Winchester Historic District – Preservation of Historic Winchester

Friday Roundup: Preservation News Bites

Unfortunately 2024 started off with bad news for preservationists. The house at 411 S. Loudoun St. that was part of the blight proceedings was demolished on January 2. We extend our thanks to members Linda Ross and Lynn Brenneman who kept us informed of the proceeding on Tuesday afternoon. We extend our condolences to the Collins family at the loss of their family home.

After demolition at 411 S. Loudoun. Photo provided by Lynn Brenneman.

If your building is starting to fall into disrepair in the Historic District, PHW may be able to help before it gets to this point. Check out our grant page and see if you and your building qualifies! Our first deadline for submission is approaching on January 31.

You may also want to check the National Trust for preservation grant opportunities. They are currently accepting applications for the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund’s National Grant Program. These grants are designed to support capital projects, organizational capacity building, project planning, and programming and interpretation activities at historic sites of African American history across the country. Applications are due February 1.

You may also want to register for a free webinar Previewing the 2024 General Assembly Session from Preservation Virginia for Monday, January 8, 10 AM. Join Preservation Virginia’s public policy team for a preview of the legislative and budget items we anticipate in this year’s General Assembly session. Julie Langan, Director of the Department of Historic Resources, will also share the latest about the updated economic impact study on the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program. This program is free but registration is required – register here.

Correction on the Construction Date of 201 North Loudoun Street

The Winchester Star has been publishing the bank building at 201 North Loudoun Street, most recently a Wells Fargo, was constructed in 1950. The Beaux Arts style building was actually constructed in 1903 for Shenandoah Valley National Bank. The bank appeared in a newspaper special on Winchester commercial enterprises published in 1904 and has been documented extensively since that point via postcards throughout the 1910s and ‘20s.

Shenandoah Valley National Bank 1904 — Shenandoah Valley National Bank, 201 N. Loudoun St., circa 1904.

For more information, you may also wish to refer to the 2011 architectural survey of the building, which can be found here.

Friday Roundup: Nominations, Grants, and More

Nominations are now open for the 2021 Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Places list. The list features buildings, cultural landscapes, cemeteries and archaeological sites that face imminent or sustained threats to their integrity or survival. Nominations are due by February 26^th and can be submitted online at preservationvirginia.org. The announcement of the 2021 Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Places list will take place May 11, 2021.

The National Park Service’s Underrepresented Community Grant Program (URC) works towards diversifying the nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places. URC grants are funded by the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), and are administered by the NPS. Projects include surveys and inventories of historic properties associated with communities underrepresented in the National Register, as well as the development of nominations to the National Register for specific sites. Applications are due March 31, 2021. Apply via Grants.gov.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the Bough and Dough Shop survey for planning our 2021 event so far. The feedback survey will be used to adjust the event for the next year in regards to timing, location, and the types of artisan vendors you would most like to see. There is still time to voice your opinion before February 8. Find the survey online at SurveyMonkey.

PHW has been following the discussion on the Conditional Use Permit for the conversion of the Selma property to a bed and breakfast with an event center. As many others have noted, the bed and breakfast aspect raises no concerns for PHW and is to be lauded for finding a new use for the property without damaging its historic character. As a neighboring business, we are in favor of a review period and slightly restricted event capacity to see what noise and congestion may arise from the proposed outdoor events. If you have not, you may also want to review the agenda material for the request at the City of Winchester site.

We often find interesting tidbits while we are correcting text in the Virginia Chronicle. A short article on Fine Woodwork stood out for the mention of fine artistry, as well as the use of sycamore wood, in the RMS Queen Elizabeth. The ship itself has been lost, but happily, a promotional photograph of the “Canterbury Pilgrims” does exist. You can see what this panel looks like at Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History.

Friday Roundup: Celebración Winchester, Meditations on BAR

Out and about this weekend? Stop by the downtown to catch up with PHW at Celebración of Winchester on Sunday, September 23, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. A PHW board member or two should be around with an assortment of goodies, including a hot off the press early run brochure for the Bough & Dough Shop. We expect to have the Featured Artists portion of the PHW website updated later today or early next week so you can start exploring some of the amazing vendors and items we will have at the Hexagon House in November and early December.

Yesterday’s Board of Architectural Review meeting was a heartening experience after a tough few months of fighting for historic preservation and compromise as the accepted and useful strategy for dealing with problem buildings. Earlier this year, a new developer came to BAR with a plan for the Guitar Studio building on South Loudoun Street. It is a building of the recent past that attained contributing status in the latest architectural survey. Compared to the similarly-aged commercial buildings of the 200 block of East Piccadilly, this building truly is vernacular and of no discernible architectural style. It was likely built in the late 1940s, replacing an earlier frame building of about the same footprint. At some point between construction and the 1976 survey, some “colonial touches” were added that muddled the exterior appearance and “read” of the building.

