Saving Midtown: Tipton School Site and saving it from out of town developers

Naturally even in a small town there are forces determined to change things and not always for the better.

Such is the case in Midtown in Logansport, as Crestline Property Management out of Indianapolis, is seeking  a PUD (Planned Unit Development) in our neighborhood at the old Tipton School Site. The site represents an entire city block that once housed this grand school. Later on they built an elementary school on part of the site and it too was town down. The site now runs from 15th to 16th.

As we can see the school occupied a large part of the site and in fact most of the massive stone foundations are still under that site under the parking lot as in the old days they just collapsed it and put fill over it.

The commercial district on 15th street tells us a lot about the neighborhood. There was a Meat Market and a Barber on the corner at 802, S 15th street,   two residential buildings and large long building that was a foundry of some sort. These buildings were demoed years ago and again, just dropped and covered. So what does this mean? Well in means this is likely an archeological dig site and that should be considered as a part of any digging on the site. This is something the developer are  overlooking and something that we, as preservationists need to be sure is addressed with any development on that site. Important pieces of Logansport history are on that site and they must be preserved.

One of the major concerns of the community is the proposed size of this project is 69,000 sq ft and goes from one end of the street to the other. It would house 42 apartments and be over 40 feet tall. It will tower of the smaller cottages built between 1860-1890 and will negatively impact them,  of particular concern is the negative impact to The Shondinger building at 825 and the small one story at 805 (now a garage )that was originally a Tailor shop as it project will literally block out the sun.

Similarly this will negatively impact the homes on Wright street.

The smallest house is on the NE corner of Wright and 15th  is a 600 sq ft one story shotgun cottage circa 1865 (restorable).

This illustrates what this house might resemble post restoration:

On the opposite NW corner is a yellow brick 1 story storefront that would be part of the Midtown 15th street revitalization project which envisions a future community retail or shop use and redesigned sidewalks

There are also Victorian era assets along Wright St including small 1 1/2 story cottages circa 1875 cottages and a two story (circa 1885) on the  corner of Wright and 16th that still have a high level of interior architectural integrity and just need exterior restore including correct sized windows.

This shows how these street might impact the community if restored.

This is the point.  A large scale 69,000 sq. ft. 40 ft tall, 42 unit apartment building (low income), with only 43 spaces will overwhelm the neighborhood, create traffic and safely concerns and negatively impact the quality of life in Midtown which is why we must oppose bad development.

This project will require state tax credits to move forward and it will be up to the community to let officials know that large scale sprawl is not needed in our community. We can not have historic single family neighborhoods in small towns over run with large scale buildings and traffic.

More color selection at the Burgman Building: Window details

Well after lots of testing and changing and moving round I "think" we have the combo that will go on all the second floor windows.

We have retained all the same colors used on the storefront just moved them around slightly.

So Far I think its going to work.

Small town living: Reverse Urbanism "The Leap to Logan"

As someone who has lived in large metropolitan areas most of my adult life and as a Historic Preservation Consultant working mostly in large cities, I am routinely asked "why Logansport"?

My response is why not?

I have learned of late that I am not the only one making this "urban exodus", we have people coming into the shop and I make of point of asking where they are coming to us from. Increasingly more and more people say Logansport but they are recent transplants from Chicago or Indianapolis. It's not hard to figure out why, just this last week, 6 Dead, 63 Wounded In Memorial Day Weekend Shootings in Chicago.  In Indianapolis Three men were arrested in connection with a shooting early Sunday at a Downtown parking garage that hospitalized four people, another four people shot on memorial day as well in other instances.

For all the "allure and hype" of Urban living in major cities ,the facts are major violent crime is on the rise in big cities and now commonplace and many are looking to get out before they become a statistic.

As someone who grew up in the 1960's we rode our bikes anywhere we wanted, we might go to the store by our self, we didn't see crime on our streets and we knew people were keeping an eye out for us. If you are kid riding your bike or taking a walk in a major city today you are likely to be pulled over by the  police concerned for your well being. CPS will be called and your parents will be investigated for "negligence" letting you be on your own.

Why Logansport? Kids can still ride their bikes or walk down the street...they can be kids. Now some negative locals will talk about crime, but if you press them they have never lived anywhere else. I can mow my lawn without the need to carry a sidearm as I did in Cincinnati, I can walk down the street without worrying about fighting off a thief as I did one morning walking to work in Louisville and I'm not worried about someone unloading a gun clip in the side of my house as they once did in Indianapolis because I reported their drug dealing

Urban pioneering had risk and rewards years ago. You would buy a historic home fix it up, organize your neighbors and have progressive dinner parties and before long the neighborhood was reborn. Urban pioneering in some cities today means putting you life at risk and at some point even the most dedicated preservationist finds one self asking the question "Is it worth it"? We  now have a great historic building, in a great neighborhood, surrounded by sane, normal people here in Logansport and I wake up every day with an optimism that has replaced the stress I felt before.

Yet you get the inevitable comment...must be boring. Well hardly, for a city its size Logansport has many of the amenities of big cities. Excellent parks, walking trails, farmers market, weekend concerts in the park.  The restaurants are good, the waits are short and you have cool things like the State Theatre, arts events, classic car shows, theatre productions, the list goes on and on and frankly you couldn't get to every event out there if you tried because there is that much to do.

Throw in antique shops (like ours), places like The People's Winery, The Record Farm and all sorts of small craft and gift type shops.. if you can't find something to do you are not really looking, or trying.

I've met people who moved here from Chicago, Indianapolis,  Dallas, Grand Rapids, Toledo, Washington DC, Santa Fe and other places attracted to the incredible historic architecture and small town living. Small towns are making a comeback. I've met people who have left Logansport and moved back because they realized, when they went out in the world, it wasn't as great as they thought it would be and small towns really have a lot to offer.

I can buy Thai food in Logansport (who would have thought)  and the steak at Amelios on the River is just as good as any eatery in a major city.

Small towns are making a comeback, Logansport is making a comeback...its just that some of the locals haven't figured that out yet. As more and more people are attracted to Logansport for its great architecture and small town life they will figure it out. Reverse Urbanism is real, I see it every day now... we made the "Leap to Logan".....and I'm glad we did

Logansport Landmarks Tour and picnic a success. Back to the restoration.



Courtesy of Rich Voorhees Studio: All rights reserved



 

It's been a week since the Logansport Landmarks tour and things are starting to get back to normal, basically I'm back to working my priority punch list. But I thought you'd enjoy some photos taken by our good friend, Rich Voorhees of Voorhees Studio Inc. here in Logansport during the event. His work is amazing and he has that unique Old house eye for catching the details. It was great to show our "in progress" work and hopefully inspire others to start their own restorations.

Courtesy of Rich Voorhees Studio: All rights reserved

The images of the Garland room even in its unfinished state take me back to the era of the Burgman's.

Courtesy of Rich Voorhees Studio: All rights reserved

Of course we had things that didn't get done , like the medallion installs but it gave us an opportunity to explain "order and process' to people on the tour.

Courtesy of Rich Voorhees Studio: All rights reserved

We had a good turnout and received some excellent feedback on focus of Logansport Landmarks and what people felt were important. We were glad to open up the shop, and the residence for this worthwhile event.

Of course now, its back to that punch list of "warm weather" stuff to do.

 



Frescos work updates and did I mention we have tour coming up?

We now have enough to pull corner stencils

Lots of time spend exposing the ceiling fresco work...an hour here and hour there but its starting to reveal itself and I am now confident we have enough to get good stencils of the banding.

The ceiling banding is almost exposed now

 We should be able to restore the floral work with no problem.

So this is the poster for the event

Oh and we have this tour thing coming up for Historic Preservation week in conjunction with Logansport Landmarks we are opening the upstairs up for guided tours of the restoration work in progress from 3-5 on the 22nd, in conjunction with a Preservation Picnic that goes on until 7 PM that will be held "on the grounds"

Hoping to get the gate and pergola done and then just a few more sections of fence and the future raised bed veggie garden will be ready to plant

This of course means lots more landscape work outside, we got some more fencing up and have been working on the beds.

Transplanting day lilies that were in the shade before is an every day task

This is not an easy task when you have almost an acre sized "private park", we have found huge old Viburnums which are now in bloom (snowball bushes), we have been  dividing and moving Hostas and Daylily's which are huge now and everything is just doing much better since we got some of the choking English Ivy off things.

Can you see the several ton boulder? NO, because the English Ivy covers it. Coming off in the next couple of days

Of course there is still more to do.

Two of these to paint to match the Persian Parlor

This week we got our pair of ceiling medallions for the Persian Parlor which I hope to have painted and up by tour time...hey, sleep is highly over-rated.

Burgman Building: Weekend Update: Stencilling and landscaping .

So much going on I can only touch on a few details. In the shop space I have begun the stencil process of the wall borders and I hope to start field panel stenciling soon.. Its a tedious process.

We are using a  border stencil from our Neo Grec stencil line and it will serve as an example of what we do in terms of decorative stenciling.

Given all the rain lately we had a rare, and I mean RARE day of dry weather and we headed outside to work. The "courtyard area' between the garage and building had been long overgrown and neglected and we transplanted some stuff to a more sunny location where it can actually bloom. The AC units will soon be relocated to the roof ( we have to call in the alarm people to deactivate the alarms systems for relocation), and this space can be better utilized for an outdoor entertainment space but it sorely needed a facelift and that's what we did.

Behind the building we addressed an overgrown area next to the building pulling out a lot of Virginia creeper and Ivy. We re-mulched the beds, re-laid border brick, and transplanted more stuff from the "back forty" where we virtually have our own nursery. We still have to re-lay the brick on the other side of the walk, and mulch, but with everything we do, it brings a real smile to our face to know we are bringing the building back.

