Preservation isn't always about "pretty" and "pristine"

Yenching Palace in Cleveland Park
Originally uploaded by Brockoman.

Yenching Palace in Cleveland Park photo on Flickr by Brockoman.

Sam Smith's blog draws from an e-thread from a Cleveland Park listserv about Yenching Palace and how one resident thinks it's an eyesore. The comments that Sam reprints are pretty interesting. Read them in the entry Great Neighborhood Issues.

I too vote for variety and diversity. It's a tough issue for a preservationist. The reality is that houses and neighborhoods change over time and that when you designate an area that kind of change and experimentation stops.

On the other hand, in the past few days I saw two perfect illustrations about the necessity of design review. No camera though...

(1) a newly constructed rowhouse on the 1300 block of Maryland Avenue NE, with completely totally and unequivocally incorrect windows in terms of placing, size, and style. It wouldn't have cost them much more to do it right, and in the long run it would have paid off in greater value. Instead it just looks wrong, and different from every other house on the block.

(2) Similarly, there is a four square ex-frame house at Otis and 10th Street NE in Brookland, where the porch has been built in, and all the wood has been removed and is being replaced with flagstones. Flagstones! There likely isn't one house in greater Brookland (not to mention the Northeast quadrant in its entirety...) with flagstones. This is totally out-of-character, and will stick out like a sore thumb.

So with design review and harkening to the era of architectural significance, you do lose some ability to experiment. On the other hand, you have some ability to limit the botches. And for some reason, there are way more botches than there are sensitive interesting extensions of a house and its character.

Index Keywords: historic-preservation