During the initial BAR meeting in May, a number of the proposed changes were not in keeping with the Winchester BAR Design Guidelines. The majority of the application was tabled while PHW and the owners did some investigation of the building history and reading up on the BAR design guidelines. The applicants returned last night for a conceptual review, having read up, learned more about their building and researched more proposed products. The applicants were very open and excited to bounce ideas off the BAR members and solicited suggestions for further improvement before the application comes up for a full vote.

In the end, the applicant will likely have a new storefront more in line with a 1940s commercial building rather than trying to hang on to some oddball features to make a commercial building look residential. The longtime business resident is not being displaced. Opportunities for increased and improved residential density as well as proactively mitigating concerns is being addressed now rather than later. A situation that could have turned sour and confrontational was instead a pleasant experience of opening new possibilities, compromise and excitement for everyone involved. We are looking forward to seeing a “final product” application for this building.

We hope other applicants approach the BAR process with this same open mindset and willingness to compromise and explore various options. Again, we cannot stress enough how helpful a conceptual review discussion is both for the applicant and the Board of Architectural Review, and we encourage anyone considering a large and involved project to take advantage of this service before becoming married to an idea that may not work well with the Historic District.

Learn more on the city’s website about Winchester’s Historic Districts and Board of Architectural Review.

East Piccadilly Street Development

Now that the plans for the corner of East Piccadilly and North Kent Street have been made public, PHW would like to voice our concern over the wholesale demolition of this corner. All of the buildings inside the historic district are noted as contributing structures. We are especially concerned with the fate of the corner building housing Chopped Corner Tacos, which many residents will remember as the Stonewall Tavern. Although outside the historic district, the building housing Another Chance Church could be similarly rated as representative of the early 20th century and retaining a high degree of architectural integrity.

The demolition hearing for this request will be held at the Board of Architectural Review meeting on Thursday, July 19, 4 PM at Rouss City Hall. If you are likewise concerned about the loss of this early 20th century corner, please attend and speak at the public hearing. There is a way to both honor the character of this neighborhood and meet the goals for workforce housing, and we encourage the City to fully explore them before resorting to demolition. As we have seen before at the Winchester Towers site, redevelopment can often be a long time in returning.

You may wish to refer to the 2011 Architectural Inventory for East Piccadilly and North Kent, and past images of 202 E. Piccadilly (Stonewall Tavern) (Central Garage) and 204-210 E. Piccadilly. (An older image of the North Kent properties could not be located at the time of this writing, but please feel free to share any images you have with us at phwinc.org@gmail.com.)

Friday Round Up: Historic Buildings, Tax Credits, and Demolition

Preservation has been in the news lately. First, you may have seen the Winchester Star article on the latest Historic Tax Credit studies. You can watch the accompanying video interview on YouTube or below:

If you are up for a little light reading on historic tax credits and their impact in Virginia, you can read the full 94 page Preserving the Past, Building the Future or the four-page Executive Summary to hit the highlights. You may also want to read the similar economic analysis Virginia’s Historic Tax Credit Program prepared by Baker Tilly. Both studies back up the assertion of Historic Preservation Tax Credits paying for themselves over time and positively impacting not just buildings but entire communities.

You may also want to read the Winchester Star article on the approval of the demolition of a property on Sharp Street at the Board of Architectural Review last night. PHW President Bruce Downing was present to voice our concerns about the demolition of this property essentially by neglect. Sharp Street as a whole is a very architecturally and historically significant, if often overlooked, area of our Historic District. We hope the proposed changes and new construction, which are scheduled to return at a future meeting, will continue to honor and reflect the unique character of that block.

Preserve Early America in Virginia, Part One

To go with our post last week, a second typed manuscript fell free of a scrapbook during moving. This is a partial transcription of the article “Preserve Early America in Virginia,” written by Lucille Lozier and Chi-Chi Kerns in 1968. The manuscript was sent to six magazines for potential publication. It was divided into three sections, so only the first portion which forms the most cohesive narrative is included today. We may revisit the next two sections in a future blog post.

Preserve Early America in Virginia

“We set out early, then traveled up to Frederick Town,” wrote George Washington in March, 1748, then a lad of 16. “We cleaned ourselves (to get rid of the game we had catched the night before), took a review of the town and thence returned to our lodgings where we had a good dinner…and a good feather bed with clean sheets, which was a very agreeable regale.”

