These Four Fell This Week - Teardowns

They aren't tearing them all down but there's a boom. Styles have changed. We're mostly getting efficient 4,000+ square foot American Foursquares with a full width porch and 2-car garage. We'll see what we get on these lots.

 
This is now.


The week before. The houses to left and right have already been done. Who remembers the cute houses that they replaced?


They tore it down this very day August 1, 2013. I blogged it a year ago when it first went on the market. Great lot in great neighborhood near Oglethorpe, doomed.


Gone by noon.


This is one of  those streets with smallish, un-updated 70+ year old houses on big lots in Morningside. Many were done pre-crash.


This one hurt a little bit. Property tax records say 1910 with about 1,200 square feet. It was photogenic but quite so charming in person. I passed it 100's of times and only noticed the sculpture.

Two Fine Open Houses. One 2,018 square feet. One 4,422 Square Feet

I had my eye on two for May 19, two special houses I never expected to see. I wish you could see for yourself. I doubt they'll be open again.


Super Sundays are for house loving architecture tourists.


Asking $270/sf: I knew this one to be designed David Fowler. It's tucked into the landscape, on a nearly hidden lot. But once it caught my eye, I found treasure. Built 2005, 4,422 square feet, on 0.2355 acre.

 
Asking $275/sf: The small one was on my street, a corner house. It had been abandoned for years. Someone renovated it into a gem of a not-so-big house. Then it found the best owner possible who made constant improvements to house and landscape. Built 1948, 2,018 square feet on 0.201 acre. By the way, I think this had a contract within a couple of days.


I loved the kitchen entry on the big house.


I loved the kitchen entry on the not-so-big house.


I loved the phantom awning. A 65 year old house is entitled to it's age marks. Perhaps awnings will make a comeback.


This is the big house's backside. It has windows and porches and balconies to suit everybody.


Unless you look closely you don't notice the precise recessed pointing. But the eye notices a difference. You catch a bit of shadow and of white on each header face and arris (corner edge), a layered look, like showing a bit of petticoat.


This square bay window and dovecote are new additions. The window rocks inside and out.

Let me mention one more thing. Both houses were bright inside. They seemed narrow and made me think of "Wings of Light."

Pattern 107. WINGS OF LIGHT
"...But buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not fit places to spend the day...
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction Christopher Alexander,  Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein