As the University works toward completing its Master Plan, we at Campus Times feel there’s one project that should be pushed up the checklist: the Hanawalt House.

Sure, it’s a part of Phase 1 of the University’s master plan to renovate the house sometime within the next five years, but can we please speed things up?

More than two years have passed since the house caught fire and it’s about time something has been done.

A chain link fence surrounds the house. Most of the windows are boarded up.

Even the sign that used to proudly read “Hanawalt House” is blank.

The back windows are broken and graffiti decorates the ones that aren’t.

The wood around the roof of the building is bent and peeling away from the structure. The leaves gathering in the font yard make it look more like a haunted house than a historical landmark. The benches surrounded with little flowers next to the tennis courts juxtapose the dark eerie house. It is like day and night.

Even during the day the house looks dark. Even birds know better than to venture into the house.

We think the house needs a little love.

The broken down old building has become an eyesore on a campus where the flowers are changed like diapers.

Can we forget about the flowers for one month and move just a little money towards this project?

It’s not like the renovation of the Supertents or the long-awaited parking structure; the funds needed to restore the house will probably not put the University in debt.

All the University needs to do is whip out the insurance money that it received when the house went up in smoke two years ago, unless all that money disappeared into the general fund like all the rest of the University cash.

If the University isn’t going to renovate the house right away the National Register of Historical Places suggests that at a minimum, the University should do “mothballing” to prevent further deterioration.

That means boarding up the windows so that no person, animals or weather come in. This means preserving the house as a whole.

We understand that the wrong improvements may jeopardize the house’s historical status on the National Register of Historical Places, but there must be something the University can do.

As long as the University follows the Secretary of Interior Standard for Rehabilitation and complete good preservation work, the University shouldn’t worry about their historical significance and national register status.

Sure, the University has no requirement to restore the house or maintain it, according to the National Register Web site, but if the University and city are going through so much to have the house preserved wouldn’t it be nice to have something to show off, not some dumpy burned-out house?

We suggest the University contact the State Historical Preservation office in Sacramento: these architects can help you through the process of restoring the house while preserving it.

We also suggest that the University do it soon because walking past the gutted house everyday is painfully depressing.