Comments on: Building codes, sprawl and value.

By: Jessica Cummings

Jessica Cummings — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:44:13 +0000

I agree with Larry. I am also from Fayetteville and I watched in horror as they bulldozed the high school down today. They have no regard for the history of which they tore down. It seems now adays it is just easier for people to keep spending more money to build new things when what they already have is just fine and in need of a little repair. I graduated from that building and to me it was not just a building it was a peice of Fayetteville history.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:58:13 +0000

^
This sounds like it could be one of the first modernist houses in Ohio.

By: David Esrati

David Esrati — Sat, 23 May 2009 16:26:15 +0000

Technically- it had glass block on three sides- and part of a fourth. It was a pretty amazing home. The paneling had also been painted- white. It was beautiful when restored.
It was built in 1938, and was a GE “all electric house”- although the furnace was later switched to gas. It had lumiline fixtures- plus two of the first florescent lights in a residence. They had transformers that would hum as you turned them on. One day I’ll write a long post about the house and its idiosyncrasies.

By: Dad

Dad — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:42:35 +0000

David often refers to the house he grew up in. It is on the National Register of Historic Places thanks to work I did on it and money I poured into it. The house was built by Cleveland Heights architect Eugene Burdick for his own home and has glass brick walls on two sides. When I bought the house, all the glass blocks were broken. I replaced some 1300 of them. The roof leaked. I put on two new roofs. All the mahogany paneling in the house had been allowed to turn into decaying wood. I removed paint from it for two years (getting a heart attack in the process).
It is also a Cleveland Heights landmark, and because it is, the current owner has received numerous citations because he has not cared for the house.

By: David Esrati

David Esrati — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:23:55 +0000

The former Julienne is a local example. The Stivers people loved that building- it had been well maintained. It was good enough for Stivers- but, isn’t good enough for an elementary school.
In Europe, 600 yr old buildings are considered new.
We’ve lost touch with reality.

By: Larry Evans

Larry Evans — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:10:01 +0000

In Fayetteville, Ohio (where I’m from), there’s a stately group of buildings first opened as a boy’s school in 1852. It was used as a Franciscan brother’s noviciate later on, then it was renovated in the early 1980’s to become the new high school when the crowded former high school became the new middle school. It’s being bulldozed now – and a … Read Moremegacomplex of school buildings put in it’s place – precisely because of what you’re talking about here. There’s no thought of preserving any kind of heritage or fabulous architecture, just because everyone now assumes (probably rightly so) that it’s more cost-effective to demolish and rebuild. It’s sickening…