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STAFF REPORT CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR A CERTIFICATE OF APPROPRIATENESS Date: 01/21/04 Application Number: 2004-0116 Property Location: 615 Edgewater Drive Property Owner: Cynthia Denardi Maravolo Landmark or District Designation: Edgewater Place Local Historic District Rating: Contributing/ 9 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE/HISTORIC CONTEXT Whitcomb & Keller probably built this home in 1923. Over its eighty -year lifespan, the house has seen several owners and renters. For the first 20 years, Whitcomb and Keller probably leased it to several families. In 1944, Abraham and Libby Pols bought the house after renting it for three years. In one year, the house again had new owners, George and Jan Philips. George worked for the Bendix Corporation. In 1950, Richard Widmar bought the house and he and his wife, Elizabeth, lived in the home for nine years. Widmar worked for a meat packaging company. From 1959 until 1982, the house again served as a rental property. In 1982, Donald Ream bought the property and sold it to Cynthia Maravolo, the applicant and current owner, in 1988. This home exhibits the Colonial Revival style. The house has retained its Colonial Revival form and structure with a steep gable roofline and full dormer. Manv of the original defining features were lost or covered before the establishment of the district and before Cvnthia Maravolo purchased the home. These changes include aluminum siding. aluminum storm windows. the c. 1960 cross buck storm door,. partial porch enclosure. and attenuated shutters. The house still exhibits original Doric porch columns and 4 over 1 double hung windows, with vertical lights. APPLICATION ITEMS: Replacement of broken c. 1960 storm door with new storm door RECOMMENDATION Cynthia Maravolo has applied for a Certificate of Appropriateness for the replacement of the c. 1960s cross -buck storm door with scalloped edges. The inappropriate cross buck storm door was added prior to the creation of the district. The new door has an oval inscribed within the rectangular frame and brass detailing. The oval inscribed glass is not appropriate to the design of this Colonial Revival house nor does it reflect the design of 1920s storm doors. However, a storm door with a full rectangular pane of glass placed in the doorframe would be more appropriate than even the cross buck door. A glass without an oval would better emphasize the verticality of the 4 over I double hung windows and would reveal more of the original single leaf front door. The new storm door frame will not "alter the scale and proportion of the building" (34, A Guidebook for South Bend, Indiana's Edgewater Place Local Historic District). The size of the door opening will also remain the same. Staff recommends approval of the frame of the replacement storm door, but not the glass insert with the brass details and the inscribed oval. Staff suggests a plain glass panel would be more appropriate to the style of this house.