Restoring some 'order' to the space has been rewarding and I am starting to see the vision of the Burgan's had with the gardens.

Other great news: the closet built-in is being painted,  a bed is in and we are moving in soon.

Burgman Building: Weekend Update.

You can really see the volume of space with the dropped ceiling gone

Busy weekend working in the "saloon space" of the building. ALL the dropped ceiling is out, along with bags upon bags of insulation. At the same time we started wall removal in anticipation of  the new entry hall and reception room for the residence. This wall removal represents the location of the new pocket door and large transom that will be above it.

This should bring in a great deal of light at this point especially after the entrance doors are redone back to double doors. I cant wait to get the rest of this wall out so we can construct the new pocket door wall.

An early Four square and a mix of Victorian cottages from this view

I have to say I am really impressed with the neighborhood. while it's not "high end Victorian" (most of the homes were built between 1890 and 1910). I can not get over how immaculate and clean the neighborhood is with neatly mowed lawns and carefully trimmed bushes.

There is a row of late Victorian homes in this view.

Say what you will, but small town USA is a dramatic contrast to the more Urban neighborhoods I have restored in.

Note the green carriage barn, large two story Victorian, corner one story commercial, and in the distance another red brick  Italianate storefront building

Kids can safely wander the neighborhood, people ride their bikes, and most importantly the people are extremely friendly.

Burgman Building: Commercial "un-muddling" begins

The front storefront has few changes

While one could justifiably argue that the front commercial space is 'period perfect' down to its wainscot , period storefronts and beaded-board ceiling, the side street unit is not.

The back storefront is a 'different' story

In fact this was the area of greatest re-muddling, undertaken by the prior owners who were trying to... who knows what? What they did do is install the "Great wall of kitchen" as we call it, drop ceilings, install florescent lighting and put in crappy carpet.

There should be a law to prevent this!

These "periscope ceilings' do nothing to show off the large windows and period trim.

The new floor plan works better for our use

Of course it ALL has to go! We will be reconfiguring the back 2/3 of the space as additional shop space connected to the front shop and the front 1/3 will be turned into a formal entrance for the upstairs, with a large pocket door between this entrance and the commercial which can be opened up for large events where we might need to use multiple entrances.

Amazing detail on this capital

This back space was originally built as a saloon and it had been updated a few times over the year so little is known about its original paint colors. However when  we began removal of the dropped ceiling we exposed the original support column with its polychrome paint. Faded and chipped but enough to go by.

And there is the round window and 13 ft ceilings!

We also exposed the circular window along the back wall which makes a big difference! Still have lots of drop track to remove, and we now have a 7 ft high tall stack of acoustic ceiling tiles and we filled 30 bags with fiberglass bat insulation.



This short wall will come out and a full height wall built to house  a pocket door with a large arched window over it to let in light

Coming soon will be the old duct removal and patching any holes cut in the ceiling with some matching bed board.

Of course now that everything is out of the Persian Parlor, I just had to throw down an oriental rug which has some blues that compliment the wall nicely.

Thanks to our readers for great 2014!

2014 has been one our busiest years! It has been busy on the historic preservation front, working with clients on projects and trying to fit in a little bit of our own work in too. We also launched Rustbelt Preservationist which has far exceeded our expectations.

In 2015 we will be making many changes, some will be improvements to our blogs and we think you will like the changes as they are largely influenced by suggestions you have made.

At the same time we will be launching, finally, our historic design center and also thinning the herd by selling off some of our properties to make our life simpler. On a personal level, I plan on slowing down a bit and staying off ladders etc and delegating more projects. Maybe this year we can even fit in a small vacation, as we are long overdue for one.

Thank you for all your support and your interest in historic preservation and period historic design. Please share you favorite blog posts with your friends on Facebook and Pinterest as with over 1000 blogposts we have become ago to resource on Google for all things Victorian or preservation related.

Please have safe and sane New Years Eve and watch out for the police! Designated drivers insure 2015 will be prosperous year for you too!

Small Buildings should be preserved too.

Grand style in a small package

Some preservation organization seem to only care about grand mansions built by famous local architects. However, Indiana Landmarks is different, they apparently believe that good things come in small packages and while they do help save "grand mansions' a lot of their efforts are on saving the everyday workers cottages, small homes and in this case a unique but small commercial building, the Frasier and Isham Law Office in the small town of Fowler Indiana .



Window seats in the bays

The building is a example of the design skills of the firm of J. F. Alexander & Son . The style might best be described as Eclectic in my opinion but the round turreted bays of brick and stone shown "Romanesque'  influence . The Romanesque style is generally reserved for large mansions and government buildings. Its use in a small structure like this is rare.

Can't get more secure than your personal vault

The building is on the registry and Indiana Landmarks has attached protective covenants that will insure its future protection. The property is for sale at 45,000.00. It even has its own vault!
You can see the landmarks listing here. Landmark for sale

Encaustic tile floor

This property has great encaustic tile and woodwork too and perfectly illustrates that our "built history" often comes in small packages.