Sunday, May 10, 2015

Draft of LHE Historic District Study


We have obtained a draft of the Lowry Hill East Residential Historic District designation study. Is your house "contributing" or "non-contributing"? It's time to start judging your neighbors.

Here's a neat detail. There are a cluster of houses on Bryant Ave (2415, 2417, 2420, 2424, 2425) possibly built as duplexes, which are now single-family homes. LHENA tried to downzone a few of those addresses from R2 (two-family) to R1 (single-family) in the great rezoning battle of 2004. This must have been upsetting to our neighborhood's "Healy originalists" who prefer to interpret zoning as the Master Builder intended.


I can clarify some uncertainty regarding features of the very interesting house at 2404 Colfax:
It is not clear if the fence dates to the period of significance. Also, the decorative spindle work and bargeboard are very unusual to see in a Colonial Revival house. While there are no specific building permit references to this element of the design, it is not clear if this dates to the period of significance.
As first reported by the Wedge newspaper, Bob and Jeanie McAloon built that fence (and other stuff) in nineteen hundred and ninety-three.