[MassHistPres] Buying a Home with Historical Significance

[Elizabeth Ware]

Ellen,

I agree that we should be rethinking the methods and reasons for completing surveys on historic resources within our communities.

I live in Newburyport and, within the past three years, there was a significant effort made to create a large local historic district.  The survey forms, created in the 1970s and 1980s were relied on for the district boundaries.  Regrettably, most of the forms were not well done or omitted, resulting in a lot of misinformation about the buildings.  The district efforts failed however now there is a local zoning demolition bylaw that is based on this older documentation.  Regrettably, with missing forms for outbuildings, the city has lost a number of outbuildings that have significantly contributed to the neighborhood.  The good news is that several buildings have been saved from inappropriate additions and/or demolition.

In this situation, better survey forms would be beneficial but those forms would have cost the city many hundreds of dollars (if not more) to generate.  Even with CPA funds, somehow historic survey seems to be last on the list.

The present survey process is expensive for communities; however most people (many with Master's degrees in Preservation/Architectural History or other related field) completing the surveys are often making less than $10/hour for the detailed review of these homes.  As one who completes these surveys and who has had surveys completed by consultants for the communities I work for,  the work is interesting but not well paying.  The MHC calculates about $200. per form in their survey grant program.

Even with the best of consultants, often times the survey data is in error or incomplete.  I recently was made aware of a 1980s study, conducted by prominent local architectural historians, where many of the survey forms were just dead wrong... even on the deed history!  So even with the best of professionals, the data can be wrong.  Based on what I have seen recently, the interested  amateur researcher should not be summarily discredited and may, in fact, be more accurate than the 1980 study I recently reviewed.

I'm not sure what the answers are but I do know that a community has to document what it has in order to insure that the community's architectural history does not disappear with a wrecking ball.  This documentation should be used primarily for educational purposes within the community.  If the local historical commission is not willing to convey this information and advocate for local history and historic resources and if local residents aren't willing to find out how their community was settled and developed historically, then we're all in trouble.

Having worked in Ipswich, MA in the mid-1980s as the community's first town planner, many residents who lived in older homes viewed themselves as "conservators of Ipswich's history" and fully acknowledged that they were fortunate to be able to live in some of these early homes, even though it was only for ten years of the building's 300 year history.  I'm not sure how the Ipswich Historical Commission worked their magic on area homeowners but there was an educational component to their work that was extremely successful.  We managed to negotiate compromises that have kept the community's historic resources relatively intact, despite many efforts to the contrary. (I suspect that this "historical magic" was  due largely to the chairwoman, Mary Conley, who was wise, humble and had a way to generate enthusiasm and respect for old homes.)

Perhaps a forum or other event to discuss this topic would be beneficial.  I have a lot of experience, many challenges and, regrettably, not a lot of answers on how to educate the general public on their community's history and historic resources.

Betsy Ware

Director of Community Development
Town of Dracut, MA.
978-453-4557



From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu [mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Ellen St.Sure
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2016 5:27 PM
To: Lyons, Pamela <plyons at city.waltham.ma.us>
Cc: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: Re: [MassHistPres] Buying a Home with Historical Significance

To Pamela (as well as Sara Wermiel, Michael Roughan, Gwen Miller and Garrett Laws who have already replied to her) :

I think it is time for a serious practical discussion about our old houses and what we should do to document their histories (together with information on their early occupants). Doing the research to develop reliable histories can be enormously time-consuming-and beyond the skills of amateur house-sleuthers. Local volunteers can be trained to do some of the work but experienced professionals must be involved at least as overseers. To take on this task, towns should view their house-history projects as fairly costly but ultimately valuable contributions which will provide multiple long-term benefits.

Once we have thoroughly researched our old house histories, we should use them to reach out to our communities in all sorts of ways. The histories should be made available (both paper and electronic copies) to old house owners as well as realtors marketing old houses, to organizations interested in hosting open houses or house tours, to local schools which might use them to stimulate students' interest in their town's history, and to libraries where the histories could be made easily available for browsing as well as study.

At present, most town-wide house research efforts appear to be undertaken primarily to provide information for MHC files or to pursue demolition delays-activities which do not effectively motivate the substantial efforts necessary to develop interesting and useful house histories.

It's time to rethink both the methods and purposes of developing such histories.

Ellen St. Sure
   Archivist, Town of Brewster
estsure at comcast.net<mailto:estsure at comcast.net>

On Feb 2, 2016, at 1:38 PM, "Lyons, Pamela" <plyons at city.waltham.ma.us<mailto:plyons at city.waltham.ma.us>> wrote:


Q: When a home is purchased that has Historical Significance, does your city or town notify the buyer about the historic significance and possibly then provide them with some history on the house,  perhaps some ways to preserve the historic feel and look to the house etc? Is there a way to do this, a way to provide a buyer with more information to preserve the history within the city/town? Do any of your cities or towns implement anything like this?

Waltham Historical Commission

Regards,

Pamela Lyons
Waltham Historical Commission
Principal Office Assistant
Email: PLyons at city.waltham.ma.us<mailto:PLyons at city.waltham.ma.us>
Phone: 781-314-3389
Arthur Clark Government Center
119 School Street
Waltham, MA 02452

******************************
For administrative questions regarding this list, please contact Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us<mailto:Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us> directly.  PLEASE DO NOT "REPLY" TO THE WHOLE LIST.
MassHistPres mailing list
MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu<mailto:MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu>
http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/listinfo/masshistpres
********************************

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/private/masshistpres/attachments/20160204/8d759ad7/attachment.htm>