116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Iowa City’s Kuhl House
English professor saved, remodeled city’s oldest home
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Robert Hutchinson settled in Johnson County in 1839, about two months after Chauncey Swan, the pioneer credited with founding Iowa City.
Hutchinson and Swan were among the founders of North Presbyterian Church, predecessor to Old Brick, 26 E. Market St., and Hutchinson owned one of the city’s first theaters, the Metropolitan Hall, and a quarry.
Hutchinson built a house about 1840 in a spot then outside the Iowa City limits. The stone from the house came from the Indiana limestone quarry he owned and operated — the same quarry that provided stone for the base and lower part of Old Capitol.
In 1849, Hutchinson and Swan were among the many lured west by the California gold rush. When Hutchinson returned to Iowa in 1853, the year Iowa City was incorporated, he was neither richer nor poorer. He was appointed the Iowa City marshal.
Hutchinson house
The house Hutchinson built — at what is now 119 W. Park Rd. — is the oldest house in Iowa City and is now home to the University of Iowa Press.
When Hutchinson built the house, he couldn’t buy the land it sat on until the land was platted. In 1843, he bought 157 acres for $1.25 an acre and established his farm.
The house originally had a kitchen and dining room in the basement. The main floor was divided in half and provided sleeping quarters for the farm’s hired hands.
Later, when Hutchinson was the Iowa City marshal, he traded his majority interest in the Mechanics’ Mutual Aid Association Academy (later the University of Iowa) for the Doty estate on College Street. The state capital moved from Iowa City to Des Moines in 1857, and Old Capitol became a men’s dormitory in the rapidly growing educational institution.
In 1864, Hutchinson contracted smallpox. He survived, but the disease caused him to lose his sight. He died in August 1887 at age 73. His family continued to live in the stone house. His quarry later became the Hutchinson Quarry Pond.
In 1920, Bert Manville bought 80 acres from the Hutchinson family and began developing the property into Manville Heights. Manville, who lived in one of the neighborhood’s homes, named one of the streets Hutchinson Avenue in recognition of the land’s original owner.
Old photos showed trolley tracks in front of the house in 1926. It had no chimney and few windows.
Kuhl house
In 1926, when University of Iowa English professor Thomas Knott resigned to become the general editor of Webster’s Dictionary, Ernest P. Kuhl was hired as his successor. Kuhl, his wife, Lucy, and their children, Robert and Elizabeth, moved to Iowa City from Baltimore, Md.
Kuhl, a Chaucer and Shakespearean scholar, bought the old stone house and a couple of acres from the Hutchinson family.
They extensively remodeled the 80-year-old house with the guidance of Cedar Rapids architect Mark Anthony. F.X. Freyder, whose shop and factory were on South Gilbert Street in Iowa City, was the contractor.
When the Kuhl family moved in, the house had a new second floor with dormers and a stairway replaced what once had been a loft accessed by ladder. The new banister and railing for the front stairs was designed by Lucy Kuhl. The Kuhls also added windows to the home’s west wall.
Kuhl retired from the UI as a professor emeritus in 1952.
On June 30, 1960, the Kuhl home was on the Tour of Homes in Iowa City, a tour sponsored by the American Association for United Nations. An Iowa CIty Press-Citizen story about the house noted the Kuhls had used original stone — from the Hutchinson Quarry — in the remodeling.
Kuhl turned 90 in 1971. By then, his wife was living in a care center. He prepared her lunch at home every day and took it to her at the care center. He, in turn, ate the meal the care center provided.
The UI English Department hosted a 90th birthday celebration for Kuhl, presenting a volume of Kuhl’s collected works to the department and giving him a framed scroll signed by his coworkers and faculty associates.
Lucy Kuhl died in 1975. Ernest Kuhl lived to the age of 99, dying in 1981.
UI buys house
The University of Iowa bought the Kuhl house in 1977. For 10 years, it was used by art students.
In 1987, the UI began remodeling the house as offices for the University of Iowa Press. After painting it inside and out, refinishing floors, tuckpointing, paving the driveway and adding parking, among other improvements, the University of Iowa Press moved in.
It remains there today as the only university press in Iowa.
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