2007 Preservation Awards
Bob Bean
Award: Personal advocacy
Bob Bean calls himself the manager of the Dean House, an 1856 yellow brick Italianate farm house located at 4718 Monona Drive on the edge of the Monona Golf Course. Fellow members of the Historic Blooming Grove Historical Society (HBGHS), as well as the local and state authorities that have given Bean awards throughout the years, know he’s much more than that.
Bean, a retired high school social studies teacher, is known as the man who dresses up like Abraham Lincoln for Monona’s Memorial Day parade. He is also is the primary caretaker of this Victorian-furnished home, and was a leader in its preservation and restoration over 30 years ago. In 1971, a group of volunteers, led by Bean as the first president of the HBGHS, saved the house from demolition, raised funds towards restoration, and then did much of the work themselves. Bean estimates that since they began, more than $185,000 has been put into the restoration, with twice as much in volunteer labor.
The house was built for Nathaniel Dean and his family across the lake from downtown Madison, where Dean had made his fortune in a King Street dry goods business and real estate. The house served stints as a rented house and a golf clubhouse before it was slated to be torn down.
The Dean House is a Madison landmark and the city’s preservation planner, Kitty Rankin, and the Landmarks Commission oversee Bob Bean’s preservation activities at the house. Weekly, Bob Bean looks after the house that’s twice his age, by shoveling the sidewalk, patching the mortar, giving the tours, collecting the artifacts, telling the stories and, on special occasions, wearing the silk top hat.
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