Further tales of the Giobbe House

[lslapiko.livejournal.com]

Here's an interesting follow-up to my Giobbe house blog post of April 23 (http://lslapiko.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-tales-of-giobbe-house.html).

This weekend I had the bittersweet pleasure of hearing from A.C. Frabetti, whose grandparents were the Giobbes. With his permission I'm sharing his e-mail in full here, because I think it really brings home the importance of saving these historical houses. More than wood and stained glass, they are spaces that have provided the settings for life.

Laura,

Thank you for posting about the Giobbe house. My grandmother had the house until it was sold less than a decade ago, and it became the last remnant of my childhood memories. You would have loved how she had some of the rooms, full of old clocks, chinaware, etc. With her passing, her children decided to sell it (too many ghosts of sorrow there). The subsequent owner wanted to restore it but I think he ran into trouble. I guess it was then sold to a developer, who transformed it as it sits now.

There is a bigger loss here than you can imagine. My grandfather (Ciro Giobbe) was a general family doctor who had his office in that house. There is a large number of people in Somerville who knew him (he died before I was born, many years ago). Since it was an office, much of the public would have seen the interior, and recalled the windows etc. A shame! When Somerville loses all of its historical treasures, it will cease to be a beautiful place to live.

- A.C. Frabetti

Mr. Frabetti also sent some beautiful pictures of the interior of the house prior to the renovation which you can see at http://lslapiko.blogspot.com/2010/04/further-tales-of-giobbe-house.html.

And please sign the petition to prevent further development of the Giobbe house lot at http://www.petitiononline.com/giobbe/petition.html.

Comments

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

This is really not meant to be a smart question though I suppose it could come off as such. So please bear with me. What do you hope for as your outcome here? It looks like a significant amount of change has already taken place, including carving out parking spots, alteration to interior, exterior, etc. The family could not afford to maintain it and subsequently sold it. It's a lot of building for just one unit. Seeing as how it's not possible to actually go back in time and save the building as it used to be, what would be the best outcome here in your perspective?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

The short version of the "Giobbe House" loss story - which actually was Mr. Benton's original residence, who Benton Rd. is named for - is that the owners after the Giobbes had resisted having it included in a list of properties proposed for designation, and that the powers-that-be judged that they were taking good care of it and maintaining it. Unfortunately, divorce split up that family, and they needed to sell and couldn't be picky about who bought. The result was the current developers.

If you're concerned about future important properties and historic treasures being lost, it's worth letting your aldermen know. The Historic Districts ordinance is the City's only current means of protecting such properties.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

I'll let the OP answer her preferred outcome for herself, but it would have been entirely feasible to divide the home into condos or even apartments without sacrificing the details, fencing out the neighborhood, gutting the character of the building, and scarcely considering the site when laying out parking.

Similarly, there's probably a better solution for the rest of the site, where another entire building is proposed, than the current plan.

[i-leonardo.livejournal.com]

when thinking about historic preservation bear in mind that renovating and maintaining a historic property is usually stunningly expensive. i wouldn't want anyone's property designated historic against their wishes or without some hefty upkeep subsidies from the city.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I get that it is a shame to have removed details, fenced the property, gutted the building, and all that, but it's already done, so now what? That was my question. Is a petition likely to make it right at this point?

[lslapiko.livejournal.com]

The petition is to keep the developers from dividing the lot into two and building another residence on it.

For the full text of the petition, see http://www.petitiononline.com/giobbe/petition.html. Also, see my blog entry of April 23 for some further explanation with before/after pictures at http://lslapiko.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-tales-of-giobbe-house.html.

Thanks and I hope you'll sign!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Fortunately, the ordinance is fine with repair or in-kind replacement; nothing would be requiring a property owner to replace vinyl windows with wood or asphalt shingles with slate, for instance. Additionally, the costs of maintaining existing materials are often overstated.

While it would take a rare case for me to advocate that a property be listed against the owner's wishes, those cases - such as monumental homes that have very significant features and a noteworthy place in the City's history, as the Benton/Giobbe property does - do, in fact, exist.

(Lastly, the City's working on a fund, as far as I'm aware.)

[ron_newman]

The Somerville Theatre was designated as historic at a time when it was at best unclear whether the owner desired that designation.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

I think that's one I'd count as one of those "rare cases." (Also, I'd say that non-residential properties have a different standard, for me at least, than a single-family home in terms of owner opposition.)

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

Are the owners of homes that wish to be designated historic in the end responsible for renovating the home to it's original state? I ask because I that to be the case.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

I reply to prunesnprisms because I also do not want to come off smart- but I reflect on the conservation I had the other day with my girlfriend. The house originally whether it be in Somerville, which makes it all the nicer, or in the countryside was one heck of a single family home. I live around the corner and appreciate old homes as I reside and own a 125 year old one not far away. But seeing over the past 15 years what has happened in Somerville with the homes it is of no surprise that for the amount of land and the "amount" of home that the Giobbe house was that a developer was the one to snatch it up-unfortunately. I understand the case with the land and it makes me sad that people want to jam as much as they can into every last piece of dirt they can. Though if one to walk the random streets of Somerville they would see that this has been done many a times over the years in tiny lots when no one was looking( a figure of speech) or no one cared as much.
I remember when the house had went up for sale when the last family had bought it- so beautiful inside with all the wood.

[i-leonardo.livejournal.com]

not here, thank clod. in somerville apparently you don't even have restrictions on paint color, which is remarkably liberal. but you do have to keep the exterior in at least as good and original condition as you bought it in, which usually means you can't replace slate roofs with asphalt or metal and you can't replace wood shakes or shingles or clapboards with vinyl, cement, or wacky wood. maintenance on wood siding and slate roofing is not for the faint of funds. on the other hand, if they're not hung-up about color, it's possible that the historic commission is more accommodating than some neighboring cities.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Not as such, no. Any replacement in kind of materials (ie, replacing like with like) or repairs to existing materials is, by ordinance, allowed.

[lslapiko.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with the paving over is that it affects the water table drainage for two reservoirs, which leads to flooding. Also, as mentioned in my blog, a Globe article mentioned that 77% of Somerville is currently paved over. I would like to see our community committed to preserving the remaining 23%.

[lslapiko.livejournal.com]

Hi there. The best outcome from my perspective would be that a) further development on the property ceases; b) Somerville residents work together to prevent these types of losses in the future; and c) the remaining 23% green space in Somerville is preserved from further development.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

But what happens to the house now?

[lslapiko.livejournal.com]

3 lucky winners get to buy very expensive condos, the landscape is marred forever, and the rest of us wait for news as to whether further horrors will be committed if the lot gets subdivided.

Your question reminds me of the first paragraph of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, which I quote:

No live organism can continue long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years, and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.