Date: Fri 02-Aug-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Historic-District-Hawley-Inn

Full Text:

w/photo: Historic District Starts Work With A Main Street Landmark

B Y K AAREN V ALENTA

Less than 24 hours after the Borough of Newtown Historic District Commission

held its first official meeting, an application for a certificate of

appropriateness was filed by the developers who are renovating the Hawley

Manor Inn.

Philip Manger of Newtown and Richard Mullen of Sandy Hook filed an application

on Tuesday, asking the Historic District Commission to approve their plans for

the restaurant which will be called the Mary Hawley Inn. Approval by the

commission is needed before a building permit can be issued; the building

permit is required as part of the financing agreement for the closing of the

real estate purchase agreement.

"We anticipate that the closing will be within the next two weeks," Mr Manger

said as he and Dick Mullen stood in the gutted interior of the restaurant on

Wednesday. "We hope to be ready to open by the end of November."

Kathy Jamison, who was elected chairman of the commission at its first meeting

Monday night, will tour the restaurant this week. A hearing on the application

will be held by the commission at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, August 7, at Town Hall

South.

"I'm so excited that this business will be coming back to life on Main

Street," Mrs Jamison said. "It was a great show of good faith on the part of

the new owners to apply to us so quickly. It's wonderful that they plan to

restore a building which had really deteriorated in recent years."

Built as a simple two-chimney house before 1850 - possibly as early as the

1820s - the building at 19-21 Main Street was enlarged and greatly altered

several times over the years, including its transformation into an inn in

1930. The new owners say they intend to remove many of the modern alterations

- especially those done in the 1950s - and restore much of the rest,

preserving such elements as the Victorian carriage house/stable with its

distinctive clock tower.

The Historic District Commission, which will act on the certificate of

appropriateness, includes Mrs Jamison, Betsy Kenyon, Stephanie Gaston, Charles

Fulkerson, Lindell Hertberg, and alternates Patrick Hill, Gordon Williams and

Gretchen Hyde, all of whom were appointed by the Newtown Board of Burgesses in

July. Mrs Kenyon was elected vice chairman of the commission at Monday night's

meeting; Mrs Gaston was elected secretary/clerk. The commission also voted to

approve the appointment of town/borough historian Dan Cruson, attorney/burgess

Jim Gaston and Bee publisher Scudder Smith as consultants. All positions are

unpaid.

The commission also adopted a set of regulations at the meeting. "The

regulations are the rules of procedure by which the commission shall operate,"

Mr Gaston said. "They can be amended by publishing a notice in the newspaper

five to 15 days before a meeting is held."

He explained that the State Historic Commission provided five sample

regulations which had been written for other historic districts in the state.

"I went through them, and Kathy Jamison went through them, to try to extract

the most user friendly sections and combine them for our use," Mr Gaston said.

Each property owner in the historic district will receive a copy of the

regulations, as well as the state statute governing historic districts and a

list of the commissioners and consultants.

Mr Hill said he was concerned that property owners will be intimidated by the

quantity of information which is being sent to them.

"If our theme is to be user friendly, we have to be supportive of the needs of

the people who voted for the historic district," he said.

The commission decided to include, within the information being sent to the

owners of the 52 properties, assurances that the bulk of the regulations apply

to the conduct of the commission, not to the property owners. The letter will

include the telephone numbers of Mrs Jamison and Mr Gaston and an offer by Mr

Gaston to walk anyone through the application procedure, if necessary. There

are no fees or charges for filing applications, consultations or

walk-throughs.

Applications for certificates of appropriateness should be submitted to Mrs

Jamison, who lives at 72 Main Street.

The new historic district is eligible to apply for grants and funding for

preservation, restorations and improvements. Individual property owners may be

eligible for state or federal grants. Information about these grants is

available from Mrs Jamison.

Property owners who plan additions or other building construction projects can

arrange for the State Historical Society's archeologist to look at their

properties, at no charge, to see whether there are sites that might be of

historical interest. Some property owners may be interested in retrieving and

preserving artifacts that could be destroyed during the excavation or building

process, Mr Cruson explained.

Mr Cruson also said the Newtown Historic Commission will provide information

about restoration techniques such as the process of sandblasting buildings to

remove paint.

"There has been a real firestorm over the subject of sandblasting," Mr Cruson

said. "One of the realities of clapboard structures is that they have to be

repainted every three to five years. Sandblasting reduces this and ultimately

the house will look better. But it removes a layer of clapboard and once

sandblasting is done a building is not eligible to be on the National Register

of Historic Places."

Light sandblasting costs about $4,000 per house, not including the cost of

repainting, he said. Heavy sandblasting is quicker and cheaper but it often

destroys many fine architectural details. "That's the horn upon which the

dilemma rests," he said.

Mr Gaston said the owners of several properties that are not in the district

have expressed an interest in joining. This would require the appointment of a

new study committee because the former committee was dissolved when the

commission was apppointed. The commission decided to take up this subject and

the possibility of a scenic roadway designation for Main Street at the

commission's next regular meeting, which has been scheduled for 7:30 pm on

Tuesday, August 27, in the Mary Hawley Room at Edmond Town Hall.