More Than a Matter of Scale
Most preservation & urban minded people would look at the picture on the right and say the problem is the scale of the dreadfully ugly HUD infill house. Yes, the scale is out of character for the neighborhood.
It is much shorter than the much grander house next door. Narrower too. The original house is elevated above grade whereas the infill it not. The ceilings are lower on the newer house which doesn’t help with its squat appearance. Again, most would say any new house need to have a similar scale to fit in with the old house. Most times I’d probably agree.
The problem with conventional thinking is – well – that it is too conventional.
I seldom find myself on Westminster just East of Euclid but last week I was showing another house on this block. Instantly I perked up when I spotted this odd little house among giants. I had seen it several times before but it had been a few years since the last time I saw it. This house is one of the most beloved in the West End. A recent MLS listing says it was designed in 1923 by architect, George F. Brueggeman. List price was just under $360K for a 2 bedroom and 2 bath house.
But, it has many of the same scale issues as the first example. In fact, this house only has one floor visible from the street compared to two above. It is not raised above grade like its neighbors. It is wider than the first house but that kind of adds to a short, horizontal look. On paper, such a house would never be permitted in a historic district today.
Yet here it is. Despite all the obvious scale flaws it works. Beautifully.
Proportion and quality are the two reasons the second house works so well and the first house fails so miserably. In the first house the mansard roof is this awful appendage to the front. We have tons of great Second Empire houses from which to determine the proper proportions – this designer decided the cartoon version was better. You may have heard the phrase ill-proportioned. This is the definition. You never hear ill-scaled.
Quality is the other factor. The use of masonry on the second is superior to the cheap siding and brick wallpaper slapped on the front. The first house has plastic shutters on either side of a window they could never cover – presumably to dress up the facade.
I’m not suggesting, necessarily, we permit well-proportioned, high-quality one story houses to be built adjacent to majestic two and three story homes in historic districts. I am suggesting we be cautious about insisting on everything fitting in – sometimes the ones that don’t fit in are more loved than those that do.
– Steve
Excellent point, well argued.
The definition of ‘sympathetic’ or ‘contextual’ among preservationists is sometimes too narrowly drawn, so that what is preserved is perfect but utterly lifeless.
That three-house grouping on Westminster Place that you photographed is a conversation among equals across decades. A house of the same period on that plot wouldn’t have been nearly so interesting.
The 1970s-style faux mansarded off-the-shelf ‘solution’ is not a house; it’s housing. One consequence of depositing it, like a turd, next to an earlier, larger and pleasant but unexceptional building is that the older building is made to look almost majestic by comparison.
James Howard Kunstler would certainly appreciate that first picture!