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7 River St - C of NA application - exterior repairs9/25/2020 1/4 Internal Staff Entry - Conditions When a Certificate of Non-Applicability is necessary Additional Applicant Information Historic District Project Information Historical Commission - Certificate of Non-Applicability HCNA-20-2 Status: Active Submitted: Sep 17, 2020 Applicant John Carr 9788073264 johnhenrycarr@gmail.com Location 7 RIVER STREET SALEM, MA 01970 Statement of Conditions -- A Certificate of Non-Applicability is required for the following:1) Additions, alterations or new construction not visible from a public way, public street or public park. A representative from the Commission will determine that which is visible or not visible. 2) Temporary structures or signs, subject, however, only to such conditions as to duration or use, location, lighting, removal and similar matters as the Commission may reasonably specify. 3) The reconstruction, substantially similar in exterior design, of a building, structure, or exterior architectural features damaged or destroyed by fire, storm or other disaster, provided such reconstruction is begun within one year thereafter and carried forward with due diligence. 4) Ordinary maintenance, repair or replacement of any exterior architectural feature which is damaged or worn provided the work does not involve a change in design, material, color, or outward appearance of the structure. Type of Applicant Owner Owner Address 7 River Street, Salem, MA Owner Email Address johnhenrycarr@gmail.com Owner Telephone Number 9788073264 Property Address 7 River Street, Salem, MA Derby Street -- Lafayette Street -- McIntire true Washington Square -- Is work visible from public ways? true Type of Work Ordinary Maintenance, Repair, or Replacement 9/25/2020 2/4 Descriptive Narrative Signatures Attachments (9) Ordinary Maintenance, Repair, or Replacement = Ordinary maintenance, repair or replacement of any exterior architectural feature which is damaged or worn provided the work does not involve a change in design, dimensions, material, color, or outward appearance of the structure. Reroofing- Replace existing roofing to match existing, (i.e. 3-tab asphalt shingles, slate shingles, wood shingles, architectural asphalt shingles). NOTE: A change from 3-tab asphalt shingles to architectural or designer asphalt shingles requires a Certificate of Appropriateness. Temporary Structure or Sign = Temporary structures or signs, subject to such conditions as to duration or use, location, lighting, removal and similar matters as the Commission may reasonably specify. Statement of Proposed Work 1. Re the long easterly wall of our rear kitchen wing: replace corner boards, clapboards, and first floor kitchen window in kind, all of which have been there since 1964; 2. Re the narrow southerly end wall of our rear kitchen wing: replace corner boards and clapboards, which have likewise been there since 1964, in kind. In addition to the fact that both are replacements in kind, the first and second floors of the work described in no. 1 above is visible from River Street, but only marginally so, including during the fall and winter months when leaves are off the deciduous trees. With respect to the work described in no. 2 above, only the re-clapboarding of the second floor of the narrow southerly end wall of our rear kitchen wing will be visible from Andover Street--the first floor work is absolutely invisible from any public way (i.e. River Street, Beckford Street, and Andover Street) all twelve months of the year. Applicant Signature true Photos of existing conditions taken from all public ways Sep 17, 2020 Property map showing location of improvements Sep 17, 2020 IMG_1589.jpg Sep 17, 2020 9/25/2020 3/4 Timeline IMG_1590.jpg Sep 17, 2020 VUgFJ5CAQLOh4QGbgHoJaw.jpg Sep 21, 2020 WC2AtEpSRJGX10mzkFmqBQ.jpg Sep 21, 2020 R2OcYIReRaePNYPw2xXCow.jpg Sep 21, 2020 teoFc2B2SmCPc6DXw+3EUQ.jpg Sep 21, 2020 %772WBa6QYa3n3eE0kFCHA.jpg Sep 21, 2020 Application Submitted Status: In Progress Assignee: Patti Kelleher Patti Kelleher September 17th 2020, 3:46:17 pm I have received your application for inkind repairs. Can you please provide a photograph of the window to be replaced in kind and photos of the eastern and southern wall elevations showing current conditions (clapboards, trim, etc). Once received, I can process certificate administratively. Thank you - Patti John Carr September 18th 2020, 1:26:24 pm Patti: Exactly two minutes after your 3:46 PM email to me of yesterday's date our oldest son and his wife had a baby daughter at 3:44 PM (Eastern Time) at Cedars-Mount Sinai Medical Center in LA, four days before her projected due date of September 21. Even though the two obviously had nothing to do with one another, it does mean that my wife and I are busy at the moment making plans for her to fly to LA to help our son and daughter-in-law with the baby and also help them in looking after our four-and-one-half- year-old grandson. So this is just to let you know that I will be getting back to you on Monday with an appropriate response to your email yesterday regarding our petition for a certificate of non-applicability. John John Carr September 21st 2020, 4:16:38 pm Patti: Attached are the photographs you requested of the south and easterly walls of our rear kitchen wing which are legally relevant to our Petition For Certificate of Non-Applicability, having in mind that what establishes the Commission's legal jurisdiction in the first place is the visibility of the proposed work from a public way and that for all such areas not meeting such a legally required threshold, we would be perfectly within our rights, say, to paint those areas with the kind of vibrant urban art that one finds in certain areas of the City. The first photo is taken from the sidewalk at the mouth of the driveway of 4 Andover Street, our neighboring property to the south, looking north toward our