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22"dof this year, the structural work was done and a painter was beginning to sand the pillars and porch railing. Wayne evidently told the painter that he should stop working. I was inside and did not hear this exchange, so I'm not certain what was said on either side. The first I knew of the conversation was when Jeffrey Dierbeck phoned me an hour or so later to tell me what had happened. I phoned Wayne who told me to phone Catherine Hostetler at the Historic Preservation Commission. I was unable to reach Catherine, but soon afterward noticed someone taking photographs of the porch. This turned out to be Catherine herself. We had a brief conversation about the situation in which I said essentially what is written above. I think our case comes down to these things: 1) We would certainly have complied with the requirements of the Historic Preservation Commission had we known anything about them. Even so, all of our work has been a response to the storm in the fall of 2001, years before the ordinance was enacted. 2) Wayne Doolittle could have told us, or reminded us, about the requirements on July 11" 2005. If he had, we would have filed the forms at that time. 3) We decided to restore our porch with Doric capitals because we couldn't locate any Scamozzi that we liked or could afford, and because the Doric capitals seemed to be compatible with the other houses on the street. We could not delay the work any longer because winter was coming and the columns, railing, and porch floor were rotting from water damage. 4) We in fact prefer the Doric capitals and do not want to replace them with bad imitation Scamozzi like the one installed by Peacock in 2003. Queen Anne houses are eclectic in design and can certainly accommodate Doric capitals. My wife grew up in England surrounded with houses of this kind, and some of them certainly had Doric capitals. See invoice for work already done: $2,302 so far. See also invoice (estimate) for what it would cost to tear out all this work and begin again with imitation Scamozzi: $4,353. 5) We are not out of sympathy in any way with the general aims of the Historic Preservation Commission. We are also not barbarians, seeking to destroy the aesthetic of our house. Diana is an art historian and Curator of Education at the Suite Museum of Art at Notre Dame. She is alert to aesthetic standards and dealing with them is the whole point of her job. I have taught in the Notre Dame English Department for forty years. I am the author of some twenty books of poetry, translation, criticism, and scholarship. The Historical Commission should, I think, take our own judgment of architectural appropriateness into consideration. 6) I have great difficulty meeting in small rooms without windows and am treated medically for claustrophobia that brings on atrial fibrillation. I must take, along with two heart medications, both Lexapro and Lorazapam. I have taught only in large classrooms with windows at Notre Dame for the last fifteen years. I hope, for this reason among others, that the matter of our capitals can be settled without an appearance before the Historic Commission.