RW Keys and Son - Resource Bank

CRAFTSMAN
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when his uncle
passed away—still too
young to take over the sizeable
painting company. Once again, the path
he might have followed came to an abrupt
end, but as they say, when doors close,
windows open.
Even while working with his uncle and
attending Washburne, Roger had been
commuting back and forth to DeKalb to
attend a few classes at NIU and to pick up the
occasional painting job to help pay for tuition.
When he turned twenty-one and was free to
blaze his own trail in life, he decided to strike
out and start his own painting company in the
college town west of Chicago. It was 1973.
In DeKalb, Roger married, and he and his
wife, Mary, soon had a family to support,
but Roger was nevertheless discriminating
about the work he took on. “I tried to work
whenever I could on houses that were either
on the historical register or could be.” This
penchant for historical restoration, inspired
by the years he spent working with his
uncle, led Roger to volunteer to restore the
little playhouse that now sits behind the
Elwood House on First Street. It wasn’t a
paying job, but it was a mission he could put
his heart into.
“It’s still one of my favorite projects, and
I learned a lot about the little house’s
history while I was working on it,“ Roger
remembers. “Not many people know that
it was originally constructed in 1891 as a
parade fl oat for a local shoe factory. I also
discovered that the spindles on the porch
rail were originally created by shop students.
Every spindle was unique, so I took a lot
of care to retain the character of each one
during restoration.” Roger fondly recalls
another reason the playhouse has a special
place in his heart: “My daughter, Meghan,
and my son, Matt, played in the house while I
worked on it. That was a lean year, fi nancially,
but I have a lot of good memories.”
Over time, Roger’s interest in historical
restoration began to position him as project
manager for many of the jobs he took on. “I started
out as a painter, but a lot of the work I did required me
to take architectural elements apart and reassemble
them, or to entirely reconstruct something that had
been destroyed or neglected beyond repair. I couldn’t
always fi nd a carpenter who was willing or able to
deal with saving old construction when it was just
easier to build something new. So I learned a lot about
carpentry. Once you start doing that kind of work, you
just naturally start to understand the larger picture. ”
A natural detective when it comes to fi guring out how a
building had been constructed, even a century or more
ago, Roger became a resource for the other tradesmen
he worked with. “I do a lot of research when I take on
a historically sensitive project. Kind of by default, I
became the guy the plumber or the electrician or the
carpenter would come to when they had a question
about the most appropriate way to do something.”
While Roger manages a good number of the projects
he is involved in, he is quick to acknowledge that
historical restoration is a collaborative enterprise
and that he is often one among many specialists
working on a job. “Whether RW Keys and Son is called
in as consultant, general contractor, or a specialist
in painting and window restoration, we’re always
learning something from the other people on the job.
For example, we’ve worked closely on a number of
jobs with Bill Schermerhorn. Bill owns Ornamental
Plaster in Rochelle, and he helped us restore capitals
on some of the columns in the old Carson, Pirie, Scott
building, which was designed by Louis Sullivan. Some
of the capitals had to be reconstructed and reinstalled,
and we discovered that the techniques they used in
1899 are just as workable today.”
RW Keys and Son? “That’s right,” Rogers says,
smiling. “Matt went to work with me about fi fteen
years ago, and he’s earned his place in the company.”