BRISTOL – Perhaps it was fate that moved a former Barrington couple to find and restore a Victorian house, dating back to 1888, on Bristol Harbor.
The house's original owners, James C. Church and his wife Mary, bear the same names as new owners, James Yess, a philosophy professor at Roger Williams University, and his wife Mary, a neurologist.
And, Mr. Yess said, it has always been Mary's dream to own a historic Victorian by the ocean. Mr. Yess was driving through Bristol four years ago, on a road he had seldom traveled, when he first saw the house, a two-story Victorian, with a gable roof, double brick chimneys, long and skinny windows, crown moldings, layer after layer of peeling white paint, and a sinking front porch.
They bought the property, which included a historic carriage house in serious structural disrepair, and two outbuildings — one was used by the Church family as a chicken coop and the other believed to have housed Mr. Church's Model-T — on two acres with a priceless view stretching over Bristol Harbor and beyond to Hog Island and Portsmouth's west shore. Then they started planning the restoration.
Since the house and carriage house are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it places any proposed changes to the exterior of the buildings under the purview of Bristol's historic district commission. While the house is not in Bristol's Historic District, any properties listed on the state or national register are regulated by Bristol's historic district commission.
The federal government did not impose any rules on owners of historic places with the passage of the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act, which created the national register and a program of tax credits and funds for the restoration of historic places. Instead, it empowered towns and cities to establish historic districts, and with that commissions who oversee any changes made to such buildings, down to whatever detail of the exterior of the building that town or city wants to regulate. Regulations over historic buildings differ from town to town. The only two things local commissions cannot regulate are interior changes, even the gutting of a historic building, unless it impacts the appearance of the exterior, and the use of the building.
So Mr. Yess had a lot of research, reading and planning to do.
The process took years to get to the start of the construction phase last July.
Mr. Yess sees himself as steward of his new home, restoring it for he and Mary, but also for future generations to appreciate its architectural significance. He read up on the period, and scoured auctions for authentic furniture and lamps.
"This house has steeped us in Victorian history, architecture and materials," said Mr. Yess.
Then he looked for an architect and contractor with reputations for excellent work in historic preservation. To draw up blueprints, he chose Bristol architect Lombard John Pozzi, who Mr. Yess calls a "Rhode Island treasure" and who even had an authentic hinge in his collection to match the three door hinges that Mr. Yess possessed. For the restoration, Mr. Yess hired Robert T. Major, owner of Warren-based The Preservation Cooperative Ltd., which has for 30 years worked on historic buildings, twice on Slater Mill in Pawtucket. Mr. Major also has a bachelor's in historic preservation from Roger Williams University.
After three months, Mr. Pozzi had completed detailed blueprints and site specifications for submission to Bristol's historic district commission. Mr. Yess presented his plan three or four times before he was approved. The commission reviewed everything from the shape of gutters, storm windows, type of shingles to the new addition on the carriage house.
"Some people view the process as unnecessary and time-consuming," Mr. Yess said of the historic commission's review. "But for us it's been very helpful. The people on the board gave us good suggestions and were flexible."
One of those suggestions was that the carriage house addition should not be flush with the original building. Mr. Yess said he was told to inset the new construction so it looked like a new addition, not part of the original.
Edward Cifune, chairman of Bristol's historic district commission, was appointed to follow Mr. Yess's restoration, meeting often to discuss progress and give approval to details along the way. He said the controls over the estimated 900 historic buildings in town has made it a very desirable place to live. Houses for sale in the historic district "are hard to come by," he said.
"I think it's helped to increase property values and to maintain the character of the town, particularly in downtown," Mr. Cifune said.
Towns are authorized to govern historic building projects only if a historic district and commission has been established. Besides Bristol, local towns with historic districts are Newport, Providence and East Providence, and Westport, Mass. Warren has a voluntary historic district. These towns choose what to regulate and by what guidelines, keeping those rules to only the exterior of the building.
A popular myth about historic restoration is that the buildings can only be painted certain colors. But in Bristol that's not true. The commission can only restrict paint colors on color-fast materials, like aluminum or concrete.
"You want to paint your house pink, go for it," said Mr. Cifune, who added that Bristol likes variety.
In Westport, Mass., however, it holds true. Sharon Connors, head of the Westport historical commission, said the commission regulates what color can be painted on the siding of a house in its historic district, Westport Point, which runs from 1806 Main Road to the town docks. But it cannot say what color one paints the doors or shutters. Ms. Connors said Westport also adopted a demolition delay by-law in its historic district that allows the commission to postpone a demolition request by one year "to try to work with the homeowners to change plans or move the house."
There are several hundred historic buildings on the town's register, with sixteen added last year by petition of the homeowners on Main Road, just north of Drift Road. Ms. Connors said the town's character would have changed with the housing boom Westport has experienced over the past decade, if it hadn't already established the historic district.
"Westport Point would not be the charming place to live that it is," she said. "We'd have had a lot more McMansions down here that would be inappropriate to the historic district and to the town."
Robert Major's construction company, The Preservation Cooperative Ltd., rather than replacing history, tries to restore and repair the original architecture.
With the James C. Church house, there were a few structural issues to deal with, but Mr. Major said that about 90 percent of the original building has been maintained in the restoration. They put on a new roof of faux-slate shingles, replacing asphalt ones, and the gutters had to go. The wide front porch, which Mr. Yess calls his verandah out to Bristol Harbor, was rotten and sagging, eaten by the earth. That needed new concrete piers for structural integrity and some new planking. As the last task, all of the white paint on the siding of the house will be sanded down and painted a linen shade, with white accents.
Some of the restoration required the work of an expert craftsman to recreate missing sections of railings and intricate moldings — painstaking work all done by hand.
The gable roof has a border with alternating stars and circles — "a kind of playful design," Mr. Major said. Brian C. Rebello, of Preservation Cooperative, said it took him a few days to replicate the design of the roof border.
For a three-and-a-half-foot section of front porch railing, Mr. Rebello spent three weeks on taking apart the railing's 55 pieces and restoring it, using most of the original pieces.
It's this attention to detail that Mr. Yess said he appreciates in the Preservation Cooperative, which in building a substructure beneath the carriage house floor, numbered each floor plank and returned it to its original position. Mr. Major said he has done this practice many times in historic restorations. He reminisced about Roger Williams University's theater building, a barn that he moved from Glocester to the university in numerically ordered sections.
Sometimes construction doesn't go as planned, especially with historic buildings.
"Every time you open something up, you find something else to repair," Mr. Major said. "That's the nature of the business."
Like when he installed a new cabinet on the second-floor bathroom and discovered a gas pipe (for gas lights) that had to be worked around.
"The challenge in this has been to keep a cool head when surprises come up," Mr. Yess said. "The standing joke has been, 'O.K., what's rotten today?'"
The project never ran into any big hurdles, though, and is expected to be wrapped up within a month. Mr. Yess advises those who want to restore a historic house to find the best people to work on it, and keep in constant communication with the workers and local historic commission. And, he said, "if you have a budget, increase it by a third."
By Jill Rodrigues