1325 Laura: before HPC for demolition on Wednesday

[sheclown]

Let's begin this discussion about 1325 laura Street & its safety issues.

First, no one would claim that this house is safe it live in or squat in.  However, is this house "unsafe" to walk by?  That is the level of safety that we need to worry about, isn't it? 

Safe to live in?  No, not right now.

Safe to walk by?  Certainly.  Poses no threat to neighbors or folks who walk by.

[sheclown]

Roof has rust issues, but looks intact.

Doesn't appear to have a major swayback -- looks straight.

[sheclown]

Siding runs straight, windows and door openings look good with the exception of a window mid wall south side.  The only place with wall issues.

[sheclown]

The above picture shows that the sill is intact on the north wall.

The northeast corner has minor issues

[sheclown]

I have not checked under the house --

[sheclown]

Safe/Unsafe.  We are being held hostage on this.

This is where mothballing plays out.  Hold on to it until someone comes along with the desire and the dollars to restore.

We need to have two definitions of UNSAFE.  

Unsafe to live in.

Unsafe to walk by.

Of course most condemned houses in Springfield are unsafe to live in (some that are currently lived in are perhaps unsafe as well )

But in all of my time living here/working here, I don't recall anyone getting injured by a falling house.

[iloveionia]

And despite a mortatorium on demolitions.
This one comes forth.

[ChriswUfGator]

Not just this one, there've been several new demolitions on Springfield's plate since this alleged "moratorium" was announced by C.O.J. I think what we have here is a case of COJ saying one thing and doing another, or else one department within the City doesn't know what the other departments are doing.

[vicupstate]

http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/galleries/2011/jan/24/199-st-philip-street/16157/

http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/galleries/2011/jan/24/199-st-philip-street/16158/

If this house was in Springfield, would it be saved?

[vicupstate]

Fortunately, it isn't.  Thus, it has lived to see another day.

http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/galleries/2011/jan/24/199-st-philip-street/16155/

http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/galleries/2011/jan/24/199-st-philip-street/16152/

http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/galleries/2011/jan/24/199-st-philip-street/16153/

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jan/24/from-sad-to-striking/

A few years ago, the small single-house at 199 St. Philip St. was a sad, boarded-up sight.

Its front facade was a mix of old wooden siding and newer vinyl siding, and its piazzas were propped up by brick infill and off-the-shelf metal columns commonly found on 1950s suburban homes.



The single house at 199 St. Philip St. was renovated first for an architect's office but currently makes for a handsome, functional coffee shop.

But it still had potential -- at least in the eyes of buyers Ashley and Doug Jennings, who planned to turn it into an office for her architectural practice.

"This was definitely the bad tooth in the smile," she says, describing how bad it looked compared to its neighbors. "It was a crack house. There were people sleeping inside."

Their first renovation got bogged down with a contractor who messed up and fled the job, but Palmetto Craftsman Inc. took over and began doing things right, she says.

Around this time, the bottom fell out of the construction market, making it financially more difficult to justify putting Jennings' practice there. Then John Vergel de Dios passed by it on his bike.

Vergel de Dios and his wife Harper Poe saw Jennings' work as suitable not just for an architect's office --but also for the new coffee shop they were looking to open.

"I was really focused on finding a space that can create a unique and meaningful experience for the visitor," he says. "I kept biking around the neighborhood to become more familiar with the area, and one day that summer I saw the "for-rent" sign on the porch of 199 St. Philip St. I stopped and called the number right away, and Ashley came over from her office on King Street to show me the space. As soon as I walked in, I knew that this was it."

And that's how Hope and Union Coffee Co. came to be.

Jennings' work -- and the couple's finishing touches -- were honored last week with a Carolopolis award from the Preservation Society of Charleston.

The surviving house was one of four modest circa 1885 homes tucked off St. Philip Street on a narrow alley known as Brown's Court. Jennings says she took care to preserve and restore as much as possible of the only surviving home -- the one closest to the street -- but did completely replace its rear piazza enclosure and other rear additions.

The new addition -- designed with tall windows to let in natural light for an architect's studio -- echoes the piazza columns in its rectangular simplicity, but its dark color makes it significantly less noticeable than the light-colored historic house. It's also separated from the old house by a smaller section often called a hyphen.

"We were really conscious of making the additions subordinate to the historic building," she says. "Adding onto it would make it look like a train."

Inside, Jennings says the goal was to keep the spaces as open as possible -- partly because the historic house is only 12 feet wide --and to show off as much of the original fabric as possible.

"One of the real cool things about these buildings is they did use borrowed material," she says. "Every floor joist is different. Every rafter is different. We left that exposed so you could see it."

Vergel de Dios says the restoration is special because of the relationship between the old and new. He notes the coffee bar area needed something to juxtapose the modern aesthetic of the addition, so he and Poe integrated textures found in the original structure, such as the distressed white-washed boards on the walls.

He even built the wooden and metal "Coffee" sign himself -- a sign that not only tells passersby what the place sells but also has an elegant simplicity that foreshadows the ambiance inside.

The other Carolopolis award winners -- and those involved in their renovation -- include: Charleston City Hall (Evan & Schmidt Architects, NBM Construction); repairs and steeple addition to the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, 120 Broad St. (Glenn Keyes Architects, 4SE, Erno Ovari of Copper Exclusive, Hightower Construction Co.)

The single house at 97 Broad St. (Meadors Inc., James Meador); and the historic outbuilding at 70 1/2 Tradd St. (Simons Young, Architect, Thompson Young Design, and Tupper Builders).

Robert Behre may be reached at 937-5771 or by fax at 937-5579. His e-mail address is rbehre@postandcourier.com, and his mailing address is 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.

From Crack house to Coffee house.

[Ernest Street]

Sheclown...is your reply#2 showing the "temporary fence" of the suspected owner who is trying to take the property?

A few bottle jacks and beam bolting surgery would bring the frame back for 50 more years.
She deserves to live for another few families...not some greedy pig.

[sheclown]

Ernest Street, the property you are referencing was the one which was knocked down today.

1612 Market Street

1325 Laura Street goes before HPC on Wednesday for demolition.  


Two different properties.

It is easy to get confused.  

[Ocklawaha]

The thinking of these property owners reminds me of the Khmer Rouge Communist Guerrillas in Cambodia, they had a saying:

"To keep you there is no value, to kill you there is no loss..."

OCKLAWAHA

[Timkin]

When it comes to Historic in Jacksonville , in the eyes of the decision-makers, there must be no value, and alas,  no loss.

[mbwright]

The city does not care, and this is the root of the problem.