After watching the spectacle of ABC’s Extreme Makeover taking place in Raleigh, the head of Preservation North Carolina, Myrick Howard, questioned why anyone would tear down a beautiful historic bungalow to replace it with a slapped-together home made of cheap modern materials:
“I believe in charity, but if you really care about good housing, then renovate the existing house and it will cost so much less,” he said.
Howard added that the Riggins home was not only salvageable but made of better building materials than “Extreme Makeover” would use.
“We’re replacing real wood and plaster with chip board and sheet rock,” he said. “They’re getting showered with candy rather than a decent meal.”
Good point. It seems the family traded their fine home for 15 minutes of fame. Not only that, city officials dropped the ball by approving the demolition of an historic house in a historic district.
Would you live in a home that was built under a tight deadline of just one week? Do you think a team of volunteer laborers can do a better job in one week than the original, expert craftsmen did a hundred years ago using real building materials? This home stood proudly for the better part of a century. What are the odds that this slapped-together house will still be standing in 2106?
This is one of the things that ticks me off about Raleigh: total disregard for its own history. Tear down historic landmarks to make way for shiny new strip malls, or fake homes in this case. City officials who can’t wait to whore the city out for media opportunities no matter the long-term consequences. We live in a plastic city which has long ago lost its identity.
When the dust settles and the crowds of construction workers and gawkers have gone home, what will be left is yet another hole in the city’s historic heritage.
Dear Mark,
You’re absolutely correct that volunteers under a tight deadline can’t build a decent, well-made house.
Sincerely,
Habitat for Humanity
Why do I sense a bit of sarcasm here? 🙂
Sorry, Mark, but I’m going to have to say you’re full of crap on this blog entry.
I just saw the News 14 report on this and they described the old house like this:
“The other house was falling down. The bathroom was held together by duct tape. Vines were growing through cracks in the foundation and the wall.” — Lynn Noudewo, Riggins Family Friend.
Now, based on that description, it doesn’t sound to me like the house could be easily salvaged. Extreme Home Makeover, to their credit, has moved houses and given them to people without houses when the house was in good enough shape. So, if the house is in good enough shape, my guess is they would have found a good home for it.
And, as far as older materials vs. new materials, that’s a matter of perspective. What kind of insulation did the older house have? What kind of things did it have to use less energy and make things that much better for the environment, not to mention saving the people a bit of money on heating and cooling costs. Also, most old houses like that only have one bathroom. I grew up in a house with only one bathroom with 5 kids, 2 parents and one grandparent living in the same house and I can tell you it sucks bigtime. Adding another one is no easy undertaking either! Besides figuring out where to add it in a plan that didn’t anticipate it, you have to run all new pipes and figure out how to hook them in.
So, don’t give Extreme Home Makeover the short shift. Yes, it’s a new house but new doesn’t automatically equate to bad or worse than what came before.
If the house had problems, why not renovate it instead? As Myrick Howard said: if it had no insulation, add some! It only takes a day to install. Bugs are easily handled, too. That’s no reason to blow up a house.
Yeah, I like living in an energy-efficient home. I’m not fooling myself, however, into thinking my house is any better built than one from 100 years ago. It’s true that in a lot instances the materials aren’t as good. Their old house had charm that just isn’t present in a week-built home made of lesser materials.
Everyone has different ideas about what they want in a house. If the Riggins are happy, I suppose it’s all good. For me, I can’t get past the new house’s “synthetic stone exterior.”
Synthetic. That sums it up.
P.S. Thanks for weighing in, even if you’re wrong! :-p Mt.Net always welcomes opinions.
As someone intimately involved in the project, here’s a couple of facts I wish the preservation community had considered before they started spitting on the project publicly:
> The house was built after WWII and had not historic significance.
> It was built in no distinctive architectural style
> No historic events occurred there
> It’s condition structurally was beyond repair
> No “preservationists” had come forward with money to save it, or help the Riggins family keep it up.
> As per the guidelines of the historic district, a section of the house’s foundation was retained
> Designers from the show and HomeLife Communities drove through the historic Mordecai District and drew the design of the exterior based on two houses they saw in the district.
I’m a big fan of historic preservation of key landmarks and structures, but those who shout “you should have saved it” concerning ever dump create a wolf-crying scenario when a true historic building needs to be saved.
There, I’ve vented. Now it’s time to catch up on all the sleep I lost these last 8 days…. 🙂
I’ll go ahead and say that I reacted too strongly about this house. From all accounts, the Riggins family certainly deserved this gift from ABC and the community. As I said before, as long as they’re happy, it’s all good.
Incidentally, we’re both wrong on when the house was built. I read it was built in the early 30s.
Thanks for stopping by and offering your comments. I hope you get some well-deserved sleep!
Mark
BTW, Azureus spontaneously randomly downloaded this episode for me yesterday so I took another look at it. Some points that came through to me were the following:
1. At the request of the family, everything in the house (refrigerator, mattresses, food, etc..) that was decent ended up going to other needy people. So, they didn’t just trash everything. They saved as much as they could inside the house and used it to help other people.
2. Not only did they build a new house for the Riggins, they also spent the week renovating the Hope Elementary Charter School. From what it showed, it looks like they completely renovated the entire building. They didn’t have to do this, but did it because of the work that Mrs. Riggins did there. And because of it, all the students now have a great place to go to school that’s not falling apart.
Those were the two points against your arguments that struck me the most. Other nice touches, though, that I noticed were
1. Papa Johns gave all the students in the school cards for free pizzas for an entire year. Now, pizza isn’t the best food all the time, but I bet a lot of the students’ parents struggle to get enough money to feed their families and every little bit there helps.
2. The construction company both a) paid the Riggins’ mortgage and b) paid all their hospital bills. So, not only did they give them a new home, but they basically gave them an entire new start, free of bills.
BTW, what have you done to your blog lately? I just noticed all the user names on the comments aren’t showing up anymore and didn’t drupal used to send responses to comments by e-mail? If it doesn’t do that last part it makes it kind of hard to keep up with the conversations.
Yeah, I admitted I was misinformed about this subject. Mea culpa. Points taken.
The blog thing is an artifact of upgrading to Drupal 5.0, something with the theme. I’ll try to straighten it out.
Ah, I was wondering if you’d upgraded to Drupal 5.0. Good luck figuring it out!