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These old homes
Preservation Studies Program surveys Winchester's architectural heritage
By Brian Fitzgerald
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Documenting historic buildings in Winchester, Mass., are (left to right) Gordon McClure (GRS'04), Claire Dempsey, adjunct assistant professor, Dean Lampros (GRS'05), Chris Moore (GRS'05), and Michael Steinitz, director of preservation planning for the Massachusetts Historical Commission. Photo by Fred Sway |
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Residents of Winchester, Mass., recently peered out their windows and saw people on the sidewalks holding clipboards, scribbling notes, and taking pictures of their houses. Naturally, their curiosity was aroused. Was someone going to film a movie here? Or, heaven forbid, was this an invasion by the town assessor's office?
“At first there were lots of curious looks and furrowed brows,” says Claire Dempsey (GRS'80). “When homeowners see clipboards, many of them fear that their property taxes are going to be raised. But once people in Winchester realized who we were and what we were doing, they were extremely friendly and helpful.”
Not to worry, Winchesterites — the group infiltrating the neighborhood west of North Main Street in February and March was actually a team of professors and graduate students in BU's Preservation Studies Program surveying historic resources. They were photographing and completing field descriptions of old buildings in the area, and their work was part of ongoing preservation-related planning initiatives in the town.
“Many of us who do this kind of work have stories about people being a little leery, wondering what we're doing out there in the street,” says Dempsey, an adjunct associate professor in the GRS American and New England Studies Program, of which the Preservation Studies Program is a part. “When they find out why we're there and what we're interested in, their concerns go away, and they're often pleased — and sometimes a little surprised — that we're studying their neighborhood.”
Students in Dempsey's course Documenting Historic Buildings, along with those enrolled in Neighborhood Conservation, taught by Gretchen Schuler (GRS'84), an adjunct assistant professor, are analyzing Winchester's structures and helping Schuler develop an architectural heritage preservation strategy for the town's planning board.
Winchester has long been proud of such historic properties as the Sanborn Estate (1904), and there is a move at present to save the Cutter Village House (1861) on Main Street from demolition. But the town has only recently begun looking at the past — and future — of houses near North Main Street. Schuler says that the residential part of this five-street area she refers to as the Canal Street neighborhood is not threatened with development as much as the commercially zoned part closer to Main Street, but residents still appreciate the fact that the town considers their houses worthy of preservation.
“There is a fairly significant number of people who have lived in the neighborhood for a long time,” says Schuler. “So when they came out and found out what the students were doing, some of them went back inside and brought out old photos of their houses.”
Such interactions can prove invaluable for the students' survey. “It's a good way for them to flesh out their research,” says Dempsey. “Their job is not to get really intensive oral histories of the neighborhood, but every bit of information helps.”
Dempsey says that although the homes in the survey aren't mansions, they are still steeped in history and help tell the story of the town's industrial origins. “The homes vary in size,” she says. “Some are small single-family houses, and some are duplexes and two-family homes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, built for people who worked in two nearby factories.” The tannery and piano case factory are long gone, but the proud structures that housed the factory laborers have historic and architectural significance.
“This is a town that most people associate with affluence,” says Dempsey. “But there is also turn-of-the-century middle-class housing, and we try to look at different kinds of landscapes, not just the places that are associated with famous architects or wealthy industrialists. And that's been the philosophy in the field of preservation for the last several decades. The National Historic Preservation Act, which is the legislation that generates a lot of the guidelines for preservation research, requires us to look broadly at how buildings and historic landscapes are associated not only with national events, but also the everyday lives of people.”
Several weeks ago, Winchester's planning board and historical commission reviewed a draft preservation plan. Nearly completed, the finished plan will be available to the public in the spring.
“It's unlikely that we'll recommend that this area be designated as a local historic district,” says Schuler. “We might propose something less regulatory, possibly suggesting it be named a neighborhood conservation district,” which would provide some protection for the houses, and possibly set limits on the construction of large new structures that are out of scale and appear out of place architecturally.
Dean Lampros (GRS'05), a student in both Dempsey's and Schuler's courses, says that historic preservation “is about protecting communities and neighborhoods, not just individual houses. We're looking at ways we can document these structures, and at the same time help Winchester understand the architectural and historical makeup of this particular neighborhood, so the town can develop a strategy to maintain the character of the neighborhood in the face of development threats.”
9
April 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations