Picking Colors

Deciding what color to paint a building can be one of the most difficult decisions in any restoration effort. First of all color is something that everyone has an opinion about (personally, I am not a fan of blue) and it is something that tends to disregard any professional training (I don't care how many graduate degrees you have, I just don't like blue). Couple that with the standard approach of painting a building based on a sample that is three inches square, people's general trouble of thinking spatially, and an always underlying fear of really making a mistake, and you have a situation almost guaranteed to induce white knuckles and closely cropped nails.

Is there a "right" color for a particular architectural style or building? Generally not, at least in my opinion. Are there clearly "wrong" colors for a particular architectural style or building? You bet. No matter how well a restoration is designed and constructed, paint it purple (or dayglo Orange) and you have failed. It's just a fact of life. But if somebody is reasonable, and of course most people are, it's pretty hard to really wreck a project with paint. I swear though, that is sure appears some people try. But even the worst decision is only a cover coat or two away from correction.

Some cities, and some review boards, get all twitchy about paint color, to the point where some historic commissions have been dubbed "the paint police" by detractors. That overly controlling approach is probably counter-productive. But there's always the bad apple that spoils the basket, and nobody wants to have their neighborhood graced with a Spite Purple house with Upchuck Orange trim either. There is a reason why most people paint within a fairly restrained palette. And it's a good reason, too. Buildings are BIG and a little color goes a long way.

I "get" to pick colors for commercial projects a lot, which is far less troublesome that picking colors for people's homes. Commercial projects, being what they are, tend toward the neutral and they probably should. I think if you have an interesting building, relying upon subtlety and shadow is both attractive, cost effective, and authentic. Nobody needs to have a "Hey Look At Me" sign that occupies a city block.

Chambers Covered Bridge

Sometime ago I became part of a team working on the process of reconstructing the Chambers Covered Bridge, located in Cottage Grove, Oregon. The Chambers Covered Bridge, unique among Oregon's remaining covered spans, was designed not to carry automobiles, but a logging railroad. Built in 1925 at the edge of the J. H. Chambers Mill, it served a small logging railroad that went out to the west and brought the huge trees, and the locomotive that pulled them, over the Coast Fork of the Willamette River, just south of downtown Cottage Grove.

As often happens, the mill burned (twice) and the rail line was scraped.  Eventually the land was sold for residential development but the old bridge remained, disconnected from its track, its purpose, but still too interesting (and large) to remove. After a complex legal process, it ended up in the ownership of the City, who have great plans to transform the bridge into a pedestrian and bike crossing, leading to the local high school and the Cottage Grove Campus of Lane Community College, located nearby. When the project started, the Chambers Covered Bridge was in pretty sorry shape, but the engineers thought it could stand until we got all the paperwork done.  Then we'd take the bridge apart, salvage the larger members for re-use, and mill new wood to replicate the damaged areas as part of  a full, comprehensive, reconstruction based upon the original design.

All was going swimmingly until that big wind storm a few weeks ago. Old covered bridge, with siding, are sort of like sails and can only take so much.  The wind storm, and the bridge's decaying bottom chords, must have been Chambers' limit, forcing the entire structure to lean, or rack, toward the south.  Last week the bridge was out of plumb almost 2" in four feet.  That's a pretty noticeable lean, especially in a tall, narrow, structure, designed to fit a steam-powered locomotive. When I was on site last week  I commented if there is any more wind, it sure as heck better come from the south because the bridge can't take much more from the north.

Quick action by Cottage Grove, by OBEC (the engineering firm in charge of designing the new project), ODOT and Oregon SHPO resulted in the Chambers Bridge being determined an emergency.  That let us skip some of the paperwork (we'll do it later) and begin working immediately.  Careful deconstruction will begin early next week, with the goal of saving the bridge before it falls over, so we can begin to reconstruct it using as much of the original timbers as possible. Let's all hope there are no huge windstorms (or even little windstorms) in Cottage Grove before then.

Ghost Signs

Moving on to happier subjects, last week the rehabilitation of the McAndrews-Barnum Block in Medford began, as these things usually do, by removing the nasty alterations of some previous era. In this case it was the 1970s, a projecting green Darth Vader-style hood. We struck signage! Actually we struck a painted wall graphic, proclaiming the site as the location of "W.A. Kinney," or at least Mr. Kinney's unknown establishment.

Signs like this, those that keep reappearing, are known as Ghost Signs. Usually that refers to their reappearance, no matter how many layers of paint applied over them,  as the result of the incredibe durability of White Zinc-based (er, lead) paint).  Old signs in particular (all signs in particular) use a very high quality paint material and so they survive for decade after decade, below inferior product that weathers away. When old signs are in favor (as is recently the case) ghost signs sometimes get a little help, as in a sign in Jacksonville, Oregon that benefited from the occasional tooth brush removal of its covering layer (but that's another story).

