Owners want to drop historic landmark status

In 1981, the River John Conrad House in Lewisville became the 38th property in Forsyth County to be designated a local historic landmark.

The designation recognized the property's early 19th-century rural architecture and its connection to the original owner, John Conrad, who ran a ferry across the Yadkin River and built the house about 1805.

Earlier this year, the current owners of the house, Nadine Lesko and Kerry Link, asked county commissioners to repeal the landmark designation, based on a report that says that much of the house's interior has been altered, and that its historic integrity is no longer intact.

They have owned the property since 1989, according to county tax records, and the property is valued at $644,000.

Neither Lesko nor Link responded to messages from the Journal.

The commissioners are scheduled to hold a public hearing and vote on the repeal Monday.

This is the first such request in the history of the landmark program, which now has 121 properties, said LeAnn Pegram, a project planner with the city-county planning department.

Property owners in the program receive a 50 percent property-tax break if they apply with the county tax assessor's office.

Once a property is designated as a landmark, owners must also receive approval from the Historic Resources Commission for any alterations.

At the heart of this controversy are questions about what constitutes a historic property and what responsibilities property owners take on when they buy a landmark property.

Earlier this month, the repeal came before the Historic Resources Commission, which reviews such requests and makes recommendations. Laura Phillips, a member of the commission, said she voted in favor of removing landmark designation from the property.

"The house had been altered in so many ways that it no longer conveyed the sense of an early 19th-century house," she said.

Seth Brown, a member of the commission, cast a vote against removing the landmark designation. He said that there is more to a house's history than what happens to its interior.

"Not only is the house a landmark, the property is historic," Brown said. "Landmark status is not just given to a house."

Earlier this year, the owners of the house hired Nancy Van Dolsen, a preservation consultant who lives in Wilson, to prepare a report on the house's historic features.

Van Dolsen's report said that the interior had been substantially altered during 1983 and 1984. Three of the four corner fireplaces and a two-story porch were removed. An antebellum kitchen and other outbuildings were demolished. Original door hardware was removed, and plaster walls were replaced with drywall.

The house's timber frame and roof truss system is still intact, as is a decorative chimney, her report noted.

Van Dolsen said she undertook the survey with the understanding that she would not make a recommendation one way or another.

The house still has value, she said, even though the interior has been substantially altered. The way that it's put together is unusual, and it represents the architecture of this region.

The 1983 alterations received the Historic Resource Commission's approval, but ideas about preservation have evolved.

There is now a much greater knowledge and appreciation of rural architecture than there was back then, Van Dolsen said, and it is unlikely that all of the changes to the property would be approved now.

The State Historic Preservation Office has also reviewed the request, and it said in a report that it believes that the property has lost the architectural and historical integrity necessary to maintain the local-landmark designation.

Brown said he is concerned about the precedent that would be set by allowing a property owner to remove a property from the landmark program.

He said he is also concerned about the property owners' plans for the house. The owners appeared before the Historic Resources Commission in October requesting permission to build a 6,000-square-foot stone addition to the roughly 2,000-square-foot wood house. The addition was designed to be attached directly to the front of the clapboard house, according to minutes from the meeting.

The commission unanimously denied the request because the scale of the addition was out of proportion to the house and the design was incongruous with the character of a historic property.

Without the landmark status, the property owners would be able to build anything they want to, Brown said.

Property owners are free to do what they want with houses, all over the county, Brown said. But owning a landmark property carries obligations.

"I don't think you should take a landmark status lightly," he said. "People who have landmark status have an obligation to keep it as a landmark and preserve it."

■ Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com.