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Kristen Luetkemeierk, one of two architectural historians surveying
South Boston neighborhoods, takes notes on C.H. Friend Elementary
School, built in the 1930s.
Kristen Luetkemeierk is looking for structures more than 50 years old
in an effort to expand South Boston's Historic District. The current
district is also being re-surveyed to update information and include
buildings that are now old enough.
Hunting for architecture:
Survey to stretch South Boston Historic District
By MARY EVA CASSADA
Special to The News & Record
The Town of South Boston is hoping to expand the boundaries of its
existing 20-year-old National Register of Historic Places and Virginia
Landmark historic district.
That would explain the young woman with a clipboard and a camera at the
end of your sidewalk: She's not a tax assessor — she could be sizing up
your house's cultural significance.
The prissy Victorian, the sturdy arts and crafts bungalow, the
anglophile brick Tudor — hey, Berry Hill mansion doesn't have a
monopoly on architecture of interest.
Tamyra Vest, South Bostoní' community development director, said the
Town received a $10,500 grant from the Virginia Department of Historic
Resources; coupled with $7,500 from the Town, the funds are paying for
architectural surveys in areas adjacent to the existing Historical
District, plus re-surveys of the areas already designated. Because the
initial assessment was done more than 20 years ago, many more
additional properties are now probably candidates for inclusion, Vest
said, "Now that they're old enough."
Generally, the National Register is looking for structures at least 50
years old. Other criteria include architectural significance, a tie to
a famous person, a tie to events of historical or social importance or
archaeology of note.
Vest said the surveys are for districts — neighborhoods, in other
words, and not individual structures. Individual homes, taken
collectively, contribute to something of national significance, but
inclusion for an individual structure on its own merit has a higher
bar. (Think Monticello. Locally, think Carlbrook or Carter's Tavern.)
Why bother?
"It's a good thing," said Vest.
South Boston does not have its own local district, with an accompanying
architectural review board "to tell you what you can and can't do with
your property," Vest said.
Instead, designation as a state or federally recognized historic
district can mean historic tax credits for renovation and grants. In a
nutshell: Money.
Moreover, said Vest, it's just smart community planning to capitalize
on one's assets.
Says the National Register: "Listing in the National Register honors a
historic place by recognizing its importance to its community, State or
the Nation. Under Federal law, owners of private property listed in the
National Register are free to maintain, manage, or dispose of their
property as they choose provided that there is no Federal involvement."
(Halifax County boasts 10 listings.)
Virginia Landmarks is its Old Dominion equivalent. (Halifax County
boasts 22 listings.)
Back out on the street, Kristen Luetkemeierk, one of two architectural
historians working here for Thomason & Associates preservation planners
in Nashville, sketches maps, makes notes and snaps photographs for
records that will go to both Virginia Landmarks and the National
Register of Historic Places. Files will also be kept here.
Even the old 1986 file is a great resource for Vest. "I go to it many
times just for the architectural features of the [tobacco] warehouses,
or to find out what the warehouses used to be called," she said.
Part of the field surveyors' work is flagging for the Town the top 150
properties that they come across. Their canvass includes neighborhoods
out North Main Street, Marshall Avenue/C.H. Friend Elementary, Church
Hill/Mizpah, Hill's Tavern/New Brick Warehouse, Tobacco Heritage Trail
and the Crossing of the Dan vicinities, Luetkemeierk and Vest said.
"South Boston has a really excellent collection of late 19th and early
20th century architecture," said Phil Thomason of Thomason and
Associates, the Nashville firm contracted to do the work.
It's not specifically age or architecture that gives a building merit,
"It's also the context of how those buildings got there, the tobacco
heritage you have; those buildings are reflective of that time."
And it takes more than age and nice lines: "There's a lot of good
reasons to focus on preservation and re-using what you have," said
Thomason, namely community development, economics, and conservation.
Once assembled, the applications to the National Register and Virginia
Landmarks will be filed next spring, and South Boston should get
approval soon thereafter.
For questions, call Vest at 575-4209.