The Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties address four treatments:
preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction.
What Makes a Home “Historic”?
Houses on the National Registry of Historic Places operate under different rules. Generally, a historic house includes one or a combination of the following components:
Certain age (the rule of thumb is typically at least 50 years old).
Illustrates a signature architectural style captured at a given time.
Associated with a historic event or famous person.
Part of a neighborhood historic overlay districtn.
Knowing the historical context of your house can help guide your historic home renovations. The Nashville Historical Commission offers this advice for getting started:
Carefully examine your home building materials, architectural style and shape.
Note specific architectural details, including windows and chimneys.
Pinpoint changes in construction materials, building style or floor plan indicating an addition or remodel.
Review how the house fits into the neighborhood. Similar style and sizes could point to a common builder.
Read the landscape, looking for foundations of outbuildings and evidence of property lines marked by trees or fences.
Choosing Contractors Who Remodel Historic Homes
All this architectural and historic data can help you and your contractor put together a remodeling plan that celebrates the character and charm of your home. It’s another important reason to work with remodelers whose specialty is historic renovation.
“A good remodeler will work with homeowners to take advantage of historic preservation grants and funds,” adds Faulk. “Tax incentives are available to homeowners remodeling historic homes.”
If your home is indeed part of the area’s historic district, the remodeler will have an excellent understanding of the building materials approved by the commission.
Historical properties can bring a multitude of opportunities in regards to aesthetics, design and costs. Each era of construction had unique practices and capabilities that others did not. You can see this starkly in regards to natural light, air transfer, stairways and hallways, construction materials and so much more. There is a delicate balance between the buildings original intent and it’s new intent. Especially when it comes to maintaining or repairing original finishes, or replicating like finishes.
For construction companies with little experience in historical construction, preserving the historical value while creating a functional and updated space is not often a straightforward task. The building and its history is typically an important factor to the building owner and the community. Understanding the importance to those groups is often the indicator of what we can, and cannot, retrofit in regards to the façade, building features or geography.
Code requirements and updated changes can lead to difficult alterations in the construction process. Requirements might include accessibility, energy code updates, abatement of outdated building materials, fire code, and much more. Managing these issues without jeopardizing the building’s natural character is a difficult task that requires unique skills.
The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties
Choosing an Appropriate Treatment for the Historic Property
The Guidelines are intended to promote responsible preservation practices that help protect the nation’s irreplaceable cultural resources. For example, they cannot, in and of themselves, be used to make essential decisions about which features of the historic building should be saved and which can be changed. But, once a treatment is selected, the Standards and Guidelines provide a consistent philosophical approach to the work. Choosing the most appropriate treatment for a building requires careful decision making about a building’s historical significance, as well as taking into account a number of other considerations:
Level of Significance: National Historic Landmarks, designated for their “exceptional significance in American history,” and other properties important for their interpretive value may be candidates for Preservation or Restoration. Rehabilitation, however, is the most commonly used treatment for the majority of historic buildings Reconstruction has the most limited application because so few resources that are no longer extant can be documented to the degree necessary to accurately recreate the property in a manner that conveys its appearance at a particular point in history.
Physical condition: Preservation may be appropriate if distinctive materials, features, and spaces are essentially intact and convey the building’s historical significance. If the building requires more extensive repair and replacement, or if alterations or a new addition are necessary for a new use, then Rehabilitation is probably the most appropriate treatment.
Proposed use: Many historic buildings can be adapted for a new use or updated for a continuing use without seriously impacting their historic character. However, it may be very difficult or impossible to convert some special-use properties for new uses without major alterations, resulting in loss of historic character and even integrity.
Code and other regulations: Regardless of the treatment, regulatory requirements must be addressed. But without a sensitive design approach such work may damage a building’s historic materials and negatively impact its character. Therefore, because the ultimate use of the building determines what requirements will have to be met, some potential uses of a historic building may not be appropriate if the necessary modifications would not preserve the building’s historic character. This includes adaptations to address natural hazards as well as sustainability.