True Green Cities/Celebrating Fifteen Years: Moving “Down South”
Celebrating Fifteen Years! It’s been fifteen years since I launched Barbara A. Campagna/Architecture + Planning, PLLC on April 19th, 2011 and while many things have changed, my goal to work on “greening what’s already here” continues to be met, often in places I never expected.
From Downtown Buffalo to Southern New York State
For about a year my sister and I had been looking for new homes. First separately but then it seemed we might get something better that might meet all of our criteria if we looked together. So randomly, after looking up and down the Northeast, all over New York State, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, the only place that met all of our criteria was a historic house in Jamestown, NY in a historic district that we happened to see advertised on a Facebook Old House page! Big enough house to have two wings and two staircases to separate our households, a large site and yard and listed on the National Register so any restoration work could get state historic tax credits. If you haven’t spent much time in Jamestown, a city in the southern tier of Western New York on the border of Pennsylvania, it’s on a beautiful lake, has world-class museums, terrific restaurants and quite a cultural community.
Italianate to Arts and Crafts
The house was originally built in 1868 as an Italianate mansion and was converted to Arts and Crafts in 1915. A beautiful, quite amazing yard in a corner lot in the Lakeview Avenue Historic District with 32 trees, a “valley” where we will have a vegetable garden, space for my sister’s 3 dogs and a catio for my cats. And the cats and I will finally have outdoor access after 13 years in our downtown loft with no operable windows.
I’ve been working on projects in Jamestown since 2018. I also moved my office to a historic district in downtown Jamestown; the building has the best coffee/breakfast shop in town and is walking distance to my two current projects (a block to each!) and half a mile from the house. My “green” office is deserving of its own blog.
The building is structurally sound, has a great foundation and pebble stucco walls, and a roof in good shape. Some expected mechanical, electrical and plumbing issues but mostly cosmetic on the interior. We submitted for the historic home ownership rehabilitation credit (historic tax credits) for the first phase of work and was approved for 2025.
Sad to leave my previous office in Buffalo inTri-Main and my colleagues, but so excited to have outdoors access and even more space than I had downtown.
I will be posting about new projects and ideas from my 15th year this week.
Thank you to all my clients, consultants and colleagues who have supported Barbara A Campagna/Architecture + Planning, PLLC.