Time to Hold National Chains to a higher architectural standard when they demo.

This is not your typical CVS store. It attempts to make an architectural statement and could easily looks more like an old art deco theatre, than an chain pharmacy store. Yet CVS and Walgreens routinely tear down irreplaceable architecture and build their boring bland suburban stores in historic districts upsetting the streetscape and forever changing the architecture.

What is really interesting about this CVS is that nothing was even demoed to build it. It was built in new development called Villages of West Clay and was part of their West Clay "Uptown development".

West Clay is one of those "New Urbanism " communities trying to create a small town in the cornfields of suburbia. This building looks the way it does because the ONLY way they could build in this community was to make it look old.

If the big chains can do it when they have too, why can't historic neighborhoods demand the same treatment?

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.

The Pursuit of a "Country House"

I haven't posted in a while because frankly I've been too busy. With the mortgage crisis and real state bubble in the rear view mirror (hopefully for good) and real estate prices getting back to decent levels, we have been working feverishly on our Indianapolis property, which we have had to hold until prices went back up. We are pleased to announce it goes on the market this weekend and it is our hope that "The Willows", our restored and updated Shingle style home, that has been featured on HGTV and urban times finds new loving owners.

Over the last few months we have been engaged in evaluating where we are, our goals etc. When we bought our home in Cincinnati, we never dreamed we would wind up being defacto developers. But with us now owning eight homes and half a dozen building lots, that is where we are. Much of my time is now spent with meeting with city officials, promoting the Save not Raze program and showing homes to potential preservation minded owners, meeting with builders and developers, public speaking requests and my activities as president of the  Knox Hill Neighborhood Association. Knox Hill, in addition to being a "preservation passion", has become a full time job, leaving little time for relaxing. In fact our last real vacation was in 2002.

So, we decided we needed to be able to get away from the 'job' of Knox Hill and decompress. To that goal we decided that we needed a 'country house'. A place we could get away to. It had to be livable/campable. It had to be historic, and it had to be within an hour of Cincinnati. Close, but not too close to town. It had to be quiet, not urban, and a place we could fix up along the way but not be "pressured". We drew a circle on the map surrounding Cincinnati and began the arduous task of research, looking at a lot of homes on line and some in person.

Of course, true to our "Preservation Principals", it needed to be a house that would benefit from our unique abilities. So in proper "Victorian lifestyle" we plan on having our city home, the Historic Nagele Merz house, and our "country getaway". This will allow us to divide our time, allow us to focus more clearly on the tasks at hand that day and also pay more attention to our historic design business.

All I can say right now is, after months of looking, we think we have found the "right house". The offer has been prepared, we think the sellers and us are on the same page, and when we can make a "formal" announcement, a "landmark home", will once again realize its potential and we will be able to getaway for few days a week. As usual, everyone will think we are crazy, but this will work for us.

We have also set some goals of getting some of the Save-not-Raze program properties into new preservation minded owners hands.  Keeping our development properties in Overlook District on tract and of course the patient and detailed restoration of Nagele Merz. But most importantly, devoting little bit of our time to relaxing.

Solarium Redux: Staging a small space for resale.

One of the challenges when you decide to sell a house is to "let go" of your own personal style. Your own like and dislike may not translate to the demographic you are trying to sell to and often that requires restyle and restaging of a space.

This enclosed porch/solarium provides an outdoor feel indoors.

One of the great things in smaller houses is found space. Such is the case with the solarium. This space is only 7x13 feet but three sides are windows making it appear visually larger than it is. This space was originally planned to be a small study and we selected darker richer colors, however we re-envision this space as being overflow for the living room, perhaps a small office space.



Fabric is a quick and easy addition and it provides some sound deadening from street noise.

Our first decision was to go with a lighter color on the walls and trim, This creates an architectural paneled effect. We also determined that the "focus wall" which is seen from the street above the architectural paneled space needed something special, we found a fabric with a French theme. This material is a bleached linen and if sun fading were to happen would simple "patina' the fabric. Note: we covered the switch plate to make it recede visually with the wall

The other decision was to take advantage of the floor which was done in a simple wood parquet. We chose a tile with a nice scale which would visually expand the space and relates well to the new exterior color on the house. There is also a side benefit that this will warm up in the evening and provide some thermal storage which is beneficial on cooler days.

The classic tile floor creates European feel to the space

We decided to use a French style area carpet continuing with the theme and paired that with an old mahogany buffet, which allows for lots of extra storage.

The sideboard and a couple of chairs are more than adequate for this space.

Because the space was small we used smaller scaled side chairs with lighter wood. The fabric matched our paint color too. Total cost of this restage was inexpensive about 100.00 for the tile plus about 50.00 for the fabric and paint. We kept the simple reed blinds which control light. We will throw in a couple of house plans and a fern or two to give it that solarium feel and feel like your outdoors on a cooler day.

Neighborhoods with determination aways turn around: A case study: Cottage Home

These brightly painted cottages are a signature of cottage home

The one key thing I observe about my Knox Hill community is the desire to turn it around. Even in the face if indifference and adversity, neighborhood turnaround occurs because of the will of a group of residents to take their own destiny under control and not accept the "status quo" that others believe it should be.  Examples of this determination are not hard to find elsewhere. One such case is  the Cottage Home neighborhood in Indianapolis which I recently walked.

