Three old houses — one in private hands, two museums — are facing Dismal and Surely Destructive Prospects.
1) First up, 84 Harbor Avenue in Mahblehead, beloved by the community almost since it was built, purchased by Exceedingly Wealthy People Who Already Live in Town — and of course they want to tear it down and build something else. I was made aware of this by an Instagram friend; read this November news article for the details. The clincher is here: “The owners propose the demolition of the existing home, and the construction of a new single family home, moved back on the lot and set within the setback requirements,” the Planning Board application reads. “The foundation of the existing home will partially remain, as it is integrated with the seawall. The project has been designed to respectfully address the neighborhood, town infrastructure and natural resources ….” My initial response: Wickedness!
1a) What is beautiful must be preserved, and this home is clearly not only beautiful, but beloved. That the new owners are not prepared to adjust their Design for Living into this existing home indicates to me an Absence of Imagination. My Instagram friend is kinder; he would be content for them to leave the seawall and seafront façade intact. I am not so merciful — which of course may count against me later.
2) Next up, the Nathaniel Russell House in Charleston, South Carolina, is set to be sold by the Historic Charleston Foundation. (Read more about that here.) Surely there are other ways for the foundation to achieve its mission without divesting itself of its first, and possibly chiefest, jewel.
3) But the worst story is yet to come. In 2022 Carl gave me a private tour of the Merchant’s House Museum in New York, with which he’d been affiliated for many years. Today, December 12, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to approve (!) a development next door to the museum, which would result in guaranteed irreversible damage to the house and especially to its intact early 19th-century plasterwork. The Commission voted to approve this, while “allowing no testimony from the Merchant’s House or [their] engineering team.” Again, I say: Wickedness! Small-minded people want to put up a hotel next door. There is plenty of room in Manhattan for a hotel — elsewhere!
3a) Like my beloved Gibson House here in Boston, the Merchant’s House is a unique and precious collection of an entire family’s possessions over a century or so. (Like my mother, they never threw anything away.) Carl also explained to me that the Merchant’s House was very much the basis for the sets of William Wyler’s The Heiress (1949) starring Olivia de Haviland. And that was immediately apparent in the main staircase.
3b) PLEASE: read their Call to Arms and contribute to their legal fund if you are able. The crux of the matter: “Shockingly, landmark status does not guarantee protection from adjacent construction.” And in this particular case, adjacent construction would inevitably lead to irreparable damage at best, and collapse at worst.
3c) What the hell are these Preservation Commissioners thinking?!