Coming to Your Neighborhood-
Historic District or Dismay
By Tony Taylor
“I walk a street whereon swift change, departed
grandeur are strikingly apparent” –Thomas Wolfe
The ongoing debate over the pros and cons of a proposed
Congress Street Historic District is usually cast in abstract,
philosophical terms.
“I just think the city should be careful not to block out the next
generation of people who live in Portland. They may want to
build a new building”, local property owner Cyrus Hagge was
quoted in a Feb. 14 article in the Portland Press Herald.
“I think the costs outweigh the benefits,” opined downtown
property owner Ric Quesada, quoted in the same
piece.
“Historic preservationists are afraid of the unknown,” Quesada
added, “Sure there are going to be some architectural
disasters, but that’s life. Overall, I like the status quo.”
To me, discussions in this hypothetical vein are moot when
we can get down to cases and compare case histories of any
number of small east coast cities.
For instance back in the late ‘60’s, Portsmouth, New
Hampshire and Middletown, Connecticut were roughly
equivalent. Both were settled in the seventeenth century and
were deep-water ports, which meant mercantile wealth
combined with cosmopolitanism found architectural expression
in lavish captain’s houses and humbler vernacular dwellings of
the 18th and early 19th centuries. In both towns, the oldest
residential neighborhoods were closest to downtown and to the
river. In both, the oldest neighborhoods were still mostly intact
but by the mid 20th century, blighted by neglect and
conversion of many old houses to absentee-owned tenements
or commercial uses.
How the fate of these cities diverged can now be seen in how
these respective communities perceived themselves then, and
how these perceptions influenced ensuing events, leading to
outcomes starkly different.
Portsmouth is renowned as the town that got it right-a place,
the story goes, that was spared the worst depredations of
urban renewal, where the intelligentsia, architects and local
historians, instead of carping aloofly, showed an interest in
community problems and forged a community partnership of
which Strawberry Banke, a 10-acre outdoor museum of 17th,
18th, and early 19th century houses, stores, and workshops in
the midst of a vibrant, walkable historic downtown is an
enduring symbol.
In the late ‘60s, I’d just discovered architectural history, the
fun and profit to be had dabbling in architectural salvage, as a
teen living in Hartford. I found an outlet for my curiosity and
exploration in bus trips to nearby cities, where I scouted for
salvage opportunities in rundown older neighborhoods.
Middletown excited me most, as it boasted the largest area of
undervalued but, to the discerning eye, outstanding 18th
century houses.
The oldest neighborhood was between the Connecticut river
and Main Street, which paralleled the river halfway between
the shore and Wesleyan University. The college crowned the
ridge, surrounded by a later and still well-kept neighborhood
where house styles ran the gamut of mid-1800s historical
revivals-Greek, Gothic or Italianate. Exploring the oldest,
riverfront neighborhood, I recall my delight at finding on Ferry
Street a circa 1750 saltbox disguised by bright green asphalt
siding and a storefront addition over what had been its front
yard, but revealing its ancient lineage by a massive center
chimney and low-swept rear roofline. I remember tracking
down its owner, one Salvatore Adorno, who owned a taxi
company and movie theater nearby, and buying a rare three-
panel door with foliated ‘H’ hinges for $5.
In 1969, I was hired as an intern to help with an ongoing
architectural inventory of Middletown’s riverfront
neighborhood, an area I soon learned was deemed ‘blighted’
and earmarked for ‘redevelopment’ under ‘Urban Renewal’. A
family move to New York precluded my further involvement in
Middletown. Years later, when I returned to Middletown, I was
shocked at what I found. The old riverfront neighborhood was
hardly recognizable-most of the houses I remembered were
gone-along with the very streets I’d found so exciting and full of
undervalued potential in the spring of 1969.
As I’ve pondered Middletown’s self-mutilation, I’ve asked
myself how this was allowed to happen. By the late '60s, the
south end of Main Street was home to a mostly low-income,
minority population. A few broken store windows and fires set
in the summer of ’69 stoked fears that played into the hands of
redevelopment advocates in city government and the local
press. The Middletown Press was consistently boosterish in its
support for urban renewal and its glittering if vague promise of
Federal money and something tangible to placate restive low-
income and minority folks, while incidentally, resettling them in
less visible locations.
