THE FOLLOWING ARE PORTIONS OF AN UPDATED NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
ABOVE: By the noon hour on Tuesday the entire tear down of the Dick Van Dyke home at 930 North Hazel was completed. The city estimates complete cleanup will be done by Friday. (photo by Steve Brandy)
DANVILLE — A piece of history and legendary actor Dick Van Dyke’s story is being lost with the demolition of his boyhood home.
The city of Danville announced early Tuesday morning that demolition of the home would be starting at 930 N. Hazel St. due to the property’s hazardous and unsafe condition.
The house, at 930 N. Hazel St. — roughly a block northwest of Danville High, where brothers Dick and Jerry Van Dyke went to school — had deteriorated since 2011, when its last owner died, according to city officials. In 2015, when word of the property’s eventual demise made it to Van Dyke in Malibu, CA, that’s when discussions and plans to save the structure first began to take shape.
UPDATED END OF STORY:
Restoration plans for the home in 2017, following Van Dyke’s last visit to Danville in 2016 which included at stop at the home, started ramping up, but never came to fruition.
The Dick Van Dyke Foundation team had been working with architects to determine how best to restore the then called “fragile home” on Hazel Street in Danville, so it could eventually be opened to the public.
A contractor with a long history of restoring celebrity homes had been chosen to lead the project, according to the foundation. But construction never began.
The planned center was to be dedicated to encouraging talented youths to pursue their dreams in the entertainment industry.
In 2019 the foundation still was cautiously optimistic that the former Van Dyke home could be saved and eventually undergo a full renovation.
But in its condition would’ve required a lot of money to fully restore — more than the foundation has accumulated. Most of its funds had stemmed from $50,000 raised in Danville at public events in 2016. The foundation also began a scholarship and support program to benefit theater organizations and performing arts students in Danville.
Deanna Witzel, former Vermilion County McDonald’s owner who had been working with the Dick Van Dyke Foundation for the Performing Arts when it first started, said, “I don’t know anything as far as the money.”
She said the foundation has given scholarships to DHS students. A $5,000 scholarship was reportedly awarded in 2022 to a qualifying student entering college to pursue a performing arts career.
Witzel added that she and Marty Lindvahl, a retired music educator, were involved with the foundation fundraising at the 2016 arena event when Van Dyke was in town. That funding has helped with scholarships to local students which included an award in 2026.
Witzel too was to be on the foundation board, she said, but she never heard more about it.
In talking with Van Dyke’s manager Lance Kirkland, who also has been involved with the foundation, Kirkland stated that COVID-19 threw a wrench in their plans, and they just kind of went by the wayside, according to Witzel.
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