This was the beginning of George Washington’s association with Winchester, then called Frederick Town.

The property on which this same inn rested, which was conveyed by Lord Fairfax to William Cocke, owner of the inn, was designated for preservation October 15, 1967. A fine old stone house, built in 1792, now stands there. This house is the first building in Winchester to be marked for preservation. A bronze plaque was placed on this home at the dedication ceremony, indicating it will be preserved, and the home is so listed by Preservation of Historic Winchester, Inc.

At the time of Washington’s coming here, Winchester was the principal frontier post in the Shenandoah Valley. Washington, whose brother, Lawrence, married a cousin of Lord Fairfax, was sent here by the latter to survey Lord Fairfax’s vast estate of over 5,000,000 acres of unsettled land. He spent the next four years in this activity, and his headquarters attracts many tourists today.

There seems to be an almost overwhelming urge, in the name of progress, to demolish and destroy relics of our country’s history and early cultural development. The era of concrete is upon the land, and ruthlessly, buildings of period architecture and antique beauty fall prey to the bulldozer. Feelings of pride in our past heritage seem to be swept aside in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

In the fall of 1963, a group of concerned citizens in Winchester, distressed and alarmed by the demolition of an increasingly large number of antique buildings in the area, assembled with a common desire to find some way to prevent the continuous destruction of their heritage. Winchester is one of the most historical cities of our nation and the oldest town west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a distinction of which they feel every citizen in the community should be justly proud.

Out of such concern grew an organization, the members of which were determined to preserve as many as possible of the old homes and buildings in Winchester which are historically important and architecturally interesting. These citizens formed an active group dedicated to providing a qualified and responsible organization capable of carrying out their objectives.

Those who belong to the organization have been successful in having the City Council pass an ordinance which enables them to proceed with their business of preservation. The name of the organization is “Preservation of Historic Winchester, Inc.”

The members of PHW, Inc. have undertaken a project which will bring to a halt the impetuous tearing down of their historically invaluable buildings which, once gone, can never be replaced. They are trying to preserve as many as possible of the important buildings in Old Winchester which were built before 1860. Under their plan, the owner of a building may request its preservation. If the building qualifies, an attractive bronze marker, or plaque, specially designed, is placed on the structure to indicate that it will always remain a part of Old Winchester.

In recent years there has been some interest among members of garden clubs and other citizens of Winchester in improving the appearance of certain local historic buildings by beautifying their surroundings with appropriate planting of trees, shrubs, flowers, vines and ground covers. Since the preservation of an old building is not authentic without the restoration of the gardens and lawn which enhanced it, the Historic Winchester group would hope to work hand in hand with all those who wish the picture to be complete. It is anticipated that out of growing concern for saving these buildings will develop also a strong desire on the part of Winchester’s citizens to make their town more attractive with beautiful landscape architecture.

Members of the newly-formed organization look forward to the future with great excitement. They expect, as a body, which will be fully qualified for the activity, to solicit and accept money and property in the form of endowments and bequests. These gifts will be classified as charitable and may be listed as such on income tax forms of all donors.

The people of Historic Winchester wish to spread the news of their thrilling adventure to all Virginians, and, indeed, throughout the nation. Anyone interested in the organization can contact us at 540-667-3577, phwinc.org@gmail.com, or at our office Monday-Friday at the Hexagon House, 530 Amherst Street, Winchester, VA 22601.

Remarks on the First Winchester Historic Plaque

The following is a transcript of the remarks said by Stewart Bell, Jr. at the dedication of the first Winchester historic building marker dedication on October 15, 1967. The marker was placed on the home of Miss Lucy Kurtz, 21 South Loudoun Street. The remarks were found when a scrapbook of early PHW mailers and newsletters was being moved and several sheets fell free of their scrapbook pages. The sentiments said fifty years ago still hold true and remain guiding principles of the Winchester Historic District. Every time you see one of the oval plaques on a historic building in downtown, you can remember this is the spirit in which the plaque program was begun, and one we hope it still embodies today.

Remarks by Stewart Bell, Jr., Vice Mayor
Dedication of historical marker on Miss Lucy Kurtz’s House
21 S. Loudoun Street
Sunday, October 15, 1967

Urban progress is voracious. It is often indiscriminate. It has no memory.

