There it is, that beautiful home in a historic district. Georgian architecture, a square brick two-story with two chimneys and dentil molding along the eaves.
Charming doesn’t begin to describe it. Your real estate agent hasn’t even finished giving you the tour, much less helped you write up a sales contract, but boy, you are already sold.
In your racing imagination, you’ve picked out the perfect new paint color for the shutters, a new front door and some fencing for around the front yard. But before you go jetting off to the home improvement warehouse, sit down on that hand-hewn walnut staircase and listen up. There are things you have to consider.
There are rules on what you can do with the property. The regulations vary by town or city, but as a rule, if you’re going to own a home in a designated historic district, you’ve got to get approval from the municipality before making any changes to the facade of your house. That means drawing up specific plans, submitting them to the local board or commission that oversees renovations in your historic district, then attending the group’s meeting to answer questions and hear what changes you may have to make in order to get the go-ahead.
Sure, you can go wild with your interior — art deco, midcentury modern, whatever you like — but the outside of your home has to match the historical character of your neighborhood. So no vinyl siding on your 18th Century Colonial. And in some communities, they also regulate exterior paint colors, so put away those swatches of sea-foam green.
Before signing your down payment check, experts advise you contact the local neighborhood association, planning department or nonprofit historical association to get a better understanding about the renovation standards. Is paint color regulated? If you want to replace the home’s siding, can you use fiber-cement panels, which would still preserve the look of the era, rather than wood?
Typically, if you want to repair something on the house and you’re using the same materials, like replacing a slate roof with slate, you don’t need to get approval by the municipality. And most boards are more lenient about changes to exteriors that are not in the public view.
Just because you live in a historic district, doesn’t mean you can’t make exterior changes or even add on, says Carrie Woerner, executive director of the nonprofit Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation in New York. The renovations just have to complement the building, be compatible in scale and materials, and fit in with the character of the neighborhood.
If the house requires a lot of work, having a contractor with experience in historic home rehabilitation do a walk through gives buyers a better idea of what they’re getting into, Woerner says. “Walk through with them and prioritize what needs to be done to really get a sense of what are the highest priority items, where is the structure threatened, what are the options to addressing those things, and come up with a multiyear plan, because that’s what it is, it’s a multiyear project,” she says.
It could also be a project that comes with tax incentives and, depending on where the property’s located, grants. Before you do the work, experts advise checking with the local planning office to see if your property qualifies for any of these. If you’re seeking out a historical home, find a real estate agent who specializes in historic districts, so she can give you an idea of what you’re buying and what the restrictions are in that district.
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