Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutnuss house garage integrity and soiDATE AND ORIGIN OF THE GARAGE Did W. J. Smith build the garage? We don’t know. There are two sections of it, a single-wall load-bearing or box frame structure directly on the Pismobuchon Alley and a balloon frame extension behind it. The box frame section is represented on the 1926–56 Sanborn Map, though it’s not clear on the photographic version currently available to me if this is on the 1926 original or on a later overlay. There is no known permit for this earlier part of the garage either in the Cal Poly archives or published in the Tribune or Telegram, and the newspaper does not carry news of a car purchase by either the Thornes or subsequent owners (by 1916) Clarence and Byral Day. A circa 1928–1935 photograph from Terrace Hill (judging by the presence of the Frederick Hart Building and absence of the County Courthouse Annex) shows the garage. A painted inscription inside reads “S. H. S. Aug. 1919.” The initials do not match a known owner of the house. They may be those of a builder (an S. Scamarra is listed as a day laborer in a 1922 permit to extend a filling station). SHS was also the contemporary initials for San Luis High School, put up on the hillside. The date may signify the year of construction or have been put on subsequent to construction. The garage presumably dates from no earlier than construction of the house in 1913 and no later than the 1919 inscription. CHARACTER-DEFINING FEATURES Whatever the date, the garage at 1123 is a single-wall load-bearing structure, a significant western method of construction that locally is documented to some dwellings—e.g., the Norcross House extension (demolished, before 1876), the Dallidet Adobe extension (after 1876); the Establishment (originally the Chicago Hotel, 1897); and 863 Mill Street (1907)—and a number of accessory structures like sheds and garages, although these are usually more obvious as the interiors are unfinished. This is likely to be a fairly late example of a local box frame structure, but our knowledge is limited without a historic resources survey. Its character-defining feature is board and batten structure, which bears the load. This survives in the sidewalls. The balloon-frame addition is not historically significant. INTEGRITY Location The garage, from photographic and map documentation, appears to retain its original location. Design Apart from the presumably post-1956 extension on the back and replacement of its alley façade with plywood and faux battens and a new door, it retains its original design in the sides and roof. A board and batten rear gable survives in its original location within the structure, invisible from the exterior. Setting Pismobuchon is a rare rear alley in San Luis Obispo. It has had extensive additions of infill housing (including on the property in question) but retains a number of period shed and garage structures from the era of its early twentieth-century development—including at least one or two other box-frame structures at 1155 Pismo—that are still evocative of that era. Materials Original materials consist of side walls, rafters and some plank roofing (but not the composite plywood on top of this), the interiorized rear gable, and concrete perimeter footing (though the concrete floor appears to be later). Workmanship Original workmanship is in the sidewalls, rear gable, and roof structure. Feeling About 3 feet of the original southwest side wall and less than 20 feet of the northeast sidewall are exposed to the street. Most of the latter is now off its footing, but that which is exposed still has the feeling of a board and batten box frame garage. Association The building is still usable, if not used, as a garage. REHABILITATION Applicant proposes to convert the garage into a space occupiable by humans rather than automobiles and retain the exterior appearance of the exposed sidewalls while stabilizing the structure. Structural stabilization would require stud construction, which would be counter to the original method of construction. The interior would be finished, which it was (to an extent) until recently. In a comparable situation, the National Trust wished to rehabilitate the barns, also single-wall load-bearing structures, at its Cooper Molera Adobe in Monterey. Due to stabilization needs, either the original interior or exterior could be exposed, not both. Because the interior was in a better state of preservation and the barns were intended to be used as public event spaces, the National Trust chose to keep the original interior and to add structural stabilization on the exterior. The current garage would have a private use on the interior, so the applicant wishes to add structural stabilization there (with a truth window) and use original structure and materials on the exterior to communicate the building’s significance as a box frame structure to passers-by. Given the legal basis of historic preservation, as a matter of public welfare, and the specific context here, this seems to be both a reasonable solution and one based on preservation law and precedent. Treatment of the garage would come under Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. 1. The use would not be historic, but the new use would minimize change to distinctive materials, features, spaces, & spatial relationships visible on the exterior. 2. The garage’s exterior historic character would be retained, and the removal of distinctive materials and altering of features, spaces, and spatial relationships on the exterior would be avoided. 3. False historicism or conjectural features would be avoided. A new door is needed, and there is no documentation of the original door. There is no documentation of the original doors. The garage doors proposed would be more appropriate to period aesthetics but should not be mistaken for original features. 4. There are no changes that have acquired significance. 5. Distinctive materials, features, finishes, techniques, & craftsmanship will be retained on the exterior. 6. Historic features will be repaired with original materials if possible and replaced with comparable material where not. 7. Chemical and physical treatments are not anticipated 8. Archaeological resources are not anticipated to be disturbed. 9. There will not be new additions or related construction. 10. There will not be new additions or related construction. We recommend that the alley-facing gable be, if possible, reconstructed of board and batten based on the surviving gable, though this would not be required under Secretary of the Interior Standards. Under the current plywood is horizontal siding that presumably replaced original board and batten degraded by the southern exposure. As this is not a restoration to a specific period, rehabilitation would allow horizontal siding. The garage was presumably built no earlier than 1913 and no later than 1919 so as a garage rather than a carriage house. We recommend that signage reflect this. It could also draw attention to the significance of board and batten as a structural material and reference the probable construction by either the Thornes or Days ca. 1913–1919, but this need not be required.