Student-Built House Program Hits 40th Milestone

CEDAR RAPIDS - Dave Rosenberg walks through the three-stall garage of the new student-built house into the foyer and to the kitchen with its maple cabinets. He likes what he sees - another quality-built home - and can't help but reflect.

For, it was 1972 when Dave became the instructor for the first student-built home in Cedar Rapids. This is the 40th home.

"Time really flies," says Dave, 79, who retired from Washington High School after the 1993 house was finished. "The houses have really changed."

That first house, at 4001 Falbrook Drive NE, is an L-foyer with two-stall attached garage that sold for $43,000. (Its assessed value is now $170,000.) This year's house, a 1,700-square-foot ranch with a partially finished basement at 4620 Windy Meadow Circle NE, is listed at $269,000. Between them designs have ranged from ranch houses with walkout basements to split-foyers and brick-faced homes. Photos and information about all 40 student-built will be displayed during the open house from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

An Air Force pilot in the years following the Korean War, Dave became a physical education teacher and wrestling coach (state champs from Washington High in 1972). He and his brother, John, had built more than a dozen homes around Cedar Rapids, especially on Rosewood Court NE.

So, when Don Menning, director of the industrial arts, suggested that Dave might like to start a buildings trades program, he agreed.

"He caught me at a good time," Dave laughs.

The first year began with students from Washington, Jefferson and Kennedy high schools. (Through the years, it has involved students from Marion, Linn-Mar, Regis and LaSalle high schools.) The first two weeks were spent in the classroom before construction began.

While some students had used power tools, others had barely driven a nail. But all learned.

"The thing we heard from dads was, I wish they had a program like this when I was growing up," Dave says. "You learn a lot even if you don't go into the trades."

Since class began first thing each day, students provided their own transportation, so some couldn't participate.

"That would have been me," says Dave Smith. "I remember you talking to my class. I didn't have a car."

But this Dave, 56, who taught automobile shop at Washington, helped with the program for a couple of years in the early 1990s and is now the instructor.

The program has always worked closely with Realtors in acquiring properties taking advice on popular home designs and selling them. For a while in the high interest days of the ‘80s, some houses were sold before they were finished. Now on the market in the spring, they usually sell by fall, Each year the program has become more self-sustaining, having issued more than $160,000 in scholarships and tool assistance to 627 students.

Annual student participation has ranged from a few more than a dozen to more than 40, with at least one girl every year.

"All of the girls we've had," Dave Rosenberg says, "have stacked up in the top half of the class."

"When you'd introduce a new concept," Dave Smith adds, "the boys would talk big about it but step back. The girls would step up and say, ‘I'll try it.'"

While some prospective buyers might be hesitant to live in a house used for learning, the Daves say an examination shows the quality and care put into it.

"There are no corners cut," Dave Rosenberg says.

"We're teaching the kids, this is the way to do it," Dave Smith says. "Over the years we've tried to add a few extras."