Jeff Randall
Patrick Michaels, left, oversees the front of the house.
Don’t look for a sign, at least any written one — there isn’t any. What you will see, starting at 5 p.m. each Friday night, year-round, is a steady stream of people, young and old, in and around a handsome white school building. They are coming for pizza, great music and a chance to connect.
The so-called White School Collective, located in an old school at 242 N. Lexington St. in Spring Green, has been the town’s best-kept secret.
Owner Eric Ferguson tells the tale of how this all started, and it’s as magical as anything spun out of Hollywood. Back in 2005, the River Valley area came together to assist a local youth whose leg had been taken above the knee by cancer; health insurance would pay only for a sub-par prosthesis. A fundraiser, named 4PetesSake, raised enough money for a prosthesis with advanced technology that allowed the boy to return to an active life.
The fundraiser remained, expanding beyond its initial goal to become a permanent outreach program of Christ Lutheran Church of Spring Green, providing for River Valley residents in need.
For the 2015 annual charity auction, a local wood oven aficionado donated a handmade wood-fired oven. Ferguson, a professional architectural, portrait and commercial photographer, was the winning bidder. He moved the oven to the backyard of his photography studio, an 1887 four-room, two-story schoolhouse in Spring Green.
Born on a farm in Mount Hope, Wisconsin, Ferguson had studied at Montana State University in Bozeman and lived in Portland, Oregon, before returning to the Driftless to help his mother care for the family farm. Ferguson had once run Taliesin’s Riverview Terrace Cafe, and because he now owned a pizza oven, the next logical step was to start making pizzas.
In November 2015, after successfully pitching the idea to then Taliesin chef Katie Wyer, he gave it a shot. With the help of friends he staged the inaugural Friday pizza night just after Thanksgiving.
Initially the Riverview Terrace Cafe functioned as a prep kitchen. That first night attracted about 25 people; by the third Friday, it was up to more than 40 and has continued to grow. (The record is 137 guests.) Patrons are an eclectic group: farmers, students from Taliesin, and the American Players’ Theater crowd. Ferguson and his staff cook the pizzas year-round, outdoors, in all weathers.
The deal was, buffet style, 10 bucks got you all the pizza you could eat from among six varieties, a salad with pickled veggies, and dessert. Beer and wine were extra.
By 2018 Ferguson started looking to expand. He applied for building permits to take down a wall and open up the space. He received them the same day he got the cease and desist letter from the health department requiring that the kitchen be brought up to code and a ramp for accessibility added.
White School shut down for 11 months of piecemeal construction, much of it done by Ferguson himself. Most funds came from donations. Whenever he needed assistance, some local contractor, carpenter, painter or other tradesperson would be there to lend a hand.
From the beginning, White School Collective “has been a community event,” says Ferguson, “which is why we were so well funded.”
The reopening was this March. The cost is now $12 (in part to pay for the renovations); it’s still all-you-can eat, except now cookies cost $1.
Others help with the operation. Patrick Michaels runs the front of the house and creates a relaxed mood; his partner, Katie Wyer, is the chef who heads the back of the house. Lidia Dungue, who during the week runs the Taliesin farm called Fazenda Boa Terra, provides many of the vegetables, and makes pies. River Valley high school students help staff the oven.
White School vendors are often neighbors and customers. Flour comes from Lonesome Stone Milling of Lone Rock; cheeses via Culinary Connections and Cedar Grove; sausage from Straight Forward Farm; pepperoni made from meat from Seven Seeds Farm; and eggs from Hazel Hill. For the evening’s mushroom pie, Wyer foraged morels herself.
The oven is stoked throughout Thursday night and fired up in earnest hours prior to the official Friday opening at 5 p.m. Pizzas are made until White School closes at 9 p.m. — as long as someone wants one, the kitchen will oblige.
There is inside and outside seating; it is not uncommon to start inside and end up outside as kids make their way to the nearby playground, or for adults to later grab a seat near the oven. Customers return again and again for fresh pies — just ask for whichever pizza you prefer and it’s typically up and ready as soon as it can be made.
As evening settles in over another lovely Spring Green Friday at the White School, Ferguson sits back contentedly, a glass of wine in his hand. Friends, customers, donors — they all blur together — are seated nearby. As the sun sinks behind the massive maple in the backyard, chimney swifts fly in a lazy figure-eight around the school’s sturdy chimney. Ferguson’s next step will be to procure and install an indoor pizza oven, though that will disrupt the birds’ home. New opportunities and new challenges.
White School Collective
242 N. Lexington St. Spring Green; facebook.com/WhiteSchoolCollective
