New Construction Built to Look Historic

                Preservationists can be a particular bunch when it comes to historic building repairs. There’s a reason we have organizations like the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. and the Fredericksburg Architectural Review Board to encourage and enforce rules about how our older buildings should be treated. But where do preservationists take a stand when it comes to new buildings which are made to look old? Well, that would probably depend on who you ask. Reverend Brown Morton is one of the men who helped to develop the Interior Department’s Standards for Historic Preservation, and is arguably one of the leading authorities on all things preservation. His opinion when it came to new additions to old buildings was that the addition should be built in a style of its time. He encouraged that form of building design so that there was a clear and distinct difference between the old and new parts of the structure.

To a person who hasn’t had training in detecting historic building materials, there isn’t much difference between something that looks old and something that actually is old. This can be misleading when it comes to determining things like eligibility for historic registries, both state and federal. Style and authenticity is a fine line to walk, with a famous example being the ‘historic’ town of Williamsburg. While now old in its own right, Williamsburg was a more modern rebuilding and interpretation of colonial life, designed to look historic for guests. This misleads many people into assuming all of the buildings there are actually from colonial times.

Here at Habalis we are busy constructing a new-build storehouse that is specifically designed to look old, with a few modern exceptions such as stainless steel screws for joining the doors and windows, as well as electrical receptacles and exterior light fixtures. This building is on private property, so it isn’t intended for public consumption, but it does lead to some interesting questions. Is it our duty as preservationists to keep the past in the past? Or should we honor the styles and building techniques that came before by recreating them?  Give us your opinion in the comment section below.