Tom Eblen
The old Fayette County Courthouse was wrapped in scaffolding for a complete renovation that was completed in 2018. The process included gently cleaning the finely carved exterior limestone, some of which had been blackened by decades of soot.
AU Associates, the development company Holly Wiedemann started in Lexington more than three decades ago, takes its name from the historic preservation concept “adaptive use”—remodeling old buildings for new purposes.
But AU has another meaning. It’s the chemical symbol for gold.
Wiedemann says her company has been financially successful. But as she retires and turns AU Associates over to a longtime employee, its greatest value is in the treasures it has left in 16 communities across Kentucky and five in West Virginia. The company developed, owns and manages more than three dozen projects totaling more than 1,200 units of high-quality, affordably priced rental housing.
But that’s only part of the story. While some projects have been new construction, most are beautifully restored schools and other public buildings. Once community landmarks, they were abandoned and well on their way to demolition when Wiedemann acquired them.
The company reflects two of Wiedemann’s passions: affordable housing and historic preservation. Key to its success have been her keen design aesthetic, a commitment to quality, a knowledge of construction, and an even greater knowledge of finance. That last skill has been essential to navigating the complex rules for putting together projects using federal and state tax credits, government programs, grants and private debt financing.
“I have a lot of respect for Holly and what she’s done over the years,” said Rick McQuady, a retired Kentucky Housing Corp. CEO who is now Lexington’s affordable housing manager. “If a community needed a school building converted to housing or a building saved, she was the one everyone talked to. One thing that always impressed me about her affordable housing units was the quality. They were built the same as market-rate units—no shortcuts.”
“I only develop places that I myself would like to live,” Wiedemann said.
Tom Eblen
A 1960 renovation to “modernize” the old Fayette County Courthouse closed off the beautiful dome area and filled it with elevator shafts and HVAC equipment. Here’s what it looked like in 2016 before an extensive restoration.
Years of Preparation
Wiedemann comes from a long line of Kentucky entrepreneurs. Her great-great-grandfather was George Wiedemann, a German immigrant who created Wiedemann beer in Newport in 1870. Her great-grandfather, J.D. Purcell, started Purcell’s, a leading Lexington department store in the mid-20th century.
She grew up near Lexington in an antebellum mansion, part of which dates back to the late 1700s. “I loved the architecture of it, the integrity of it, the proportions of it,” she said. “I think that’s what gave me an appreciation for historic buildings.”
After graduating from Sayre School in 1973, Wiedemann took her grandmother’s advice and studied landscape architecture at the University of Georgia. She worked a summer on the landscaping crew at Colonial Williamsburg, then sat out a couple of quarters to help author Wendell Berry and several environmental lawyers save the Red River Gorge from being flooded by the Army Corps of Engineers.
“We founded the Red River Gorge Legal Defense Fund, of which I was the only paid staff member at $2 an hour,” she said. They took their case all the way to the United States Supreme Court—and won.
After college, Wiedemann was lured to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to work in urban planning. Then she ran a program that put artists in underserved Tulsa neighborhoods. “That had a strong impact on my desire to eventually get into affordable housing,” she said.
Her next job was with a national developer, helping design large urban infill projects in Denver, San Antonio and Charlotte. “I really liked the development side,” she said. “But I thought I needed to learn finance because I didn’t want to always be on the receiving end. I would rather hire the architect and tell them what I would like done.”
Tom Eblen
Wiedemann in 2009 in a 19th century apartment building in downtown Lexington that had been condemned by the city. It now has 10 affordable apartments for seniors. Wiedemann developed the project in partnership with her church, First Presbyterian, which will eventually own the property.
She earned an MBA at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she met her husband, Bart van Dissel, then a doctoral student. They have two children: Britton, 32, and Liza, 30.
The couple moved to Boston when van Dissel got a teaching job at Harvard Business School. Wiedemann went to work for WinnCompanies, a developer that pioneered the use of affordable housing tax credits created in 1986 as part of federal tax reform legislation.
“It has been the most successful program ever because it relies on the private sector to develop the housing,” she said. “It’s so highly regulated. I got a Ph.D. level of training by being on the cutting edge of it in Boston.”
How do affordable housing tax credits work? Developers apply for credits, which they sell to banks and other investors to raise capital for a project. In return, rents are limited by the area’s median income. Renovation projects often combine affordable housing tax credits with federal and state historic tax credits.
