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There she sits, on the left of the picture, a grande dame of an historic home, built over 100 years ago, sitting in a row of Mansard-roofed, 2nd Empire Revival style residences, that might not look out of place on a Paris street, but situated instead on an urban boulevard of a major Midwestern American City (which shall remain anonymous [St. Louis]). During the course of an extraordinary adventure, a few days ago Mrs. Left and I bid and won a contract to purchase that incredible building, without ever having laid eyes on the property, except in photographs and using tools like Google earth (credited with the image above).
This is the 4th post in a series which began with We Must Be Nuts, on September 23. That post revealed our dream to find a 100+ yo historical home and perform a sustainable preservation/conservation to provide us with a home during our retirement and then sustain other families for the next 100+ years. The 2nd and 3rd posts detailed houses that we loved and lost for different reasons. You may now continue out into the tall grass, if you like, for the story, in words and pictures, of our adventure, really just beginning, purchasing and planning the restoration of the incredible building pictured above.
Ain't she sweet? She needs a lot of TLC, but how is it, some might ask, that I propose, with seeming unbridled extravagance, that this old pile of bricks represents
some idea of "the greenest building".
Well, allow me to retort.
“The greenest building is the one that is already built.” Architect Carl Elefante who is the Director of Sustainable Design at Qunin Evans Architects in Washington, D.C. said it very succinctly.
Eco-nerds talk about sustainability and energy-efficient design as much as us preservation-nerds talk about wood windows and plaster. But isn’t it amazing when two worlds that have little to do with each other normally can come together and fight side by side on an issue.
Historic preservation is just that issue. Why you might ask? Because even our drafty, energy-inefficient old buildings from decades past are more “green” than the most energy-efficient LEED Titanium (if there were such a thing) building we could build today.
How is that possible?!
The
answer is surprisingly simple:
a new building, no matter how green its technology, will often be on a new site, sometimes in sprawl; it will also need to use new material and energy that have already been invested in an older building; and chances are the new building will lack some of the traditional green wisdom that, over the centuries, informed building performance and efficiency “before the thermostat age,” as Steve Mouzon (another conference speaker) puts it.
Science even has a term to describe where the energy and carbon savings come from,
embodied energy:
existing buildings have embodied energy – the energy required to obtain, transport, manufacture and assemble materials; demolition throws out the embodied energy, requires expenditure of energy, and adds burden to landfills; reuse using modern technology augments the environmental value of existing materials and the buildings they are a part of. “Preservation saves energy by taking advantage of the nonrecoverable energy embodied in an existing building and extending the use of it.”
Transportation – cars, trucks, trains, airplanes – , the focus of most energy headlines, accounts for only about a quarter of America’s greenhouse gas emissions, while nearly half, twice as much, is produced by construction and operation of buildings. It is estimated that constructing a 50,000-square-foot commercial building releases about the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as driving a car 2.8 million miles. And once an old building is gone, building its replacement uses more natural resources and releases new pollutants and greenhouse gases into our environment: It is estimated it takes 65 years for a new energy-efficient building to save the embodied energy lost when demolishing an existing building.
Surprise! Beside the embodied energy that comes with historic buildings, it turns out they are inherently energy efficient to operate. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency suggests buildings constructed before 1920 are actually more energy efficient than buildings built between 1920 and 2000. “The original buildings had no choice but to be green. Otherwise, you’d die of heat stroke in the summer, or freeze to death in the winter.”
Built in 1906, our beautiful pile of bricks was later converted into an up-down duplex with over 1000 sq ft of living space per unit. She apparently lost her original entry door(s) at that time, but most of the original windows and doors remain and some of the other interior trim and finish woodwork, removed during the duplex conversion, are apparently still stored in the detached garage. We will convert the home back to single family use, but might consult with our architect about designing around the possibility of future reconversion back to multifamily if that should prove a more suitable use again in the future.
We are scheduled to close and take possession in a little over two weeks; if everything goes as planned, here are some glimpses of what we might be able to preserve and conserve:
Original Stair Woodwork, Door Moldings and Radiators
Up to six rooms with South exposure
Antique Tile Porch Entry
Masonry Craftsmanship
Original Doors, Trim and Hardware; High Ceilings
She needs a new roof, which consists of slate tiles on the Mansard and a large, flat roof on the rest of the house. Although this is a considerable expense, it is also an opportunity to explore possibilities for rainwater harvesting (PDF), photovoltaic, and reflective coatings. Maybe we can design the new plumbing systems (all the copper long since went into the black market) to support gray water recycling. Perhaps we can use the existing radiators with a high efficiency boiler for radiant heating, avoiding the drying effects of forced air heating systems. We can definitely improve insulation for the garrett, tighten the envelope at all the windows and doors, upgrade to tankless hot water systems and otherwise further embellish the sustainability of this venerable bulding, located in an historic preservation district that has national, state and city recognition.
The unexpectedly adventurous part of this story happened like this. When I left Chicago for the West Coast on November 16, to help my daughter relocate for a corporate transfer back to Chicago, I had never seen or heard of this house. My daughter kept working everyday while I helped clean, pack and arrange for labor and transport for her household and car, which we towed to Chicago behind an 18 foot rental van, arriving home last night. Mrs. Left remained at home throughout.
While I was gone, our realtor found this house. So, in the middle of all the hubbub, without visiting the property, while consulting with Mrs. Left and our St. Louis team only by email and phone, and using online e-document signatures, we took the leap and put a contract on the house, which the owner accepted within 24 hours. However, being only a little mad, rather than stark raving, we had the foresight to allow an inspection contingency. The inspector assessed the property on Wednesday and we got the report that night. The house has no structural flaws. Her bones are extremely sound, our most important consideration, given the far worse condition of some homes that have caught our eye.
There will be tuck-pointing, masonry repairs, exterior woodwork restoration, in some spots, and an extensive internal redesign to reverse the duplex conversion. Before any of that can even begin, we have to abate a bit of asbestos contamination, a headache, but not a disaster. While all that is going on, we will continue to reside over 300 miles away. I daresay our adventures are only beginning. Stay tuned.