Speakers labeled via automated voice-based diarization + AI name-matching against the city's official roster. Automated transcription can still mis-hear a name during fast speech (e.g. a rapid roll-call vote) -- clear near-misses are auto-corrected, but this is not manually verified line-by-line. Treat names as a strong best guess, not an official record.
[0:48] Matthew R. Weitkamp: Good talk, do
Unfinished Business
[0:52] Peter Keebler: we have anyone waiting on Zoom, or? Well, then I'm just going to dispense with the reading of why we're all here, because we all know why we're here. Good evening, this is the June 25th meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. So I'll move that we handle old business first, starting with the June 11th, 2026 meeting minutes. We have any edits or concerns before we take a motion to approve? For those of us that were there, Rebecca's looking awfully hard
[1:25] Matthew R. Weitkamp: at it. Okay, I'll entertain a motion to approve. I'd like to make a motion to approve the meeting
[1:37] Katie Coe: minutes from the meeting of June 11th. Second.
[1:42] Peter Keebler: Okay, I don't believe you can vote because you weren't there, so Rebecca, second, or do you vote yes or no? Yes, and I also vote yes. Do need a fourth person to vote for this one, man, it's the meeting minutes. Okay, and then the next item on the old business agenda is adopt the findings and decisions for 43-49 Main Street.
[2:12] Nathaniel King: Any motions to adopt said findings? I'd like to make a motion to adopt said findings,
[2:21] Katie Coe: findings, finding and decisions for 43 to 49 Main Street. I second. Yes, do we need a fourth
[2:33] Rebecca Krupke: for this one, adoption of findings? Well, yeah, I mean, you need to take the vote to make sure that
[2:39] Peter Keebler: we did. I just, do we need to have a fourth vote because Peter wasn't there for the thing?
[2:44] Rebecca Krupke: Technically now there was Matthew, but if you start with the, my understanding is you, when you start with a quorum, even if somebody is has to abstain for whatever reason, you can sell, you know, carry a vote. Yeah, I vote yes. The motion will
New Business
[2:58] Peter Keebler: carry. Okay, that concludes the old business, so now we'll move on the new business. I believe we're going to discuss character defining features in
[3:07] Matthew R. Weitkamp: historic districts. Oh, Matt, can you help me out here? What would we do without more, right? You want to just take the keyboards? Yeah, that's great,
[3:22] Peter James Sachs: so I can mess with it and end up going backwards instead of forwards. Yeah, what are we doing? Hey Matt, here we go. Okay, so I was asked to put together something for the commission to consider, the topic of character defining features. We hear this term a lot. The commission, like other commissions, are asked to make determinations of what are the distinguishing qualities of the buildings that are being altered, so this might help you in that regard. First of all, this cover photograph is a wolf house that I loved up on Somerset Street, corner of Grove and Somerset, and has some beautiful character defining features that you can see that are very apparent. If you ride by that house now, it doesn't look at all like that. No, there was significant changes is made. And one of the more unique things here is the detailing at the windows where they have these kind of dropped and very detailed kind of Victorian style borders. I believe that's all been taken off. So point is, the commission is here to consider whether or not the features of each place are being affected and destroyed, especially term destroyed is used. So let's get into it. So in your ordinance directing the commission in standards is this clause 148.9 B2B that the rehabilitation work shall not destroy the distinguishing qualities nor character of the structure and its environment. So in order to make that determination, you as a commission need to ask yourselves when you're reviewing these applications, is there something in this application that the alterations may be affecting those distinguishing qualities? So the way that we're going to do it tonight and it mostly is addressing residential projects, so I would suggest that after this is done and you all still have an interest in character defining features, we do them for commercial buildings as well. So yeah, this one's more focused on residential. So this is a lovely, a very important historic house, row house up on Broadway across from John Babs roughly, and you can see I'm just going to point out the beautiful details at the entrance are very unique for any building in Bangor, done out of stone, the stones around just very special and unique, and the doors are very unique. A lot of these historic houses have original doors and you can do a study just in the doors of Bangor, so that could be a distinguishing quality. So character defining features as defined by the secretary of the interiors out of the standards for rehabilitation say this character defining features, I'm not doing that Matt. Oh, thank you. I was gonna say this is magic. I just, so as defined by the secretary of the interior, it is quote unquote a prominent or distinctive aspect, quality, or characteristic of a historic property that contributes significantly