After her father’s death in 1986, Wiedemann and her husband left Boston for Lexington, where she started AU Associates in 1990. Since then, the company has grown to 35 employees and built projects totaling $275 million in capital investment.
No Need for Marketing
AU’s first project was the Midway School Apartments, which involved renovating a circa 1926 school in Woodford County into 14 subsidized and 10 market-rate apartments for seniors. Word of what Wiedemann was doing spread quickly.
“When I was under construction on Midway, somebody drove up one day and said, ‘You’re Holly Wiedemann,’ and I said, ‘Yes, ma’m,’” she recalled. “‘I’m Nell Williams, and I’m from Irvine. We have an old school, and you need to come down. When can you come?’ Well, I didn’t know where Irvine was, but I went there and was just captivated by all of them. That was my second project, the Irvine School Apartments.”
Wiedemann was next approached about renovating a 120,000-square-foot former YMCA in Louisville built in 1913. It became the 58-unit St. Francis Apartments and the private St. Francis High School.
Then Lexington’s Old Western Suburb approached Wiedemann about a 200-year-old house and vacant lot in the neighborhood, which was a hot spot for crime. The building became AU Associates’ headquarters, and the lot is now the 38-unit Artek Lofts.
“The work just mushroomed after that,” Wiedemann said. “I never did any marketing.”
Edna Mae Turner, matriarch of an old Breathitt County family, invited Wiedemann to eastern Kentucky. “She said, ‘There are two buildings you have to save,’ ” Wiedemann recalled. “One’s here in Jackson, and one’s in Campton.”
Within a few years, Wiedemann had done both. Jackson’s former federal building, a Renaissance Revival structure built in 1916, became Federal Place Apartments. The Wolfe County school, built of local sandstone during the Great Depression, became the Campton School Apartments.
“I’m pleased that the [federal] building was saved because it was such a part of our history,” Jackson Mayor Laura Thomas said. “I wish we could get Holly down here to do a couple of other projects.”
AU Associates’ other Kentucky renovations have been in Winchester, Lexington, Beattyville, Jenkins, Ashland, Elkhorn, Springfield, Covington, Versailles, Buffalo and Glasgow. The company also has built new housing developments in Lexington and Nicholasville. Plus, it has done three renovations and two new projects in West Virginia.
One notable project is Victory Point, which has 50 units of affordable housing for veterans near Lexington’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Leestown Road. In the 1930s, the VA had built a dormitory for nurses, several townhouses for doctors, and a hospital administrator’s house. When local hospital managers started wrecking the abandoned buildings, national VA officials stepped in, halted the demolition, and sought bids for redevelopment. AU Associates won a national competition to renovate the old buildings and build new townhouses beside them.
Most Visible Landmark
Perhaps AU Associates’ most visible project didn’t involve affordable housing. In 2015, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, who as a child attended a Glasgow school Wiedemann later renovated, recruited her to oversee a $32 million restoration of the former Fayette County Courthouse. The circa 1900 landmark had been shuttered since 2012 because of lead paint hazards. It had suffered a devastating interior “modernization” in 1960 and then serious neglect, especially after new courthouses replaced it in 2002.
Following two years of work, the old courthouse reopened in 2018 with a restaurant, bar, offices, the city visitors’ center and event space.
“She didn’t let any detail go, and it shows,” said Gray, now secretary of Kentucky’s Transportation Cabinet. “She curated that space in a way that makes it work for a new time and its new purposes.”
As mayor, Gray also convinced Wiedemann to join the Lexington Center board, where she has helped oversee the renovation of Rupp Arena, the rebuilding of the convention center, and the development of Town Branch Commons, a new downtown trail. “I attribute a lot of what happened with the reactivation of downtown [Lexington] to her support, encouragement and attention to detail,” Gray said.
As she opened a new affordable housing project in Lexington last winter and prepared to break ground for another, Wiedemann sold AU Associates to Johan Graham, who was her development director for 15 years and shares her passion for affordable housing. Wiedemann and van Dissel now divide their time between Kentucky and Colorado, where their first grandchild was born in January.
Craig Potts, executive director of the Kentucky Heritage Council and the state’s historic preservation officer, said Wiedemann is unique among developers he has worked with because of her creativity, optimism and ability to successfully complete projects others would be afraid to try.
“She’s an entrepreneur, but none of her projects ever felt like they were just business ventures,” Potts said. “They all had meaning—they were about helping people, helping a community.”