Hat house, October 2006, South Park.I have to write a measly 1400 word paper for my preservation planning seminar. I have the topic, I have materials, I have ideas, I just don't give a whack.
I have to be done by tomorrow to finish my AMS extended abstract.
Very interesting topic. I'm looking at a house that a bunch of community members nominated for landmark status and received it, which basically made it impossible for the new owner to short plat the land around it enough to make it economically viable. He felt that the house was not worth saving, the land was valuable, thus the house should be destroyed.
In the process I have learned that this house - very lovely and architecturally significant, was a meth production facility in a old Seattle neighborhood. The house has a happy ending, someone offered to move it to a lot close to its original location and fixed it up very nicely. The house is now being rented for a song if it was say, in my neighborhood, but very expensive for where it is.
The old lot is now a sea of hideous new tract houses.
The landmark is lovely, if not totally out of context in a sea of newly developed market rate townhomes, even with a 10' buffer, it looks strange.
Makes me wonder if things like this are worth preserving when taken away from their original landscape. It also makes me wonder about what motivates people to save things in a neighborhood that is going to change, no matter what.
nm
