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Statement to the Historic Preservation Commission From John and Diana Matthias 840 Park Ave., South Bend 46616 2 November 2005 Dear Commission Members: The story of the repairs to our front porch at 840 Park Ave. really begins with the storm in the fall of 2001 when a large tree fell on the left side of the porch destroying the ceramic capital on the left pillar (as one faces the house), and cracking all of the others. I want to foreground this date because all work on the capitals actually began as a result of the 2001 storm, and all of our subsequent work was a response to that. We knew that we would eventually have to replace all of the capitals, but could only get the insurance to cover one at the time (the one that had crumbled into dust). This was all, of course, before the recent ordinance was passed, as was the start of follow-up work that Jeff Dierbeck began doing for us in September, 2004. The entire porch roof had to be restored, beginning in November of 2001, while work on some of the porch, including the capitals, was delayed until spring of 2002. The delay was due to the difficulty of finding an appropriate capital. We could locate nothing Ionic which we could afford until Peacock and Company came up with the 10 inch diameter plaster Scamozzi ($ 274.00) which we finally installed. The work, done by Peacock, permit number 63992, was approved by the insurance company. The plaster Scamozzi, however, looked nothing like the original ceramic version. It appeared even from a distance to resemble a plastic imitation, a kind of Disney Land version of the real thing. We disliked it from the beginning. (The source of the plaster imitation was Decorator's Supply Corp., 3610 South Morgan, Chicago.) All of the other Scamozzi, as I have said, were badly damaged. By the summer of 2004 they were porous and disintegrating, letting water into the pillars which had begun to rot from the inside out. Our contractor, Jeffrey Dierbeck, began looking for replacements for the Scamozzi in September, 2004; the continuing work of restoration can be said to have begun again at that time. Nothing that Jeff could locate for us seemed to be satisfactory. We did not want to use the plaster imitations again as we had come to dislike the one previously installed. There was some urgency that the work should get under way, but still we delayed beginning, and looking around, until the summer of 2005. The winter of 20A was an extremely difficult time for us. Diana's mother was dying in England and she had to make repeated trips, at great expense, and eventually spent most of the winter there rather than here. I myself was not well, and I did only what was necessary to get by. I suppose it was at some point in the winter that we missed all discussion of the new ordinance that was passed, I believe, in April of 2005. At any rate, we were unfortunately unaware that forms needed to be filled out for the Historic Preservation Committee if we were going to make any changes to the capitals. If letters, brochures, or other information were sent us during this period, we didn't read them or didn't take in what we were reading. It was a period during which we were focused on