Some months ago the Common Council recognized this. They recognized, also, that this is not altogether good for a community. They recognized, as all of us here today recognize, that an old landmark, because of its aesthetic, historic, or cultural significance possesses an amenity value often far beyond and aside from its utilitarian or commercial value. Because this is so, it contributes to the economic vitality and strength of its community. As evidence of this I would point to the fact that Travel is Virginia’s second most lucrative industry and that localities with historic interest and cultural distinction share most generously in its benefits. As evidence of the truth of this statement, I would point to the fact that the level of general retail trade in Williamsburg usually leas that among all the localities of the State.

It seems, therefore, that it is a wise and proper municipal policy to identify some of our older buildings what have cultural significance and architectural integrity and that we endeavor to snatch them from the eager maw of Progress.

To that end, the City has purchased and in various ways preserves three such buildings: Washington’s Office, Stonewall Jackson’s Headquarters, and Abram’s Delight. But the City cannot continue to purchase and preserve as public property all its old buildings. Pursued to its conclusion, such a policy would not only be costly but it would ultimately make our city a necropolis, which is a city without life. This is the opposite of our aim.

In view of this, it was the purpose of the Council when it pass the Ordinance, as a result of this this plaque is placed here today, to indicate that the City of Winchester, as a corporate body, does recognize the value to the community of some of its older buildings and that it is our official policy to join with the owners of such properties to identify and to designate them by placing upon them an official bronze marker.

We hope that the presence of such a marker on any building in our community will in the future serve as a reminder to all who pass by, and especially to each future owner, that here is a building of distinction out of our past. It has survived and it is of genuine worth to our community to keep it if possible. It is, therefore, the policy of the community to attempt to preserve it from thoughtless or wanton destruction. This marker will say, “Think carefully and weigh all the values involved before you determine to replace this ancient building.”

As here and now we dedicate ourselves to the preservation of something of value out of our physical and material heritage, I have to express my wish that we likewise dedicate ourselves to the notions of purity, integrity, dignity and self-respect which are typified by such landmarks as this home, and that we seek to honor and observe these values which have come down to us out of the past. They are among the solid verities upon which all that is worthwhile is our past is built. They are among the solid verities upon which to build an enduring future amid the bewildering changes of our days.

This marker bears the official arms of the City of Winchester, but it is placed on any property only upon request of the owner, who thus joins with the City to designate his property as a cultural landmark. For this reason, I request Miss Lucy (Kurtz) and Mrs. (Godfrey) O’Rear, the owners of this handsome stone house that graces our principal street, to join with me in the placement of this first historic marker.

Placement of the first Winchester historic plaque

If you are inspired to have a plaque placed on your building in Winchester Historic District, visit the City’s website for the forms and guideline information. Plaques are discussed and approved by the Board of Architectural Review. Currently over 140 buildings in the historic district have been recognized with the official plaque, but not all recognized buildings have had their plaques installed.

Friday Round Up: Clowser House, Guideline Updates, and More

Happy Friday! It’s been a busy week at PHW, so here’s what we’ve been up to:

We have added five images from the Walk and Learn tour we hosted in conjunction with the Clowser Foundation at the Clowser House last Saturday to our Flickr account. Thank you to everyone who came out and saw the house and heard about the efforts so far to save it. The Clowser Foundation needs your support – they are still fundraising for their efforts to repair the back wall before June 2018. You can learn more about their organization at their website and Facebook page.

We had some good questions on the historic farming uses at the Clowser House. As we learned on Saturday, the Clowser family ran a mixed farm with wheat, corn, cattle, pigs, and other crops and livestock. Although not specific to the Clowser family, you can learn more about agriculture in the Shenandoah Valley before and during the Civil War at Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation.

In Winchester news, we know many people have been awaiting word on the overhaul of the Board of Architectural Review Guidelines. The revised document, which has been in the works for about a year and a half, was presented at the September 26 City Council work session. It appears very likely the new guidelines, which allow for some additional flexibility with non-traditional materials, will be adopted on Tuesday, October 10. You may review the agenda and packet through the city’s website.

In Holiday House Tour news, we still have spaces available for interior full page, half page, and business card ads. You can learn more on the sizes and benefits of the ads here. If you are interested in reserving a spot, please let us know at phwinc.org@gmail.com or by calling 540-667-3577 before October 31.

We also took a few moments this week to update our GuideStar profile and reach their Silver rating. This has also opened up a new donation option for us on the GuideStar webpage. You may use the donation link under our logo as an alternate way to make online donations to PHW. Thank you in advance!

Winchester’s National Register Expansion Approved

PHW received word today via the Virginia Department of Historic Resources that the National Parks Service has approved the expanded National Register Historic District. The application was approved at the state level in mid-September, 2015. Congratulations to the 395 buildings and objects which have received recognition as contributing historic structures!