Bonduel Village Hall

Visiting family in Wisconsin last week, we several times drove though the Village of Bonduel. Bonduel is between Slab City and Cecil in the dairy farmland near Lake Shawano. I noticed the old brick Fire Station, now used as the Bonduel Village Hall, Library, Police, and Department of Public Works. The more I looked, the odder it seemed.

In addition to the three nuclear Fallout Shelter signs on its walls and the huge siren and silver bell on its roof, this peculiar building is as good an example of remuddling as I have seen. “Remuddling” is a term used by Old House Journal for “misguided remodeling-that is, an alteration that is insensitive to the architecture or character of the house.” Someone decided that colored patchwork fiberglas panels and a huge zigzag steel fascia were just the thing to fill in the old truck bay of what was once a handsome red brick firehouse. Based on the style, the “update” happened in the early 1960s.

Almost as interesting is the building close by with the simple sign HECK. (Heck is where people go who don’t believe in Gosh.)

Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson