Should this house be saved?

Here’s what the Committee for Historic Preservation said.

The property rep said there aren’t many similar homes on the street, but a CHP member disagreed.

While Committee for Historic Preservation meetings often tackle packed agendas, with residents pleading to demolish their teeny-tiny Tudors and replace them with magnificent McMansions, this week only one house was on the demolition docket: 40 Cushman Road. The owner’s lawyer and architect presented their case, requesting the CHP grant a certificate of demolition.

Presenting photos of the property, the reps called it “a 1953 sort-of-a-ranch style home set back from the road a little bit,” and asked to replace it with a new home, mostly in the footprint of the current foundation, but also expanding the foundation site. “The summary of the application is this is a home that hasn't really been updated too much over the years…it's not really in keeping with the homes in the surrounding area, which are mainly contemporary homes, or there are some older colonials which are more historic-looking than this one,” the homeowner’s attorney asserted.

The architect spoke next, outlining his good-faith attempts to research the property to judge its historical siginificance. “There was very little documentation of any plans on record,” he said. Aside from some plans done in the Eighties, the original architect seemed to be one Carol W. Harding. “There was nothing that was significant that she did,” the architect stated. (He was later informed that the architect was a man, not a woman.)

Awkward and dated, reps claim

“I just want to talk a little about the architecture of the house,” the homeowner’s architect continued. “I mean, this house, it looks like a 1950s ranch. It has a long facade and it has this awkwardly designed dormer in the front at the entrance, and [if you] turn the corner around the side of the house, it turns into a salt box…it really doesn't have any scale and it looks like a one-story house until you go around to the back of the house.”

Moreover, he said, the interior doesn’t meet todays standards. “The ceiling heights are very low. They're eight feet on the first floor and in the basement, they're about seven-foot-six. The garage, you have to go down underneath the house to get to it, and when you get into the garage it is almost seven feet to get in there,” he explained.

He then went into more detail about what the new house would look like. “We’re going to raise up the basement a little bit, and then we're going to construct a new house mostly on the existing foundation if we can, if it's economically feasible or structural, and we're going to be adding new foundations to the house.” Some retaining walls will be taken down and a new terrace built, as well as family space around the pool

“It’s not like it doesn’t fit in”

A Committee member spoke next. “I would agree that there doesn't seem to be that much on [the home’s architect, Harding] in terms of work,” he said. The homeowner’s attorney stated they although they had gone through Building Department records and searched on Google, they had been unable to find any historically notable person connected to the property. Although the CHP had been able to find some information on previous residents, they too agreed no one rose to the bar for historical significance.

A CHP member reflected on the history of the street as a whole. “I think maybe fifteen, twenty years ago it was you would drive down [the street] and see a lot of these not-so-special-or-significant, mid-century big, very long [houses]. That little attempt at the triangular dormer [see photo of 40 Cushman, above] is an attempt to be sort of mid-century modern. But it fails.” However, she added, “I just think it's worth saying that there are a lot of those homes on the street. It's not like it doesn't fit in.”

Well, that was awkward

The board then unanimously granted a certificate of demotion. “Just please, build a nice house,” one CHP member said. The architect reassured him that the new home will have a gable roof and “a little contemporary and a lot of traditional stuff going on inside big windows. And we're going to have a nice backyard.” The CHP member seemed pleased.

“This has no value or meaning whatsoever, but please do not build one those white houses with black windows,” he half-jokingly requested.

“I’m really sad to hear this,” 40 Cushman Road’s attorney replied. “I live in one of those homes.”

Oops. And with that, the meeting concluded.