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defining features include its elaborate roof, its use of friezes, shingle, and clapboard siding,
<br />columned front porch, octagonal tower, and, artistic use and design of windows.
<br />PROPOSED WORK:
<br />(1) Demolish Garage
<br />(2) Install Landscape lighting
<br />RECOMMENDATION:
<br />There is a garage squeezed behind the house, facing Jefferson, about 6 inches or a foot
<br />from the walls of the houses on either side, both of which are local landmarks. The garage must
<br />post-date the houses, since the house at 129 Franklin Street, and the one at 407 & 409 West
<br />Jefferson Boulevard were both built in 1896, prior to the time of automobile garages. Judging by
<br />its location, it appears to have been placed where the original house builder expected a driveway
<br />or walk to be, for the convenient delivery of groceries and other items to the kitchen and cellar.
<br />The materials of construction, and the style of building, indicate that the garage may have
<br />been built in the 1920s or 30s. At some time the end wall was bumped out, to accommodate the
<br />longer cars of the 1960s. If this garage were appropriately located on a convenient site, staff
<br />would like to see it kept.
<br />However, in this case, the garage does not date from the period of primary historic
<br />significance for this house, it is located in a way that hinders or prevents the repairs required by
<br />our minimum maintenance standards for the house, and, because house breakers can, and possibly
<br />have, used it to climb up to upstairs windows and break into the house, or to hide between it and
<br />the house from police, it even constitutes a hazard.
<br />As the applicant has roughly indicated in his site plan, the house at 407 West Jefferson
<br />Boulevard has a kitchen in the back corner of the house, with an East window that looks out to the
<br />garage wall a foot away. In front of the kitchen, in the middle of the first floor, is the dining room,
<br />with a lovely pair of large windows, also looking east, to the flat wall of the garage a foot away. I
<br />believe neither room is lighted by any other window. The house at 129 Franklin has a kitchen
<br />door and a fair-sized kitchen window looking west, both of which are also totally obscured by the
<br />wall of the garage. All windows and doors of both houses have significant and character defining
<br />detail, including decorative wood sills, molding, and other trim work, and a transom light'over the
<br />door, which would be revealed to persons using the building, and to persons walking or traveling
<br />down Jefferson Boulevard, if the garage were removed.
<br />The owner has also asked me to note that he has been forced, because of the previous
<br />property manager's neglect of forestry and gardening matters, to cut two very large pine trees, one
<br />deciduous tree, and at least three significant landscape bushes. This constitutes a significant loss
<br />of urban greenery, and lie feels that the removal of the garage would enable plantings, which,
<br />without obscuring the houses' architecture, would restore some green.
<br />It should at least be moved, and if it cannot be moved, it should be demolished.
<br />Staff recommends approval of the Application to demolish, move, sell, or give away
<br />the garage, at the owner's option.
<br />Staff also recommends approval of landscape lighting (which we understand to mean
<br />ground level, not -too -bright flood lights directed towards the building's leading architectural
<br />features, and intended to illuminate the house and yard for security purposes) conditional
<br />upon receiving a more detailed description of its type and location of the proposed lights.
<br />Such lights are not fastened to the building, nor visible during the daytime.
<br />Staff also recommends approval of the proposed garden, path, and flowering tree.
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