Fifth Street in Kansas City, Kan., is the main road for the Strawberry Hill neighborhood, which was recently selected as a Best Old House Neighborhood. (Staff file photo)

   The Strawberry Hill neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan., recently received some national recognition, being named a 2012 Best Old House Neighborhood by This Old House Magazine.

   Carole Diehl, president of the Strawberry Hill Neighborhood Association, was interviewed by the magazine about the neighborhood.

   Diehl said the magazine contacted her about the Best Old House designation. The neighborhood currently is in the middle of doing a new historical survey through the Kansas Historic Preservation Office, and is trying to get a historical designation, Diehl said. She said she hopes the Best Old House Neighborhood designation helps in that effort. Attention for the neighborhood is long overdue, she said, and she hopes it shows that the residents still care about the neighborhood and that it has historic significance.

   One of the best-known historical buildings on the Hill is the Strawberry Hill Museum, a stately Victorian home that was used as St. John’s Orphanage for many years. 

   The Strawberry Hill neighborhood and its history was studied in 1978 by the city of Kansas City, Kan. “To walk the streets of the Hill is to physically return to the early years of this century,” the study’s authors wrote, especially citing the old narrow brick streets with their modest homes in a "tightly knit physical environment." In 1957, the community suffered the destruction of 4.5 blocks, 219 homes in all, for I-70 construction, but hundreds of homes remained.

   The picturesque neighborhood has been a topic for the arts, as well. The Strawberry Hill neighborhood was a frequent subject for artist Marijana Grisnik. A photographic rendering of twilight at Strawberry Hill by photographer Don Wolf was recently presented to City Hall.

   Besides the older homes in the area, the neighborhood also has some new homes constructed last year at 4th and Armstrong as part of a City Vision Ministries urban redevelopment grant project.

   “It’s our neighborhood, and we love it,” Diehl said. “I’m just telling them why we love Strawberry Hill.”

   In her own family, she and her husband moved to the Hill after raising their children, and bought one of the many older homes. Her husband had grown up on Strawberry Hill.

   “I do love this old house, I love the people and neighborhood,” Diehl said. “It was a good choice for us.”

   The "This Old House" article is online at http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20569039_21120920,00.html.