[MassHistPres] 3. Moving Historic Structures
Kenneth Williamson
Williamson98 at comcast.net
Thu Sep 14 15:23:33 EDT 2006
Dear Linda,
The oldest house in South Hadley, the 1732 home of our first
minister, was attached to a 1786 house and the new owner of the
latter was going to sell it for parts or give it away if it could be
moved. The South Hadley Historical Society undertook this project,
the house was donated, and moved some 18 months ago. Finding funds
for this was (and is) difficult. I contacted the Massachusetts
Historical Commission and was told "We don't fund grants to move
houses." I find this very puzzling. Can anyone explain this policy?
If you are moving the building down a public way there are all sorts
of permits needed (police & fire depts, highway dept, local DPW,
etc.), but there will be no charge for moving or lifting utility
lines. And of course any house move attracts lots of attention,
which is not at all bad. Ours got stuck in the mud!
I can highly recommend the mover, Brian Payne from Strafford, New
Hampshire (http://www.paynebuildingmovers.com/). A few years ago he
moved an 800 ton brick house in Springfield for the former SPNEA.
Ken Williamson
Sycamores Committee, South Hadley Historical Society
On Sep 14, 2006, at 12:00 PM, masshistpres-request at cs.umb.edu wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Traffic Patterns (Jonathan Feist)
> 2. Re: Roofing for historic houses (Matthew B. Bronski)
> 3. moving historic structures (bufffive at aol.com)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:07:42 -0400
> From: Jonathan Feist <jfeist at charter.net>
> Subject: [MassHistPres] Traffic Patterns
> To: <MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu>
> Message-ID: <C12DA50E.C736%jfeist at charter.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
> Greetings,
>
> There?s been a change in Harvard?s historic Town Center traffic
> pattern that
> has some people in town up in arms, and I?ve been asked to weigh in.
> Basically, a stop sign was removed to make traffic able to pass
> through the
> main intersection more quickly. Opponents see this as a degradation
> of the
> feeling of a cozy town center.
>
> I don?t have an opinion about it yet. I can?t imagine that the HHC
> has any
> jurisdiction, as no structures have visibly changed.
>
> Does anyone have thoughts? And is there any data to support the
> argument
> that faster traffic contributes significantly to the deterioration of
> buildings?
>
> --Jonathan
>
> ===============================================
>
> Jonathan Feist, Chair
> Harvard Historical Commission
> 978-772-4864 (home)
> 617-747-2148 (Berklee office: Tuesdays only)
>
> Preserve Historical Harvard, MA:
> http://www.jonathanfeist.com/Pages/HarvardPreservation.html
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:22:11 -0400
> From: "Matthew B. Bronski" <MBBronski at sgh.com>
> Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Roofing for historic houses
> To: "Alexandra Lee" <alee at architects.org>, <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
> Message-ID:
> <D00D1539C5F5E248813837EFB2689D14026DEDB3 at exchange.sgh.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>
> Alexandra-
>
> Sorry I missed this e-mail before - I was just cleaning out my old
> e-mails and came across it. I'm not sure if this response is too
> late
> to be of help to you, but the info. may be useful to others on the
> list,
> so I'll share some thoughts.
>
> In short, yes, there's a lot of precedent for historic standing seam
> metal roofing on houses in snow-bound climates of northeastern US, and
> the Adirondacks specifically.
>
> With the widespread availability of manufactured metal roofing in the
> 1800's and early 1900's, standing seam metal roofs became a roofing
> material of choice in snow-bound northern regions, like the
> Adirondacks
> and Maine. Standing seam roofs were far more common on houses there
> than in Eastern Mass. or southern New England. As a practical
> matter,
> steeply sloped standing seam metal roofs have a lower coefficient of
> friction (are more slippery) and thus encourage snow and ice slide-off
> from the roof, reducing the risk of structural overloading and roof
> collapse, and also reduce the tendency of the roof to form large ice
> dams (and reduce the risk of leakage from ice dams). The most
> practical
> vernacular examples in the Adirondacks minimize or eliminate
> valleys and
> dormers, to further reduce the tendency for snow to accumulate on the
> roof. I have an article on "The Architecture of Winter: building
> against the season" that briefly touches upon this - it will appear in
> the forthcoming Nov./Dec. 2006 issue of ArchitectureBoston magazine.
>
> The National Park Service publication "Preservation Briefs" includes a
> document on historic roofing that discusses traditional metal roofs.
> It's online at http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/TPS/briefs/brief04.htm
> Standing seam and pressed metal shingle roofs were both common in the
> 19th and early 20th century - this NPS brief discusses them.
>
> One of the aesthetic problems with contemporary standing seam
> galvalume
> metal roofing on historic buildings is the ultra-bright colors and the
> high-gloss finish of the coating. Because of the color and high-
> gloss,
> these roofs can seem to shout "car dealership" or "strip mall", rather
> than "historic house". Traditional painted metal roofs tended to be
> flat or semi-gloss look, not high-gloss. And the common red color for
> instance tended to be an earthen red, not candy apple red like most
> galvalume roofs today. You could paint over a new metal roof in an
> appropriate color and sheen level, but painting would beget an ongoing
> maintenance issue you wouldn't have otherwise.
>
> While metal roofs were reasonably common on houses in the
> Adirondacks in
> early 20th c., the bottom line is what's most appropriate for your
> particular 1927 house. If your research (archival or physical) shows
> that it originally had a shingle roof, you may want to put a shingle
> roof back. You didn't mention whether the original shingle roof was
> wood, asphalt, or metal shingles (all three were in use at that time).
> With the better self-adhering membrane underlayments (such as "Ice and
> water Shield" and similar products) that are available today, the
> concealed underlayment can make a shingle roof much more reliable in
> preventing leakage from ice dams than it would have been in 1927. In
> recent years, more manufacturers have come out with metal shingles
> - an
> old idea that seems to have come back. Some nice copper shingles are
> available, which avoid the maintenance issue of repainting, but I
> don't
> know whether that would be visually appropriate for your particular
> house. And if you are considering a wood shingle roof, an
> installation
> that will allow air circulation and increased drying of the
> underside of
> the wood shingles (a sheet drainage mat such as "cedar breather" or
> similar products are an easy way to achieve this) will make wood
> shingles more durable than if they were installed directly. However,
> you should always look at solar exposure when considering a wood
> shingle
> roof - wood shingle roofs tend to be most durable when they get some
> sun, but not too much. If they face south and get no shade, but get
> cooked in the sun all the time, UV damage tends to prematurely
> deteriorate the wood shingles. On a shaded north-facing roof slope,
> where they never get any sun, wood shingles are really slow to dry
> out,
> are more prone to rotting, and tend to get a lot of microbial and
> fungal
> growth (e.g., algae, mold). Water run-off from zinc and copper
> flashings inhibits microbial growth, thus, strategic use of flashings
> can limit microbial growth on wood shingle roofs. In my experience,
> wood shingle roofs with their ridge line along a north-south axis
> (with
> east and west facing roofs) will fare better over the long term
> than the
> similarly constructed roof with the ridge on an east-west axis (where
> the north facing roof doesn't get enough sun to dry-out, and the
> shingles rot, whereas and the south facing roof gets too much sun, and
> the shingles crack and split.)
>
> Good luck with your project.
> -Matthew
>
> Boston Society of Architects Historic Resources Committee
> and
> Winchester Historical Commission
>
>
>
> Matthew B. Bronski, Assoc. AIA
> Staff Engineer/Designer
> Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc.
> 41 Seyon Street
> Building 1, Suite 500
> Waltham, MA 02453
> Direct Dial: 781 907 9264
> Operator: 781 907 9000
> Fax: 781 907 9009
> E-mail: mbbronski at sgh.com
> Website: www.sgh.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
> [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Alexandra Lee
> Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 10:36 AM
> To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
> Subject: [MassHistPres] Roofing for historic houses
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
> At a family home in the Adirondacks, the group is considering a
> standing
> seam metal roof on a beautiful shingle style house from the 1927 that
> sits right on Lake Champlain. The original roof I believe was shingle
> and I am trying to research any examples of where the standing seam
> roof
> might appear on a historic house. It strikes me as an inappropriate
> choice but a local preservationist has indicated that standing seam or
> shingle would be an appropriate choice for this replacement roof.
>
>
>
> Does anyone have any websites or links to images of an old shingle
> house
> with a standing seam roof? Or does anyone have opinions on the
> preservation aspects of this choice? Thank you.
>
>
>
> Alexandra Lee
>
> Director of Special Projects
>
> Boston Society of Architects
>
> 52 Broad Street
>
> Boston MA 02109
>
> 617-951-1433x225
>
> 617-951-0845 fax
>
> alee at architects.org <mailto:alee at architects.org>
>
>
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 21:24:20 -0400
> From: bufffive at aol.com
> Subject: [MassHistPres] moving historic structures
> To: MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
> Message-ID: <8C8A5B3A32972B1-16D4-5CF5 at FWM-M34.sysops.aol.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I was hoping to gather some information on how to mount a campaign
> to save a building by moving it and what obstacles (no pun
> intended) we might encounter. The Wellesley Country Club is slated
> to be demolished (where the vote to become a town was taken) and we
> are trying to get the Club to consider moving the building to
> another site on their property.
> If you have any suggestions of ways to approach this we would very
> much appreciate it. The Pillar House in Wellesley was relocated a
> few years ago.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Linda Buffum
> Chairman, Wellesley Historical Commission
> ______________________________________________________________________
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