rear kitchen wing. The second photograph is also taken from the southerly sidewalk of Andover Street, but to the east of the first photograph, looking northwest to our rear kitchen wing. The third photograph is likewise taken from the southerly sidewalk of Andover Street, but further to the east of the second photograph, also looking northwest toward our rear kitchen wing - you can locate that vantage point exactly from the hydrant in the left foreground of the photo. The fourth photograph is likewise taken from the southerly sidewalk of Andover Street, but further to the east of the third photograph, also looking northwest toward our rear kitchen wing from that vantage point. If you can even see our proposed reclapboarding from any of those four 9/25/2020 4/4 photographs, let alone in detail, even with a microscope, you have better eyesight than we do! The final fifth and six photographs are closeups of the first floor kitchen window as courtesy, with a yardstick showing scale, even though a straight-on, close-up view is NOT the view that would be even remotely visible from the River, Andover, and Beckford Streets public ways. In terms of documenting other aspects of the existing status quo, I would respectfully submit that the width of the corner boards and clapboard exposures are already reliably established by (1) the existing corner boards and clapboard exposures on the northerly (i.e. street) end wall of the main block of the house, (2) by the long easterly (i.e. front door side) wall of the main block of the house, (3) by the southerly end wall of the main block of the house, (4) by the easterly side wall of the hyphen or connector between the main block of the house and our rear kitchen wing, and (5) by the northerly end wall of the rear kitchen wing, all of which are uniform and have been in place for years if not decades. Similarly, the windows and window frames around the windows on the second floor of our rear kitchen wing are remaining in place, so I am at a complete loss to understand why there could be any doubt or why you would require a current photo, since they have been there for the last 56 years (literally) and presumably are in the inventory photos of our property taken at the time of the creation of the current McIntire District - see also below. By way of further background, the easterly side wall of our rear kitchen wing is not part of the original late-eighteenth century building fabric, but was a mid-1960s expansion (by about two and one half feet to the east) to the original (and narrower) rear wing created by the then owner, whose name was Joe Schappa. He had recently graduated from Harvard's GSD with a Masters Degree in architecture and was then a first year associate at Walter Gropius' international architecture firm in Cambridge, TAC. (Later in the decade he was also president of HSI at a critical time in Salem's early urban renewal period.) Basically what drove his expansion of the side wall of the rear wing was nothing more sophisticated than his needing slightly more space for a kitchen counter with sink and dishwasher underneath. Not exactly the same thing as altering, say, the baldachino over the main altar at St. Peter's! You can see this graphically in the first photo in the second floor window in the pediment, previously and formally approved by the Commission (from memory) approximately three decades ago, which shows the isosceles nature of the original roof line. Let me also emphasize at the outset that I am in no way expecting or seeking special treatment of any kind, either because of my consistent and pivotal role in the extraordinary transformation of River Street from the seriously dilapidated state it was in before Carol and I purchased our property at 7 River Street on May 16, 1973 or the attention to detail that Carol and I have always shown to our circa1788 house, both inside and out, during those 47-plus years, or my pivotal role in the creation of Salem's original single-street Historic District on Chestnut Street in the early 1970's, my 18 years of service on the Historical Commission, including during its critical initial formative years, or that during the 18 years I was on the Commission I was also primarily responsible for the creation of the initial single-street Federal Street Historic District, the expansion of the original single-street Chestnut Street Historic District and the original single-street Federal Street Historic District into the much more extensive McIntire Historic District we have today, as well as in the creation of the current Derby Street Historic District, the current Salem Common Neighborhood Historic District, and the current Lafayette Street Historic District. I suspect that you were not even alive during much of that period, let alone lived in Salem, but you might ask Jane Guy, or many, many others who were around during some or all of that period if you have any doubt as to the truth of those statements. You might also consider that there has not been a single new historic district created in the twenty-five years since I left the Commission in May of 1995. All of this is to underscore that I have spent much of my life as a committed preservationist, particularly as it relates to historic districts, and while I firmly believe in the cause, I also know my rights and trust my petition will be administratively approved in a prompt and efficient manner. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let us know. Thank you. John Patti Kelleher September 22nd 2020, 10:46:55 am Congratulations on the birth of your new grandchild! Thank you for submitting additional photographs of the area to be repaired. I will begin processing certificate, which should be ready by Thursday. Patti Building Notification Status: Pending Sign Status: Pending Historical Commission Approval Status: Pending Approved Certificate of Non-Applicability Status: Pending Inspection of adherence to conditions Status: Pending