While the interesting history of the house had its appeal, the purchase was all about location. The house sits overlooking the start of the Susquehanna River.
As fate would have it, a burst pipe and thousands of gallons of water one cold spring day in 2006, caused the need to strip much of the interior finishes off and down to the framing. This occurred primarily in the second and last addition providing a glimpse of the mid-19th century timber framing and revealing a bit of the property’s history. After the middle section of the house had been subject to extensive water damage, the property sat vacant and on the market for sale for nearly four years before we purchased it in the height of an economic recession.
It was sold to us as a rare “tear down” in this village historic district, with an active demolition permit due to the complicated structural needs. The structural needs related mostly the deterioration of the 20th century materials, the numerous layers that had been added over the decades, and was compounded by structural settlement due to the topography of the site which sloped dramatically down to the River. Previous potential buyers had attempted unsuccessfully to receive zoning and Hist. Preservation Architectural Review Board approvals for renovations and ultimately the sellers appealed to the Village for permission to simply take the damaged house down. Fast forward nearly ten years, after some selective removals and investigative probes, we feel fairly confident we understand the building’s evolution and the degree of architectural integrity. We also feel strongly that the 20th century alterations did no favors to the house and in fact have slowly contributed to its deterioration in select areas. This comes as no surprise to us, as we typically scope extensive removal of layers upon layers of late 20th century “remuddling” in our restoration projects. As restoration planners and architects, we have been conceptually designing both repairs and the reinstatement of the original massing and architectural features for the last decade…in our minds, until recently when we actually started putting it down on paper (or screen).
For years, given the condition of the building and the expense needed to make the repairs, we have been using 13 River Street as a campsite for our summer getaways. When we started our kids were toddlers; they are now tween/teens, and have strong opinions on the fact that it is time to doing something! Very bare necessities were added in the early years for temporary use and all the while as we spent time there, our vision for a rehabilitated building started to come into focus. The building footprint is not large – covering less than 1000 square feet. However, given the slope of the site, the basement level has the ability to be fully finished and exposed on the rear elevation. The site is actually quite generous with nearly 6,700 square feet of area, but the house covers just 15% of that area with zero property line setback at the south side due to being attached to its “parent house” 15 River Street. The only side yard, on the north, is just eight feet in width. Indeed it is a challenging property to work on and with the attached character and tight setbacks has a very urban feel – something we are quite accustomed to.