Topless Turrets (Part 2)
Please see Topless Turrets (8/10/2009)A common debate in the old house community is whether preservation is better served by poverty, or prosperity?
The poor, it's supposed, lack the means to alter. Whereas the prosperous, renovate astride changing tastes.
My contention is, for a time poverty does preserve, but ultimately structure requires maintenance.
Turrets, from the Latin turris, particularly require skilled tradespeople.
A turret projects, and is therefore not to be confused with a tower or any feature integral to the building footprint.
Labels: Architecture
posted by Adam at 7:42 AM | Permalink
2 Comments:
From my perspective, or experience, I've seen that the former (poverty) has preserved many of these homes and original features much more so (with the exception of stucco jobs) than historic homes found in more well-to-do areas.
The problem is that those in poorer areas lack the education in knowing how to restore and why they should as well as the $$ to do so. Another factor is that in poorer areas, many of these properties are owned by absentee landlords who want to spend as little as possible to fix problems and are often suckered into the "vinyl windows are best" crap as well as going the cheap route (drywall vs. plaster).
There was an interesting segment not too long ago on one of those cable D-I-Yer/Flip It programs where a landlord bought an 1890 home in (I believe) the West Adams area and did the bare bones minimum to fix, flip and sell it. I was cringing as I watched it but luckily, the City of L.A. HPOZ staff stopped him (much to his disgust) and made him adhere to the stylings of the period.
I just found your blog. I'm a year late on this post, but maybe someone will see it. I'm in Portland, OR, but I know some of LA happenings. Isn't that top photo the Hotel Boyle, in East Los Angeles? I believe there are plans to rebuild that turret as part of a restoration and reuse of that building, which is across the street (?) from Mariachi Plaza and the new light rail station.
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