Local preservationists, instead of resisting the tide of
orchestrated ‘public opinion’ or exerting leadership,
themselves fell under the spell of redevelopment’s
‘inevitability’. Instead of articulating an alternative future for
the South Main/Riverfront neighborhood, preservation instead
of ‘slum clearance’, the Middletown Preservation Trust settled
for crumbs: salvage rights to building parts from doomed
houses, the moving of a few outstanding houses to a contrived
grouping to serve as lawyers’ offices, and the saving of one
outstanding 18th century captain’s house on Union Street as a
museum. The Union Street mansion stood vacant for a couple
of years until it was torched by local youths, ironically and
perhaps fittingly, on the fourth of July. John Reynolds, former
President of Middletown Preservation Trust, is quoted as
describing what happened to the town’s oldest neighborhood
as a tragedy largely unrecognized at the time. A memory that
haunted me for years was the replacement of a dignified brick
Greek revival Masonic Temple on Middletown’s Main Street by
a pseudo-Colonial ice cream parlor fronting a shopping mall. I
recall seeing a pair of cast-iron anthemion window grilles
salvaged from the Masonic Temple’s frieze hanging in the
display windows of local antiquarian Paul Weld’s antique shop
at the edge of town-a sight to me symbolic of opportunities not
grasped.
For an overview of preservation battles won or lost every
day, I know of no better way than to tag along with your local
architectural salvager. A specialist in 18th century house
parts, Chris Havey of Gorham has perspective based on years
of experience and observation on factors contributing to the
steady loss of early houses. “As you climbed the hill
approaching Gorham from the east on Main Street, a low-
posted 1790’s cape on the edge of the plateau seemed to
mark the edge of town. The owner sold the farm with a deed
restriction requiring the old house remain on the land. The
buyer, intent on putting up tract houses out back and needing
a room for a driveway, “complied” with the restriction by
flattening the house and incorporating a few of its hand-hewn
beams in some of his new houses!” This and similar outrages
are seldom noted by a local press often perceived to be in the
pocket of the real estate industry.
Some restoration and consulting work in Portsmouth have
given Mr. Havey the opportunity to note activities of
contractors and building owners somewhat at odds with the city’
s squeaky-clean preservationist image. A few months ago, he
rescued a rare paneled fireplace wall complete with thin pine 2-
panel doors prized by collectors from one early Portsmouth
house whose owner was intent on creating generic condos –
all this of no concern to the local preservation commission as
long as the exterior stays approximately the same. Recently,
Mr. Havey was driving down a part of Islington Street, a major
artery just beyond the city’s historic district, when he was
shocked to notice a change to the neighborhood’s oldest
house: the front door was missing – a wide one of 9 panels,
three up and three across, a local type of the mid-18th century
that he’d noticed before. What he found was even more
disturbing-a remarkably intact house with a stunning array of
original features being demolished.
“When I got there, the stairway had been sold to one guy,
the mantels to another salvager,” Havey explained ruefully,
“The guy who got the doors-his idea of removing them was to
just kick them out. Some of the ‘H’ hinges were horribly
twisted.” Havey showed me two mantels from 430 Islington
Street he’d bought from another salvager. He described the
half-vase ‘S’ curved silhouettes at either end of one mantel’s
frieze as a typical Portsmouth detail. Above the mantel shelf, a
sort of ‘backsplash on steroids’ as he described it started low
at either end and swooped upward in ascending curves to
meet what had been the room cornice. Another mantel had a
panel above the shelf with projecting carved blossoms in the
outside corners, whose quality Havey described as ‘not static,
but flowing, almost Baroque in spirit.’
Houses along this part of Islington Street are are varied in
style-Federal, Greek and Gothic revival are the most common-
but mostly consistent in materials, size, shape, and spacing.
430 Islington was the oldest house for several blocks, perhaps
because house building had to wait until its farm acreage was
subdivided. As such, its presence gave meaning and context
to the rest. The house to its left, a hundred-odd years newer,
matched its proportions closely, differing mainly in sporting an
up-to-date Greek revival entrance.
Nancy Emerson lives in an expertly restored Gothic revival
cottage next to what’s left of 430 Islington Street-a plywood
sheathed frame box over the lost landmark’s only remaining
original feature-the fieldstone foundation. She says that she
and other concerned neighbors did everything they could to
influence the outcome, tried to reason with the owner,
attended hearings and pleaded with city officials: “It’s not that
the neighbors didn’t try. We went to the Board of Appeals
three times and he was denied every time, but he (the owner)
does what he wants anyway. (The owner)’s a nice young guy,
hard worker, owns a construction company. He did not have
permission to do what happened. The demo permit was very
specific: gut the inside and apply new siding. He keeps saying
‘It’s my land-I can do as I want!’ He hasn’t a clue. I felt like his
mother. I showed him a doorway like his in the book
Architectural Heritage of the Piscataqua and you know what he
says? ‘I was going to get a nice steel door!’ He started out
wanting 10 condos-pushing it-then 8,6, finally got permission
for two units in back. He didn’t have access to the backyard,
so used a neighbor’s lot to bring in heavy equipment. He cut
down every tree on the property-it used to be a maple grove-
you couldn’t see the next house from here.”
A couple of weeks ago, Chris Havey was driving by and saw
that the house was stripped down to the bare hewn oak frame,
roof, chimney and sheathing gone. He saw the owner
puttering in the back yard, stopped and asked what
happened. The owner told him that the city told him he had to
work with what was there. Nonetheless, some time afterwards
the frame too disappeared piecemeal into the back of
someone’s truck, replaced by new framing with much higher
ceilings, way out of scale with a neighboring house that the old
one matched perfectly.
Portsmouth zoning enforcement officer Jason Paige
confirmed that a stop work order was issued. “The frame will
have to have lower floor levels-what’s been done is not
compliant with what they applied for,” Mr. Paige explained,
“We met with the owner and put together a working
agreement. The city agrees to reinstate the permit if the
exterior is restored to its appearance prior to being
demolished. He doesn’t have to use antique materials. I don’t
care how he does it. My job is to see to it (the owner) follows
the agreement”.
The question remains of why the stop work order was not
enforced sooner, when it took at least two weeks to dismantle
the house.
Nancy Emerson has made restoring her house a labor of
love. She bought it because she valued the ambience and
civility of a historic neighborhood. She tracked down turned
columns to restore her front porch, found exactly the right
pedimented tops for her tall parlor windows, only to be
rewarded for her trouble by the insult of what happened next-
door. As long as at least the frame of 430 Islington remained,
its restoration could have had a semblance of authenticity. If
this were a Frank Capra movie, maybe someone with the
conscience and persuasiveness of a Jimmy Stewart character
would cajole all who carted off parts of Portsmouth’s latest
‘Humpty-Dumpty house’ to return what they took, the owner to
hire someone qualified to supervise a fair attempt at
reconstruction.
Instead, what we have is a monument to moral inertia.
Historic District or Dismay
By Tony Taylor
“I walk a street whereon swift change, departed
grandeur are strikingly apparent” –Thomas Wolfe
The ongoing debate over the pros and cons of a proposed
Congress Street Historic District is usually cast in abstract,
philosophical terms.
“I just think the city should be careful not to block out the next
generation of people who live in Portland. They may want to
build a new building”, local property owner Cyrus Hagge was
quoted in a Feb. 14 article in the Portland Press Herald.
“I think the costs outweigh the benefits,” opined downtown
property owner Ric Quesada, quoted in the same
piece.
“Historic preservationists are afraid of the unknown,” Quesada
added, “Sure there are going to be some architectural
disasters, but that’s life. Overall, I like the status quo.”
To me, discussions in this hypothetical vein are moot when
we can get down to cases and compare case histories of any
number of small east coast cities.
For instance back in the late ‘60’s, Portsmouth, New
Hampshire and Middletown, Connecticut were roughly
equivalent. Both were settled in the seventeenth century and
were deep-water ports, which meant mercantile wealth
combined with cosmopolitanism found architectural expression
in lavish captain’s houses and humbler vernacular dwellings of
the 18th and early 19th centuries. In both towns, the oldest
residential neighborhoods were closest to downtown and to the
river. In both, the oldest neighborhoods were still mostly intact
but by the mid 20th century, blighted by neglect and
conversion of many old houses to absentee-owned tenements
or commercial uses.
How the fate of these cities diverged can now be seen in how
these respective communities perceived themselves then, and
how these perceptions influenced ensuing events, leading to
outcomes starkly different.
Portsmouth is renowned as the town that got it right-a place,
the story goes, that was spared the worst depredations of
urban renewal, where the intelligentsia, architects and local
historians, instead of carping aloofly, showed an interest in
community problems and forged a community partnership of
which Strawberry Banke, a 10-acre outdoor museum of 17th,
18th, and early 19th century houses, stores, and workshops in
the midst of a vibrant, walkable historic downtown is an
enduring symbol.
In the late ‘60s, I’d just discovered architectural history, the
fun and profit to be had dabbling in architectural salvage, as a
teen living in Hartford. I found an outlet for my curiosity and
exploration in bus trips to nearby cities, where I scouted for
salvage opportunities in rundown older neighborhoods.
Middletown excited me most, as it boasted the largest area of
undervalued but, to the discerning eye, outstanding 18th
century houses.
The oldest neighborhood was between the Connecticut river
and Main Street, which paralleled the river halfway between
the shore and Wesleyan University. The college crowned the
ridge, surrounded by a later and still well-kept neighborhood
where house styles ran the gamut of mid-1800s historical
revivals-Greek, Gothic or Italianate. Exploring the oldest,
riverfront neighborhood, I recall my delight at finding on Ferry
Street a circa 1750 saltbox disguised by bright green asphalt
siding and a storefront addition over what had been its front
yard, but revealing its ancient lineage by a massive center
chimney and low-swept rear roofline. I remember tracking
down its owner, one Salvatore Adorno, who owned a taxi
company and movie theater nearby, and buying a rare three-
panel door with foliated ‘H’ hinges for $5.
In 1969, I was hired as an intern to help with an ongoing
architectural inventory of Middletown’s riverfront
neighborhood, an area I soon learned was deemed ‘blighted’
and earmarked for ‘redevelopment’ under ‘Urban Renewal’. A
family move to New York precluded my further involvement in
Middletown. Years later, when I returned to Middletown, I was
shocked at what I found. The old riverfront neighborhood was
hardly recognizable-most of the houses I remembered were
gone-along with the very streets I’d found so exciting and full of
undervalued potential in the spring of 1969.
As I’ve pondered Middletown’s self-mutilation, I’ve asked
myself how this was allowed to happen. By the late '60s, the
south end of Main Street was home to a mostly low-income,
minority population. A few broken store windows and fires set
in the summer of ’69 stoked fears that played into the hands of
redevelopment advocates in city government and the local
press. The Middletown Press was consistently boosterish in its
support for urban renewal and its glittering if vague promise of
Federal money and something tangible to placate restive low-
income and minority folks, while incidentally, resettling them in
less visible locations.
Local preservationists, instead of resisting the tide of
orchestrated ‘public opinion’ or exerting leadership,
themselves fell under the spell of redevelopment’s
‘inevitability’. Instead of articulating an alternative future for
the South Main/Riverfront neighborhood, preservation instead
of ‘slum clearance’, the Middletown Preservation Trust settled
for crumbs: salvage rights to building parts from doomed
houses, the moving of a few outstanding houses to a contrived
grouping to serve as lawyers’ offices, and the saving of one
outstanding 18th century captain’s house on Union Street as a
museum. The Union Street mansion stood vacant for a couple
of years until it was torched by local youths, ironically and
perhaps fittingly, on the fourth of July. John Reynolds, former
President of Middletown Preservation Trust, is quoted as
describing what happened to the town’s oldest neighborhood
as a tragedy largely unrecognized at the time. A memory that
haunted me for years was the replacement of a dignified brick
Greek revival Masonic Temple on Middletown’s Main Street by
a pseudo-Colonial ice cream parlor fronting a shopping mall. I
recall seeing a pair of cast-iron anthemion window grilles
salvaged from the Masonic Temple’s frieze hanging in the
display windows of local antiquarian Paul Weld’s antique shop
at the edge of town-a sight to me symbolic of opportunities not
grasped.
For an overview of preservation battles won or lost every
day, I know of no better way than to tag along with your local
architectural salvager. A specialist in 18th century house
parts, Chris Havey of Gorham has perspective based on years
of experience and observation on factors contributing to the
steady loss of early houses. “As you climbed the hill
approaching Gorham from the east on Main Street, a low-
posted 1790’s cape on the edge of the plateau seemed to
mark the edge of town. The owner sold the farm with a deed
restriction requiring the old house remain on the land. The
buyer, intent on putting up tract houses out back and needing
a room for a driveway, “complied” with the restriction by
flattening the house and incorporating a few of its hand-hewn
beams in some of his new houses!” This and similar outrages
are seldom noted by a local press often perceived to be in the
pocket of the real estate industry.
Some restoration and consulting work in Portsmouth have
given Mr. Havey the opportunity to note activities of
contractors and building owners somewhat at odds with the city’
s squeaky-clean preservationist image. A few months ago, he
rescued a rare paneled fireplace wall complete with thin pine 2-
panel doors prized by collectors from one early Portsmouth
house whose owner was intent on creating generic condos –
all this of no concern to the local preservation commission as
long as the exterior stays approximately the same. Recently,
Mr. Havey was driving down a part of Islington Street, a major
artery just beyond the city’s historic district, when he was
shocked to notice a change to the neighborhood’s oldest
house: the front door was missing – a wide one of 9 panels,
three up and three across, a local type of the mid-18th century
that he’d noticed before. What he found was even more
disturbing-a remarkably intact house with a stunning array of
original features being demolished.
“When I got there, the stairway had been sold to one guy,
the mantels to another salvager,” Havey explained ruefully,
“The guy who got the doors-his idea of removing them was to
just kick them out. Some of the ‘H’ hinges were horribly
twisted.” Havey showed me two mantels from 430 Islington
Street he’d bought from another salvager. He described the
half-vase ‘S’ curved silhouettes at either end of one mantel’s
frieze as a typical Portsmouth detail. Above the mantel shelf, a
sort of ‘backsplash on steroids’ as he described it started low
at either end and swooped upward in ascending curves to
meet what had been the room cornice. Another mantel had a
panel above the shelf with projecting carved blossoms in the
outside corners, whose quality Havey described as ‘not static,
but flowing, almost Baroque in spirit.’
Houses along this part of Islington Street are are varied in
style-Federal, Greek and Gothic revival are the most common-
but mostly consistent in materials, size, shape, and spacing.
430 Islington was the oldest house for several blocks, perhaps
because house building had to wait until its farm acreage was
subdivided. As such, its presence gave meaning and context
to the rest. The house to its left, a hundred-odd years newer,
matched its proportions closely, differing mainly in sporting an
up-to-date Greek revival entrance.
Nancy Emerson lives in an expertly restored Gothic revival
cottage next to what’s left of 430 Islington Street-a plywood
sheathed frame box over the lost landmark’s only remaining
original feature-the fieldstone foundation. She says that she
and other concerned neighbors did everything they could to
influence the outcome, tried to reason with the owner,
attended hearings and pleaded with city officials: “It’s not that
the neighbors didn’t try. We went to the Board of Appeals
three times and he was denied every time, but he (the owner)
does what he wants anyway. (The owner)’s a nice young guy,
hard worker, owns a construction company. He did not have
permission to do what happened. The demo permit was very
specific: gut the inside and apply new siding. He keeps saying
‘It’s my land-I can do as I want!’ He hasn’t a clue. I felt like his
mother. I showed him a doorway like his in the book
Architectural Heritage of the Piscataqua and you know what he
says? ‘I was going to get a nice steel door!’ He started out
wanting 10 condos-pushing it-then 8,6, finally got permission
for two units in back. He didn’t have access to the backyard,
so used a neighbor’s lot to bring in heavy equipment. He cut
down every tree on the property-it used to be a maple grove-
you couldn’t see the next house from here.”
A couple of weeks ago, Chris Havey was driving by and saw
that the house was stripped down to the bare hewn oak frame,
roof, chimney and sheathing gone. He saw the owner
puttering in the back yard, stopped and asked what
happened. The owner told him that the city told him he had to
work with what was there. Nonetheless, some time afterwards
the frame too disappeared piecemeal into the back of
someone’s truck, replaced by new framing with much higher
ceilings, way out of scale with a neighboring house that the old
one matched perfectly.
Portsmouth zoning enforcement officer Jason Paige
confirmed that a stop work order was issued. “The frame will
have to have lower floor levels-what’s been done is not
compliant with what they applied for,” Mr. Paige explained,
“We met with the owner and put together a working
agreement. The city agrees to reinstate the permit if the
exterior is restored to its appearance prior to being
demolished. He doesn’t have to use antique materials. I don’t
care how he does it. My job is to see to it (the owner) follows
the agreement”.
The question remains of why the stop work order was not
enforced sooner, when it took at least two weeks to dismantle
the house.
Nancy Emerson has made restoring her house a labor of
love. She bought it because she valued the ambience and
civility of a historic neighborhood. She tracked down turned
columns to restore her front porch, found exactly the right
pedimented tops for her tall parlor windows, only to be
rewarded for her trouble by the insult of what happened next-
door. As long as at least the frame of 430 Islington remained,
its restoration could have had a semblance of authenticity. If
this were a Frank Capra movie, maybe someone with the
conscience and persuasiveness of a Jimmy Stewart character
would cajole all who carted off parts of Portsmouth’s latest
‘Humpty-Dumpty house’ to return what they took, the owner to
hire someone qualified to supervise a fair attempt at
reconstruction.
Instead, what we have is a monument to moral inertia.
