[Image: Historic Preservation]South Louisiana is home to some of our nation’s oldest architecture and has a rich variety of influences from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Nova Scotia. This unique array of buildings, styles, and urban planning methods are a built record of the area’s history and serve as one of the state’s main economic generators. Preserving, respecting, and building upon the rich history of the area is important both in renovating and in building new structures.
Renovating a Historic House
If you are renovating a building in a historic district there are more restrictions, considerations, and sometimes even tax incentives involved. Historic Districts are areas designated as historic by the National Register of Historic Places. To determine if you are in a historic district you can contact the Louisiana Division of Historic Preservation (http://www.crt.state.la.us/hp/) or, if in the city of New Orleans, the Historic District Landmarks Commission (http://www.cityofno.com/).
These agencies will help to direct your renovating efforts, as often there are restrictions on the materials used on the roof, on exterior surfaces, and the extent to which you preserve or renovate the historic house. These restrictions are put into place in order to maintain the fabric of your neighborhood and to preserve a shared cultural history. If you are renovating a historic house, allow yourself ample time to meet with city officials to discuss and get approval of your efforts. A great resource for building or renovating in a historic district is the Preservation Resource Center in New Orleans (http://www.prcno.org/)
Building in a Historic District
If you are building a new house in a historic district your home should be sensitive to its site and context. Issues of material choice, scale, proportion, and style of the building are restricted in order to maintain the historic nature of the street or neighborhood. This does not mean that you will have to, or should, build a new house that looks historic or conforms to past styles. In fact, it is often beyond a project’s budget to replicate the ornament, detail, and specific architectural elements of many historic homes that may be in your neighborhood, as these were all products of a different time and different craftsmanship. Instead of attempting to reproduce or approximate the past, we can build new structures that integrate into the neighborhood’s scale, texture, and materiality while remaining true to the technology, methods, and ideas of their time. With sensitivity to the site and surrounding houses it is possible to produce a new house that relies on history without replicating it and in doing so enhances the neighborhood.
Matching the roof height, eave height, and finish floor height of nearby houses is one way to relate to the scale of your neighborhood. Having a front porch or stoop is a way of relating to vernacular forms and cultural patterns in a neighborhood in a place like New Orleans, where many of South Louisiana’s historic districts are located. It is also possible to use materials that relate, such as wood or cement plank siding in residential neighborhoods or metal in neighborhoods with a more industrial character.
Building a new structure in a historic district is not as stringent a process as renovating a historic structure, but you will have to speak with local historic district governing bodies to get approval on your project. They will help you to determine what is appropriate to build in a historic district.
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