Historic Zoning Commission

Old North Knoxville H-1: Level II

5-L-12-HZ

Applicant Request

Level II. Replacement/repair

Replace late-added metal porch railing, balustrade. and posts with a wooden railing, square balustrade and turned posts. Add brackets and newel posts at end of stair balustrade.

Remove vinyl siding covering the original weatherboard. Repair wood siding and where necessary replace damaged wood in-kind..

Site Info

One-story frame with weatherboard siding. Hip roof with lower cross-gables. (Gable front and wing) One-story one-half front porch with replacement metal post supports and metal balustrade.

1) The Design Guidelines state that porches may be replicated if documentation of size and design can be discovered. Staff believes this guideline refers to porches that have been completely destroyed ror emoved. In the case of 205 E. Oklahoma, the porch exists, although altered in size and material.
2) The metal balustrade and supports are a late modification, and have not acquired significance in their own right.
3) Staff does not believe the intent of the guideline is to require that the inappropriate balustrade and supports be retained, even though documenation of the originals do not exist.
4) Since documentation of the original is not available, information can be derived from architectural history manuals, which indicate this house to be a Queen Anne front-gable and wing cottage for which the prototype exhibits wooden turned posts, balustrades, and brackets during its era at the turn-of-the-century. There are many examples of these porch elements throughout Knoxville's historic neighborhoods. However, many of these porch elements have been replaced and altered over the years, and many inappropriately. Some ot the changes represent early evolutions of the porch elements, while these metal porch appurtenances rerpresent a later modification. Since standard architectural guidebooks indicate wooden turned porch elements on this style and period of house, they would be the most academically correct.
5) However, in this case, the porch size was reduced by almost half by the addition of a large front-gabled projection (according to early Sanborn Fire Maps) and is not the proto-typical 2/3 porch. Therefore, the applicant would like to keep the balustrade more simple with 2x2 square pickets instead of turned to avoid clutter with too much detail.
6) Staff agrees that since the porch has been altered to be smaller than the 2/3 prototype, and because there is no documentation of the original design, a simple square picket balustrade would be more appropriate than turned in this particular case. The square balustrades would indicate that they are more recent and not historic, yet would be more appropriate for the era of the house than the metal porch appurtenances.

Old North Knoxville Design Guidelines
Porches:
1. Historic porches on houses in Old North Knoxville should be repaired, or may replicate the original porch if documentation of its size and design can be discovered.

2. Design elements to be incorporated in any new porch design must include tongue and groove wood floors, beadboard ceilings, wood posts and/or columns and sawn and turned wood trim when appropriate. If balustrades are required, they must be designed with spindles set into the top and bottom rails.

Additions: p.28
2.) Design additions so that it is clear what is historic and what is new.