who have heard of Logan Hay know him because his name was attached to his nobly proportioned house at South
Grand Avenue. More imposing than graceful, the house was a bit of Monticello Hay
had built between Lincoln and Dial Court in 1905 in what was then the
countrified fringe of town on grounds 
reached from South Grand to Laurel.

Many years later, the house would become a minor local cause célèbre. After
the mansion had fallen derelict, it was leased to a private school backed by
the owner, Carolyn Oxtoby. She decided to sell to condo developers after ten
years or so to free up capital for other projects. Edward Pree, a noted local
lawyer and former high official in the Stratton Administration, argued that the house should be appropriated by the State of Illinois for official guests, as the
Blair House in Washington is used by presidents. Alas, the state, which
probably was the only possible buyer for a house of that size, did not want it;
it was razed in 1979, an outcome Pree called “another irreparable loss to the
city of Springfield.”

This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2017.