While you may admire the modern office building or the fresh white modern farmhouse new build, the allure of modern materials may have you wishing for more. Unique elements of character, history, and stunning details define the beauty of grand historical homes.
Have you considered the benefits of restoring a historic home and its importance to your local community and environment? There are many meaningful reasons why home preservation benefits both the community and the individual.
If you are considering historical restoration or preservation of your home or building instead of a new structure, Frazier Homes can partner with you on this admirable endeavor. Discover what to expect when you work with Frazier’s expert team of designers and craftspeople.
What Does Home Preservation Mean?
There are four main methods for preserving a historic building or home. Preservation allows a property owner to connect to the past while honoring the community and environment.Preservation craftsmen keep historical structures using proper materials and guidelines to strike a balance between honoring past methods and complying with present-day building codes.
Methods of Home Preservation
1. Rehabilitation is when you add or alter a property to keep its existing use while still respecting its historic character.
2. Reconstruction involves replacing missing historical pieces and matching them to how they existed before they were lost. Old photographs and remodeling typically aid reconstruction in an effort to keep the former significance of the structure.
3. Preservation is when a home maintains how it currently exists in the present day while simultaneously keeping any historical elements and pieces in place.
4. Restoration is when a property is restored to how it existed at a specific moment in history. Typically, restoration builders use specific building materials to match historical accuracy and building codes.
Characteristics of an Historic Home
Not all old homes are considered historical homes. How do you know if you have stumbled on a delicate plot of history? The following characteristics must pertain to the house to receive a historical designation.
The home must be associated with significant events in history.
The home is associated with the lives of people significant to the past. Under this rule, a house once owned by an inventor, a prominent citizen, or a President would possibly classify it as historic.
Distinctive characteristics, construction techniques, or other factors define it as a unique structure with historical value. For example, Frank Lloyd Wright’s house is designated historic because he was a master architect who launched innovative building techniques and design styles.
The home contains important information about a specific time period. Houses were built with particular construction techniques or materials, such as wooden nails.
Benefits of Historical Restoration and Preservation
The choice to preserve a historic home is the opportunity to restore a structure with existing value, history, and meaning without the need for demolition or investing in new materials. Historic restoration offers the opportunity to return a structure to its original look while gaining energy efficiency and increasing its value.
Culture
Like any element of history, restoring historic homes connects us to the past. Historic homes and buildings are a physical reminder of what came before us and help to create a sense of culture in a given neighborhood. Historical estates and homes allow us to study the past and understand the communities that preceded us. The unique character and culture of old buildings can be difficult to replicate in new commercial builds. While your new build can be inspired by styles of the past, a new home will never truly feel historic unless the same building techniques and materials are used.
Education
By preserving historic homes and buildings, architects, builders, students, and communities can learn from them. If historic buildings are demolished instead of preserved or restored, an element of tangible education is lost forever. Architects and builders can study past techniques and designs and have their learnings influence the styles of today.
Economy
Building restoration and preservation benefits culture and education and helps boost the economy. Tourists are drawn to communities with preserved historical structures, benefiting travel and tourism.
Environment
Compared to a new build, any form of restoration is environmentally friendly because you are repurposing an existing structure. Materials are reused rather than creating a need for new ones. Often, rehabilitated existing structures can also make them more eco-friendly and lessen future maintenance costs. Building and home restoration can also help limit other environmental factors such as traffic, environmental degradation, and suburban sprawl.
The Best of Historical Homes
Home preservation is more than just period building materials, historical stories, and an appreciation of the community. Historic homes are a work of art waiting to be reimagined and displayed in all their glory by the finest of families with the most exquisite of tastes.
Many historical homes are characterized as mega mansions, housing enough rooms to account for the years of history and character within their walls.
Whichever your fancy–castle, mansion, plantation, or expansive hamlet–the best historic homes in the world boast expansive acreage, impressive square footage, architectural inspiration, and generational character.
Properties such as the Ringling Mansion in Sarasota, Florida, The Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York, and the Highlands Ranch Mansion in Colorado have been restored to their previous beaming grandeur. Preservationists have embraced the storied history while restoring these estates to present-day standards.
The Frazier Difference: Historic Home Preservation
Preserving a historic home is an artistic endeavor for those who have an appreciation and taste for unique elements of the past. Historical homes have their own story to tell–homeowner and builder must work together to honor that story while reinventing the home’s next chapter.
From understanding necessary building codes to sourcing period-relevant materials, partnering with a home builder with experience in historical home preservation is key to a successful restoration project.
With a promise of accountability, integrity, and professionalism, working with Frazier Homes on your historic home preservation project means experiencing the elevated difference between an experienced and a luxury home builder. Begin your artistic process by contacting the Frazier Homes team today.
Know the difference–the Frazier difference.