   

Nobody seems to be able to figure out what Mr. Kinney was selling on Main Street in downtown Medford but, from the look of the sign, I would venture that he was doing so around 1900. No person of that name shows in the 1910 city directory so Kinney's sign has certainly hung around far longer than the business it advertised.

 

We probably can't leave the sign exposed as part of this project but we will be sure to encapsulate it in a way that will allow the next remodelers of the McAndrews-Barnum Block to enjoy a small discovery too. Mr. Kinney's sign isn't bothering anyone, and we can let it go back into hiding to reappear and surprise somebody else in fifty years.  In the meantime it's sort of fun to see how merchants hawked their wares in the pre-electric era.

 

Last month another project, the Cooley-Neff Warehouse, also struck "sign."  This one, I hope, will remain exposed.  It announces the building as the home of "Mason-Erhman Co.   Wholesale Grocers."  They were the first occupants of the building, in the mid-1920s.

 

History Bully

Here in Jackson County we once boasted the largest local historical society west of the Mississippi River. Fifty years ago visionary County leaders petitioned the Oregon Legislature to change state law and create the opportunity for a local Historical Levy. They did, and in 1948 the voters passed the Jackson County Historical Levy, designated .25 per thousand dollars of assessed value to support the restoration of the old Jacksonville Courthouse for use as a county museum. The Southern Oregon Historical Society was formed to run that facility, along with others the County would eventually own in Jacksonville through generous donation from Robbie Collins, the Beekman Family, Pacific Power, and the University of Oregon. The US Hotel and other facilities came to the County during the Great Depression, for failure to pay their taxes and in Jacksonville's sorry economy before it discovered the value of history the County saw no point in selling them.

Fast forward and Jacksonville's special qualities were recognized as an NHL in 1966. SOHS grew into a fine, professional institution with more than 50 employees, conserving more than a million artifacts, providing training and advice to the bevy of local historical societies their success spawned throughout Jackson County (we have twelve). SOHS events played an important role in tourism, and brought considerable value to the region. So generous had Jackson County voters been that the Society never had to collect the full .25  cents. Just a dime per thousand brought them well over $1 million annually.

Enter politics, in the very specific name of Jack Walker, a long time County Commissioner who despite being a Jackson County native has a near innate distaste for everything SOHS stands for. Buoyed by his own opinions, Jack started to nibble away at SOHS funding, first diverting 25% of it toward the remaining historical societies and the County's own projects. Later, with a convenient interpretation of Oregon's tax cutting ballot measures, Jack and the County took the position that the Historical Levy no longer existed  as a dedicated fund.  Now the full .25 cents could be diverted to the County's general fund and, of course, they didn't hesitate to collect the entire quarter the levy was entitled too. That levy still yields the Jackson County general fund NINE MILLION annually.  Jack uses it to pay for things he values more than heritage or libraries.

Last night SOHS sponsored a public meeting to discuss its future. Anybody that follows SOHS locally already knows that they are in dire straits. Poor management in the past, coupled with lack of gumption or out and out poor decisions by previous leadership put the organization in such a deep hole that even their current, dedicated, board is hard pressed to find a solution. This isn't helped by the fact that Jackson County, lead by Jack Walker, has basically behaved like a school yard bully picking on the nerdy kid. In the words of a rare letter to the editor on this topic "The near dereliction of duty demonstrated by the commissioners is an outrage and should not be tolerated by citizens of southern Oregon." Well said, but not said nearly enough.

At this writing, SOHS is scared silent and is seeking to leave all of its responsibilities for Jacksonville properties to others.  They are working with the "Jacksonville Historical Society", a new group that hopes to take over the Courthouse, Beekman Bank, Beekman House, Children's Museum and Catholic Rectory. The silent part comes from the fact that SOHS is negotiating with the County in the hopes  they will sell the US Hotel to a private investor and give SOHS some of the proceeds to pay off debt  and provide operating funds while the society gets its sea legs under a new, streamlined, business model. I wish them luck. They are going to need it. I think they are deluded to trust Jack Walker to do the right thing in regards to SOHS. He never has. Bullies, when they have their victim on the ropes, are fairly unlikely to show them any mercy. It's a sorry state of affairs.  The county will keep the lions share of any money they get from selling these historic properties if there is any way they can finagle it.

And meanwhile Jack and the County not only collect RENT on the US Hotel (which they don't share with SOHS which must maintain the building under the terms of the lease) but they continue to blithely collect nine million dollars from taxpayers every year.

Place+Preservation=PEOPLE (or it should)

Last week I was in Portland, attending the first of HPLO’s “Round Tables” on historic preservation. HPLO (the Historic Preservation League of Oregon) brought us together to discuss how Oregon can better support and benefit from its 116 National Register listed historic districts and how those districts can remain, or become, more vital. It was an interesting event.

Historic districts are important collections of buildings but, as my old school buddy Dave Skilton politely reminded the assembled, it’s the National Register of Historic PLACES, not historic buildings. I agree. Those of us that work in and with historic districts in particular need to be continually reminded of the value of the collective. Unfortunately the way land use law works means that almost all preservation regulations are set up to deal with building-by-building proposals and so it's pretty easy for the larger philosophical issues to get lost in the trees. Or the windows and paint colors. That lack of larger vision for the district as a whole is further challenged by lack of an articulate, consistent, vision or goals to guide a district’s development.  Even when such goals exist, other forces such as changes in political leadership, staff, or simple economics make consistent implementation difficult.  As a result, focusing on paint color or windows or other  manageable  elements becomes an easy default position.

I'm not sure that detail focus is always the best, or the one that gets HP where I think it should be heading.  As I have often said, in more contexts than would seem appropriate, “We are doing this WHY, exactly?” By which I mean what is the real point, the real benefit, of historic preservation (and if you answered “to save our architectural heritage” please see me after class for additional reading). Preserving old buildings just to say you have isn’t a particularly self-sustaining activity in my opinion and it surely doesn't represent preservation at its finest.

I am always struck by old postcards of downtown. Of course the buildings and the architecture  are of interest, but what strikes me, and what most other people notice first, is all the street activity. There are PEOPLE everywhere. As our field changes I think PRESERVATION is going to have to come to grips with the reality that in all but a few exceptional situations the most valuable aspect our unique approach to the built environment, is our ability to enhance the strength of PLACE.  Good preservation focuses upon buildings, but it uses them to support improved community. It’s not really that complex, is it?

I realize this is borderline heresy but it’s just not always about the buildings. It should be about the fact that historic places engender PLACE so successfully. Yes, of course, historic preservation has and always should retain a strong connection to architecture, through scale, materials, quality of design, sustainability and all the rest but I am of the unwavering opinion that community is the endgame. The buildings are just a proven path toward success in that game. It's a viewpoint more tied to a flexible Rehab model than a stringent Preservation model.

The philosophical underpinnings of our profession and the process we work under have moved significantly away from what I used to disdainfully dub “dentil counting.” But there is much more to do when a few minor interior or exterior changes can be still be seen as intolerable desecration. I believe that if preservation is to remain vital and shed its often deserved reputation as a scold, we need to seriously rethink the legal framework, including both regulation and incentive, we operate under.

My next missive may be on the Secretary’s Standards and the interpretation thereof. Won’t that be fun.

Yes, Virginia, utilities can be historic too....

Lately I have been back to staring at my computer screen, and at images, of T-lines, Control Houses, Switchyards, Radio Stations and the various other pieces of the multi-state, thousands-of-miles long, Bonneville Power Administration Transmission System, all as part of wrapping up a draft cover document for a Multiple Property Submittal.  Documenting the history and significance of BPA to the Pacific Northwest has become rather second nature, but it's still a good story.  Now, by tying that story to the built resources that BPA manages, we’re breaking new ground, at least as concerns BPA’s development after 1945 and the end of its first “Period of Significance.”  That has got me thinking about electricity, hydropower, and all the work that I’ve done over the years for PGE, PacifiCorp, EWEB and others, now including BPA, who operate the sinuous network of lines that ties them all together, in one way or another.

Starting out in preservation my experience and understanding of electrical generation pretty much stopped at expecting the local utility to supply the power for my computer and cursing them out in those rare instances when their system was down.  Over the years, having worked for most of the larger (and many of the smaller) utilities in Oregon, I have gained not only an understanding of just how complex the system that ends at a duplex receptacle really is, but an appreciation for the engineers and others that put it all together over the past century.  I think people forget that here in the Northwest electricity didn’t really exist until the late 19^th century and for many cities, and more rural areas, reliable, affordable, power is a post-WWII arrival.  There is a huge system of dams, and thermal plants, and now more and more “green” generation plants that chug away out of view to keep it so.

