I understand the feeling of loss when looking at a photo of something that was so beautifully constructed but no longer exists, however, maybe it’s time to inject some harsh realism about historic preservation. I also want to assure all readers that I believe preservation is worth the effort in the long run.
To put it in the most blunt terms I can think of, historic preservation is backbreaking, dirty, hard, and frequently very expensive work. Often the problems you encounter require solutions that I can only describe as “inventive”. Modern tools and materials are sometimes, quite simply, not suitable replacements for repairs or replacements for an 1865 structure. Materials that were once easy to get, and craftsmen with knowledge and skill to use those materials are rare today and if available are more expensive than the standard materials used today. Lumber is a great example. Nineteenth century buildings were full of hardwood. Oak, walnut, poplar, and cherry, all are still available but more difficult to find and always twice or more the cost of softwoods. Flooring is a prime example. While a pine floor might cost from $2 to $4 a square foot an oak hardwood floor will range from $8 to $15 per square foot and much more if you want wide planks. So the question naturally arises, is it financially practical to attempt to save an old structure?
Aside from all the physical and financial things that make preservation such a challenge is a very common human trait that works against preservation. That trait is that humans in a lot of ways have short attention spans and at the same time they love change (as much as we claim not to). While we can claim to be devoted to preservation we also love new styles and trends. Furniture, clothing, automobiles as well as the houses in which we live are all victim to almost constant changes in tastes. Some of that change comes from the top down, designers and manufacturers want to create new excitement to sell more products. As much as we might not want to admit it, a good bit is driven from the bottom up, you simply get tired of wearing the same style of shoe and stop buying it in favor of something new. With fewer sales of said shoe style the shoe company tries something new. It is no different with buildings.
Another factor that affects what gets preserved and what drives style changes are general changes in society and living conditions. Changes in family size is one example. In the 19th century families often consisted of 4,8, or even a dozen or more children. Today the average number of children in a family is a bit less than 2 so less physical space is needed in a home today. Can you imagine a family of 10 in a typical 3 bedroom 1950’s tract house? Another example is that during the depression when money was short, and immediately following those years of financial hardship came WWII and that resulted in a general shortage of all sorts of materials…those two decades saw homes generally become much smaller and plainer than during the early years of the century.
Here is one last issue that affects preservation. Land is limited, and while we can change the city boundaries the space within any given boundary stays the same. Certain parts of the town become seen as more desirable for certain activities as towns develop and grow. Very often, in the beginning, residences, businesses, and even industry were all mixed together. An individual would arrive in a brand new little town and decide they want to open a dry-goods store. They would build their store first and right next door they then built their new home after the business was up and running. Across the street their neighbor has established his brick making company and his house is at the rear of his brick factory. Eventually residential areas develop away from business areas or industrial areas. A residential location near the business area in town in the period leading to the Civil War era would have been a popular option but as time passed that same location was seen as less desirable for a new house to be built. People wanted to be a bit away from all the traffic, noise, and congestion of the central business area. A specific piece of land with a big house at 6th and Columbia would not have been as desirable as that same house away from downtown, in a location like Highland Park or the Perrin neighborhood. Still the land itself had value aside from the value of the house sitting on it. In that way, houses were often removed to make room for a structure more suited for the central business area. Using the example of 6th and Columbia, a grand old house became a public library, which was then torn down to build a high school, which later became City Hall, followed by a parking lot, and soon a grand new police department headquarters will be there. During the early days of our community there were many residences located in or near what we today call “downtown” but by the end of the nineteenth century those were disappearing. Residential Lafayette was moving up the hills south and east of downtown. The suburban village of Linnwood developed to the north. As land closer to the central business area became more valuable for “business” purposes even Lafayette’s first city cemetery at 9th and Ferry was seen as being “in the way” of progress.
It has been interesting to witness a very real and substantial reversal of the trend toward people moving away from downtown and with that trend it is my hope than some of the remaining grand old residential properties will be preserved and restored. In my view, historic preservation implies more than just not tearing an old building down. My hope is that in the future many of those old homes in the downtown area that have managed to survive will be restored, and that those old single family homes that were converted to multiple apartments will be preserved/restored, and returned to single family occupancy, their original purpose.
