Re-use Scenarios and Treatment Approaches for the Mansion & Carriage House

As part of the HSR project, the consultant team is evaluating re-use scenarios for the mansion and carriage house. It is the intent that, at a minimum, any re-use project for the property will meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating, Restoring and Reconstructing Historic Buildings (SOTIS). Part of the HSR process will be to provide some general cost estimates for the recommended treatment approaches for the buildings and an assessment of the re-use scenarios that will align with the recommended treatments. Each treatment approach has a set of Standards and accompanying Guidelines for use throughout the course of a project. The following information from the National Park Service website, gives a brief summary of the standards for the four treatments: Preservation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, and Reconstruction.

“The Standards for the first treatment, Preservation, require retention of the greatest amount of historic fabric, along with the building's historic form, features, and detailing as they have evolved over time. The Rehabilitation Standards acknowledge the need to alter or add to a historic building to meet continuing or new uses while retaining the building's historic character. The Restoration Standards allow for the depiction of a building at a particular time in its history by preserving materials from the period of significance and removing materials from other periods. The Reconstruction Standards establish a limited framework for re-creating a vanished or non-surviving building with new materials, primarily for interpretive purposes.” (http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/tps/standguide/overview/using_standguide.htm; accessed Oct. 15, 2009)

It is anticipated that different treatment approaches may be recommended for the mansion vs. the carriage house. The overall goal is to retain the historical integrity of the buildings while providing the opportunity for a new, economically-feasible use to locate on the property.