That's the Copco Dam, above.  It's scheduled for removal, if all the competing parties on the Klamath River can figure out who pays for it.  The Klamath Dams, like most early 20th century dam despite their recent bad press, are pretty incredible constructs.  Some engineer looked at a canyon a century ago and said “There.”  In the case of Copco, that engineer was John Christie Boyle, a fascinating, near Rennassiance-type, guy born in the tiny northern California town of Ft. Jones.  Directed by guys like Boyle, (or T.W. Sullivan, or J.D. Ross, or any number of other visionary leaders), workers with horses and, if they were lucky, steam engines, moved rock, and poured concrete and changed the course of the river to produce hydropower, still the most reliable form of energy production around.  Ever since, when the water flows, the turbines spin, and you get power out the other end.  Most dams, and much of the generation equipment within them, still rely on 19^th century technology in large part, simply because the technology is so simple there is little beyond improved control and fish passage that can be done to improve it. It is fashionable now to think of dams as "fish killers" that should be removed and replaced with wind turbines or solar arrays.  There are problems with that, if you like knowing that when you flick a switch there will be power to it, no matter the season.  Nothing, as usual, is as simple as the advertising copy.

The picture below, of the T.W. Sullivan Power House, operated by PGE at West Linn, produces some 16mW of clean, non-greenhouse gas producing, electricity.  Sullivan began life as “Station B,” built by the Willamette Falls Electric Company in 1893.  It is the second oldest continuously operated hydroelectric powerhouse in the country. I can't speak for others, but I am rather glad its still in operation.

Saving Energy...Replacing Windows?

A small part of the Federal stimulus money was dedicated to improving the energy efficiency of America’s buildings by offering tax credits to homeowners replacing their windows with new, thermal-paned, sash. For local governments and non-profits, the stimulus package included grants that allow local governments to upgrade their heating and cooling systems, usually including window replacement as well. And, of course, local governments know a good deal when they see one, free money from the State and the Feds generally being considered a “good deal.”

Unfortunately, in the rush to stimulate, nobody in DC (or in my case, Salem) considered the implications or special circumstances that might occur by raining money for window replacement on hundreds of highly significant historic structures owned by cash-strapped local governments. As a result I spent the better part of a day last week touring National Register listed buildings, most with original windows, that shall soon have them removed at great expense and, frankly, minimal energy benefit.

The simple fact of the matter is that window replacement is about the least cost-effective, or energy saving, thing that you can do to a property.  But, because window manufacturers have spent millions and millions of dollars convincing everyone otherwise, it is often the first thing a property owner considers. Would that logic and common sense had an advertising budget or a marketing deal with This Old House.

100-year old, single-pane, wood windows, have an “R-value” (a value related to energy/heat transfer) of about 1.0. If you yank that window out and replace it with a state-of-the-art low-E, Argon-filled, thermal paned, window sash you will, as Anderson-Pozzi-Marvin et al are quick to point out, improve the performance of that glazing by more than 400%! To R4.5. In two words...big deal.  What Anderson and their friends don’t tell you is that the wall next to the window, even without insulation, performs about twice as well and that windows, even state-of-the-art windows, are going to suck energy out of your house no matter what. If you REALLY want to save energy, don't have any windows.

Let me add that if you are building new, of course, you should use the best new technologies can offer.  But removing existing windows for the minimal improvement and high cost of current window technology simply doesn't pay. Beside destroying historic character, it clogs the landfill, squanders embodied energy and doesn't really do much to increase America's "energy independence" in the long run.  This is especially true when most of the problems with existing historic windows has nothing to do with their single-pane glass and everything to do with air infiltration.  Air infiltration is easily repaired, or it could be if anybody ever bothered to repair anything anymore when tossing it and passing the deferred maintenance  problem onto the next guy is offered as an option.

Saving energy and money are laudable goals and the Stimulus package could help.  In virtually every case, particularly in a historic building, you lose far more energy through heat loss through the ceiling. Heat, as any 1st year physics student can tell you, rises. Insulation, that pink fiberglass stuff the Pink Panther used to promote, is fairly cheap and very effective in conserving energy. Super-insulating your ceiling/attic will typically save enough money to pay for the insulation within a few short years. Window replacement in one commercial project I am currently involved with won’t pay for itself until 2150, over 140 years.(Yes, 140 years!)

‘Course we will likely go ahead and replace the historic sash in that building with new, state of the art, sash. And we will do so in as appropriate a fashion as possible because it’s a historic building and the windows need to look as much like the originals as possible. We could improve those old windows, probably to about R2.5, and put lots of Oregonians to work (restoration being more labor intensive than replacement), but we won't.  That's because replacing the windows (or at least improving their performance to a whopping R3.2) is  a requirement of the grant and so you have replace the windows if they want to get the funding to replace the HVAC units. And replacing the old boiler is a good idea, and will save a lot of energy.

Besides, spending $500K replacing windows that don't really make sense won't be paid for by the local government.  It's the Feds money. And, as a taxpayer, it's yours.