Demolition in Chapel Hill
Another Triangle-wide note, as a property-owner began tearing down one of the oldest houses in Chapel Hill (mid 1800s) yesterday, the Dey House. It serves as a reminder that our weak preservation policy in this state does not allow a municipality to prevent the demolition of a historic structure, no matter how important or historically-relevant that structure is. Our own Historic Preservation Commission can only delay the demolition of a structure for up to a year, but the owner can then tear down a historic landmark.
Such is the case in Chapel Hill, where demolition was delayed for a year, and the owner has now begun tearing it down - for no particularly clear reason, either.
Only one North Carolina city, Statesville, has received city-specific enabling legislation that allows their city council to deny a demolition permit for structures in local historic districts/local landmarks.
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I nearly bought the house next door, at 207 Hillsborough. Glad I didn't! The other one we looked at was the Berry-Brown-Tax-Smith House at 611 East Rosemary Street, which needed a ton of work. I see it made the 2006 Holiday House Tour of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill; the new owners appear to have done a much better restoration than I would have done.
I'm very intrigued by the high density developments along the other end of Rosemary St. There's an historically black community just north of Rosemary St. on the Carrboro border that is ripe for gentrification, full of 1000-sq. ft. mill houses. The town prevents developers from enlarging the footprint, but my idea was to buy one of these duplexes and build higher. Sadly, my girlfriend could not commit to living in a 500 sq. ft. shack during the renovation.
GK: We spoke recently about house demolition, and what were the cost differences between demolition/rebuild and remodel/reuse. Coincidentally, a friend of mine near Seattle is taking an architecture course; they have guest architects who come in and talk about what they do. My friend's notes from the last class of the last quarter contain this bullet point/ballpark estimate: "It costs about $30,000 to tear down and haul away a house, ballpark." As far as ballparks go, this one is pretty big, :) But it was nice to see at least an order-of-magnitude type estimate.
FWIW, the rest of my friend's posts on her classes (and a few other closely related posts) are at http://grettacook.livejournal.com/tag/architecture
Don't forget that this is the same guy who owns the circa-1830s Colonial Hotel on King Street in (nearby) Hillsborough! It'll be interesting to see what he does with it now...
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