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STAFF REPORT CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR A CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS Date: 08-29-03 Application Number: 2003-08-29 Property Location: 1059 Riverside Drive, South Bend, IN Property Owner: Albert- Laslo Barabasi Landmark or District Designation: Local Landmark/ Riverside Local Historic District Rating: S/12 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE/HISTORIC CONTEXT Edgar Rohrer, a grocer, and his wife, Violet, had this home built between 1912 and 1914 during the heyday of the bungalow style. The actual builder of the home is unknown. The house remained in the Rohrer family for almost eighty years. Violet Rohrer, their daughter and a teacher for the New Carlisle schools, lived in the home until 1988. It stood vacant until 1995 when it was sold to Matthew Kane who sold the house in turn to Patricia Decio in 1996. 1059 Riverside is an excellent example of the early bungalow style. This one and one half story home has a bellcast gabled roof with bracketed eaves and exposed purlins, a front porch with substantial shingle covered pedestals, and shingle siding. The wood shingle roof was first covered with asphalt shingles sometime between 1932 and 1949. A bank of four large casement windows face the street as well as an interesting wood door with two vertical bands of divided lights. The front windows are possibly not original to the home but were probably installed prior to the date of the establishment of the Riverside District and the landmarking of the home. A gabled dormer with three awning windows faces the street and a matching dormer faces the alley. Both provide interior space under the sloping roofline. Many of the windows (casements and double hung) have removable wood storms and all have wood jambs (wide) , headers, and sills (see image "Trim Close -Up). The window placement on the sides of the home was designed as follows: a pair of double hung windows sits centered beneath the eaves of the gabled roof and a variety of window groupings with windows of different types and sizes open the first floor of the interior to the outside. The large number and larger size of the windows emphasizes the first floor. The house remains in excellent condition and style with a good degree of architectural integrity. APPLICATION ITEMS: The current owner, Mr. Barabasi, proposes to install one 29" by 42" Pella casement window on the rear of the east side of the house. This entirely new window will have an exterior cedar casing and trim to match the trim of the existing windows. The new window will match some of existing windows in style (ie, casement, non-muntin type). See images provided by the contractor and homeowner and the letter of specifications. Because Mr. Barabasi would like to transform the second floor attic into livable space, he argues the window is a necessary addition to meet Building Code standards for egress from the rear bedroom. The homeowner also proposes to add two skylights (Valux, 22" by 45") to the rear slope of the roof as shown in the Figure 3. This will provide the entrance of light and a view of the sky for the library on the second floor of the home. As Mr. Barabasi has demonstrated graphically, the skylights will have no visual impact on the most public views of the home from Riverside Drive. Depending on whether or not the skylights are flush with the roofline and do not bubble or rise above the current roof slope there will be at most an impact upon the views from the second floors of the surrounding residences and possibly from the rear alley. The rear gabled dormer and mature trees will obscure the skylights from most ground