Once workers doubles, today they are quality housing

Where is was: This area was largely an area of dilapidated workers cottages and shotgun houses lived in by low wage workers who worked at warehouses nearby. It was a poor neighborhood with a largely uneducated population and it was essentially in danger of being wiped out by warehouse and industrial expansion after highway construction of I70-65 downtown interchange wiped out a large swath of warehouses just west of it. In fact had the freeway gone just a few blocks further east it would have wiped the neighborhood from oblivion.

This grand mansion in cottage home is hardly a cottage

but just one example of why this neighborhood is important

The early face of the preservation movement was in Lockerbie a neighborhood just the other side of the freeway and most (including city leaders) assumed the area would be destined for warehouse expansion as far east until it reached Arsenal Tech which would be a natural buffer to Woodruff and other residential neighborhoods.  Cottage homes was essentially "written off".

Walkable livable neighborhood, close to downtown

 are keys to turnaround

But as Lockerbie , and many other downtown neighborhoods prospered and prices escalated, some saw Cottage Home for what it was; minutes to the downtown core, great historic architecture and  most importantly, still affordable. It was that early group of preservationists, artisans and a few older residents who did not want to see their neighborhood wiped away that engineered the slow turnaround of that community.

Elimination of a through street fostered new development.

 

Connectivity of a different kind: Sometimes less is more and the reduction of cut through traffic was addressed most skillfully by this neighborhood by eliminating through traffic on one of its streets and the replacement with roadway with a footbridge and the creation of a cul de sac street area which has fostered new development. A novel solution to the elimination of through traffic which also helped reduce crime and drug dealing

High end housing replaces vacant underused lots.

These new construction townhomes and now single family homes are repurposing once vacant lots and providing quality housing in that area where before there was little interest in redevelopment.

These unique prefab modular designed New Urbanist

homes are writing a new chapter on former warehouse land

 

The restoration of the historic housing stock has provided new opportunities for architectural diversity on a stretch along 10 th street brings high end New Urbanist development on another former industrial site.

Today no one would suggest that Cottage home be bulldozed for warehouses. In fact, it is the warehouses that are being demolished to provide new housing opportunities. Cottage Home is rapidly becoming a great emerging community and former vacant lots and warehouse land is seeing high end housing being constructed. It is an example of how a small group  with a love of saving the ordinary cottage fostered the rebirth of an entire neighborhood and are writing new chapters in its history.

The Classic Farmhouse Sink: And we have one for sale!

Its been awhile since we have had a really nice farmhouse sing come our way. This one is a right corner version and has the drain board on the left.

Good ones like this are increasingly harder to find and I'm not sure when we will have another so if a classic farmhouse sink is a must have for your restoration, here you are, and it even has the hanging brackets.

Priced to sell 395.00 ( to our blog readers) and you can pick up in Indy or Cincinnati and we can work with your Blanket shipper. For details contact me at victiques@gmail.com

Spring Tag Sale a huge sucess

This year was our last Indianapolis Tag sale (as our Indy home goes on the market) and the weather cooperated  with us and our clients shopped for many unique thing. Still a little tired but it was fun time as always.

Of course we didn't sell Everything, so if you see something you like you can email me at victiques@gmail.com to see if we still might have it.

Cast Iron Renaisance arched top Summer Cover

Chances are if you have cast iron mantels you probably are missing yours . Most were sacrificed in the WW2 scrap drives and they are getting increasingly hard to find.

So grab your measuring tape! We have an extra Cast iron summer cover. Its 18 inches wide and 26 inches high. Nice grill design on it very nice and formal for your parlor.

We have this listed on EBAY for 175.00 buy it now. This won't last so better hurry if this is the size you need.

Just In: A remarkable Aesthetic Movement 3 piece Parlor Set

The stars and moon must be in a rare alignment, because we are finding some remarkable new finds. Such is the vase with this just in American Aesthetic Movement three Piece Parlor set.

The Aesthetic Movement was a move away from the more formal Rococo styles and even to some degree the  Renaissance style. The Aesthetic Movement was a sort of transition from the more exuberant Victorian era to the Craftsman era.

Of course, within this movement it took many forms, in some cases towards the Anglo-Japanesque, or in this case, a more restrained example that dealt more with the artful carved images of leaves. In either case the Aesthetic movement blended style with nature and was in some ways a precursor to the more honest and simpler craftsman ethic.

This set with its design themes is probably a Cincinnati or Grand Rapids manufactured set designed to go in an upper middle class parlor. The Settee in particular is most attractive with its central back flanked with two carved panels on either side. The Arms are separated from the main back to create more airy open design.

The chairs reflect the arm design in their side design. All in all, a nicely designed set that would be different than the more formal Renaissance and Rococo and perhaps even a bit daring and exotic for the day.

This set has older upholstery with some minor issues, but is serviceable for the typical parlor. My initial temptation was to reupholster it in a two tone scheme, but why argue with success and a nice presentation as it.  We will replace some of the arm gimp before sale and replace few missing nail head trim nails, that held the gimp but it will be a very presentable, and reasonably priced, parlor set in our inventory.

If this Aesthetic Movement Set speaks to you, speak to me at victiques@gmail.com about pricing info and how you can make this yours.

Antique-of-the-Week: The little red chair!

Everyone is always looking for small side chairs and frankly they are getting hard to find or they need upholstery. Here is a wonderful Eastlake Victorian style chair and its in  a deep red upholstery. Walnut incised trim and its original castors too!

Priced for a quick sale at 125.00 and we can work with your shipper and if you are in the Indianapolis  or Cincinnati areas you can pick it up in person.

Antique of the week is an ongoing series aimed at the old house restorer who is looking to decorate their home affordably. We can invoice you via paypal, email me at victiques@gmail.com for more info.