Our tenuous link to history

I haven’t been inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame since I went sightseeing after running the Paris Marathon some 30 years ago. Yet when I heard about the fire that destroyed the ceiling and spire of the 800-year-old church, it felt like a personal loss.

In his book Why Old Places Matter, Tom May, the general counsel of the National Trust, wrote: “Old places are a part of us. They form our identity and hold our memories. They define our collective sense of nationhood. … [T]hey foster an expansive sense of our own shared humanity.”

Old buildings withstand time; regardless of what’s going on politically, culturally or with the economy, buildings remain reliably unchanged.

We don’t have any structure in Chapel Hill that is 800 years old, and even if we did, state law allows anyone to buy it and tear it down a year later. Which is why the Historic District Commissioners had such a difficult decision to make at their April 9 meeting.

Many in Chapel Hill remember the modest Sears cottage on Gimghoul Road belonging to twin sisters Barbara Stiles and Bernice Wade, who each lived more than a century. They turned their front, back and side yards into lush gardens, which they shared with the public by placing a sign out front, “The garden is open,” inviting anyone and everyone to wander their gardens and revel in nature’s beauty and bounty.

After Wade died last year (Stiles died two years earlier), the house was sold, and the new owner proposed a two-story addition that appears to more than double the size of the original cottage. The new owner said she would preserve as much of the gardens as she could, but that if the HDC denied her application, she would sell the house, because the cottage as is did not meet her needs.

That put the HDC in a moral pickle. The Historic District Guidelines require that any renovation or addition maintain the existing character of the house, and this proposed addition appeared to violate that stricture. Yet if the house were sold again, a new owner could apply for a demolition permit, and if the HDC denied the permit, state law allows the owner to simply wait 365 days and proceed with the demolition.

The HDC would have to approve any new house built, but if the HDC denied a certificate of appropriateness, the owner could lawyer up and appeal the decision before the town’s Board of Adjustment, which routinely reverses decisions by other advisory boards.

So: approve an addition that does not adhere to the guidelines? Or risk the historic home being torn down and replaced by a brand-new McMansion?

One commissioner wondered why someone would buy a historic cottage who did not embrace cottage living? After all, someone who wants to live in Paris would not buy an apartment there expecting to replace it with a house that had a home theater and an outdoor kitchen.

Ultimately, the HDC approved the addition, hoping to preserve a sliver of that which connects us to our identity and shared humanity. Let’s hope the rebuild of the Notre Dame dome doesn’t include an accessory apartment and attached garage.

— Nancy Oates