Hello Everyone,
The wife and I are looking to purchase a home and have found a beautiful historical home built in 1919 that I think we are going to make an offer on tomorrow. I am asking this question here because we saw the house so late in the day I had no one to ask at the county.
The house is marked is a historical home in the city and I do realize that there are certain restrictions that come with purchasing a home that has this designation. Can someone give me an example of what the restrictions might be? I am assuming most have to do with the exterior of the home, colors, siding and such.
I would think that the majority of any changes inside would be up to our discretion. The house is beautiful inside with real wood floors and even wood ceilings. We would never think of compromising the look of the interior with modern upgrades, sans the kitchen where of course modern appliances would be put.
As I mentioned, I will be contacting the county to find out all the important things we should know, but would like to get some idea of what we are getting into.
Where I live, most of the houses covered under this will have to have approval for things done to the exterior, and a couple of friends have found it such a tremendous hassle that they finally declined to make any changes. For example one friend wanted to add another story (and this was being done a lot in her neighborhood, which may be what prompted the zoning change to make it a historical neighborhood). She submitted plan after plan. One wouldn’t work because it changed the footprint. The next one wouldn’t work because while it adhered to the footprint it changed the topline. Each one of the changes was drawn up by someone charging money, and then it took months to get the rejection. In one case her architect followed the guidelines given for rejecting it, and then next version came back with a whole new set of rejections that didn’t correspond at all to the previous ones.
Just for example. (And the weird thing was this house was not particularly spectacular and was built in 1949, among a lot of houses that were, in fact, older, in addition to being much modified from their original looks.)
So it’s worth checking out, but you ought to be able to see what’s required when you get a home inspection done.
It really depends on what kind of historical designation it has, national or local. And then on what that means locally. The upside is you can live in a beautifully detailed and maintained area. The downside is that you leave a lot of decisions (which cost money) in other peoples hands, who don’t necessarily have your interests in mind. Think of it as a HOA, on steroids.
My house has a similar historical designation, and the restrictions cover outside appearance only. We gut-rehabbed the place without having to seek permission from anyone.
FWIW the house is in Mount Dora, FL. what has really attracted us to the home besides the beautiful woodwork is the neighborhood. As mentioned above, because it is in a historical area all the homes are maintained wonderfully. No junk in the yards or dead lawns.
Does anyone know if asbestos was widely used in the very early 20th century? Of course we will have it tested, but I am unsure if it was used in construction in 1919.
A good place to start would be your state’s SHPO (State Historic Preservation Office; most often pronounced “shippo”). Any nominations to be added to the National Register (of Historic Places) has to go through the SHPO, along with any state-level historic site/landmark/district.
Thanks for the information. I have sent an email to the office in Florida and hopefully they can provide some history on the property or at least steer us in the right direction! It would be interesting to know a bit about the history of the home. My wife just keeps wondering if anyone died in it. She figures that with almost 100 years of existence there is a good chance! My wife is a wonderful, but twisted woman!
The SHPO is irrelevant. Unless you’re using federal money, National Register listing has no effect on what you can do with your property, including demolition.
Mt. Dora has an ordinance regarding exterior changes:
Certificates of Appropriateness are required for any proposed exterior alterations or renovations to any buildings (residential or non-residential) more than fifty years old that lies within the defined historic district. The streets included in the historic district are Helen Street, McDonald Street, Alexander Street, and Donnelly Street lying south of 11th Avenue; Baker Street, Tremain Street, Grandview Street, Clayton Street, and Highland Street lying between 11th Avenue and 1st Avenue; and, First Avenue through Tenth Avenue, inclusive, lying west of Highland Street. Here’s a map of the affected area.
A somewhat larger area is a National Register District, but as noted above, that designation carries no restrictions.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, homes built between 1930 and 1950 may have asbestos insulation. This house predates that, so it isn’t likely to be a problem.
Even if it isn’t on the National Register, the SHPO can still be a good starting point since they also deal with historic designations at the state level. Even if the property in question isn’t in a state-level historic designation, SHPO should be able to give him contact info at the local level (which can save time compared to trying on your own and potentially ending up bouncing between departments while you/they figure out who actually can help you).
As I think you realize, the people that set the rules, and the people you’ll have to deal with in getting approval, are the folks at the local Historic Preservation Office. That means the most important information is what **Mr Downtown **uoted:
However, I would be surprised if historic renovation guidelines are not essentialy the same across most localities. I live in a historic district, and our local Historic District Commission has guildelines that sound essentially the same as what’s quoted above.
Basically, any renovations you do to the interior of the house that don’t affect the exterior appearance don’t need any kind of approval. External changes need approval, and how much of a hassle that is is probably a function of how much you want to change the appearance. We had our house re-roofed with similar shingles to what existed before, and approval was routine. Re-roofing with a different material probably would have been a bigger headache, but there was no reason to do so.
If your house has a slate roof, make sure you take a hard look at it. Slate roofs are pretty durable, but a 90+ year old roof may be getting up to the end of its useful life, and fixing a slate roof will be far more expensive than fixing asphalt shingles. The chances of the local historic board allowing you to replace a slate roof with asphalt is pretty slim. Likewise, windows can be a problem spot: replacing wooden windows can be quite expensive, and you’re unlikely to be allowed to replace them with vinyl windows.
All in all, for us, dealing with the historic board was no more onerous than having to pull a construction permit anyway. It’s only if you want to make major external changes that it’s an issue.
Where I live usually ‘Historic’ districts are concerned with streetscapes, hence exteriors. Whereas individual homes designated as ‘Historical’ usually means the interiors are also intact.
There are also sub categories for older homes with existing altered exteriors, which makes those easier to alter again.
You have got to find out exactly what it means in your city - I didn’t know until after I’d bought my house that the historical neighborhood it’s in has some serious rules which meant that when I added a garage I had to go before a design review board, and when some asshole threw a rock through a window I had to replace it under cover of night.
In DC, the first question any contractor asks before giving us a bid is if our neighborhood is an historic district. We’re not, but I get the sense that if we were, their bid would be much higher.
My home (1903) had asbestos pipe insulation, and some renovations with asbestos vinyl tile.
If you are considering having children in the future, take a close look at the paint, you will likely have lead paint somewhere, it can be a hazard if it’s around windows and doors, or if it is in poor condition in any accessible places.
I really want to highlight this. I was talking to a colleague in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia and she was telling me about someone who had to go with a slate roof of their house and not a product that looked similar and it got very expensive. Shutters and windows can also get pricy compared to what they cost in a non historic neighborhood. Other houses had to go with copper roofs which I don’t think are as pricy as slate.