to its physical character, structures, objects, vegetation, spatial relationships, views, furnishings, not so much, decorative details and materials may be such features. What that's basically saying is that when you look in the background, the Backdrop on this is actually the Pierce Giddings house up on the corner of Broadway and State Street. It's an Italianate house and it's designed by Benjamin Dean, a very important house in Bangor's history. It has details like that, the projected gables that you see, the projected gables and the brackets really make it distinguish it as an Italianate house of around the 1850s. But if someone was to come into the commission and say, you know, those little arch things, the little gables that they put over the windows are really troublesome to me and i can't keep them from falling apart so i'm going to tear those off this house the commission might think that 's an important distinguishing characteristic of this place so we're going to look at all the various styles in bangor i bored you already with the historic house styles so you should be pretty well versed in that interesting yeah go peter
[8:22] Speaker G (unidentified): Interesting that they mentioned vegetation amongst this. We think of vegetation as being, you know, temporary or transient or whatever, so I just thought it was interesting to mention that. I mean,
[8:36] Peter Keebler: it makes sense if you think about a place like Charleston or Savannah, the oaks, the live oaks with Spanish moss, you know, those kind of as a contributing part to the landscape of where historic property or district might be. Yeah, you know that vegetation is integral to the experience or the feeling of that place. If you were to come in and say we're going to remove all these live oaks and all this Spanish moss because, oh, it makes me itch, do you, now you're negatively impacting that property. You may be not affecting the house, but you're affecting that whole kind of landscape. So I could see where vegetation plays into that. Yeah, in the case of
[9:10] Peter James Sachs: this house probably doesn't, probably doesn't. But if in history, if you find photography oftentimes when research, you can see that there were special landscapes were put in place. For instance, now that we have protection on some of the urban parks in Bangor, those parks may exhibit early plantings that speak about street planting in a certain rhythm, those sort of things. So vegetation could be in some cases. Peter. Yep, and some architects also designed the structure to exist in a certain landscape with a certain plan around that, and I think that can be integral, and that's probably what, yeah, one of the things this statement's reaching for. Yep. Okay, so if I was to hit the up button, that would, oh, let's try that one. Thank you, Ann. Yeah, so you have at your disposal information that's beneficial to your understanding of what the architectural styles of a place or a applicant application might be through your karma forms. So I would again remind you, if you're not familiar with how that works, on any computer you type in mhpc, it'll take you to the main historic preservation commission's website. They have quick links as a button at the top you click on that and it'll say karma. As soon as you pick karma, you're actually going to leave that site, you're going to go to a karma viewing site, and it's going to bring up this information on hundreds of properties in Bangor now. So some of the things that can tell you, the karma forms provide insights as I say into architectural styles and features in this particular property, which was a lovely, the John Ham house. John Ham was a mason in Bangor, a brick mason. He did some beautiful buildings. It will tell you the general style of the house, which is marked as Greek Revival. It's a three-bay front. Now, bays are listed in terms of the columns. If you look across the front of that, you see three ranks of windows. That's considered a three-rank facade, front facade. Five-rank is very common. That's important if there's going to be a modification of that number in an application. Sometimes that's an important feature. I just marked off some other things. There's actually a sleeping porch or evidence of what was maybe once a sleeping porch on this building. It is gable front to the road and the gable is detailed Greek revival with pilasters on the outside supporting what looks like a heavy freeze band up along the gable. So these are all features of this house that make it distinct and of course the period of the house, 1845 to 47 thereabouts. So the karma database is important as a resource for y'all and available. So let's look at this is most recent some of these architectural survey information that we've provided that artifacts is provided to the city included places like the tree street area. Tree streets are east side of this east side of the city, sort of development, really quite interesting. A pattern occurred here that filled in neighborhoods rather rapidly once the Street grid was laid in place, but I just want to point out, starting with the upper left, you have examples of Italianate houses on Grove Street. Looking on the far right corner, Dutch Colonial. You have Greek Revival within this district. Lower right, you have Queen Anne, examples of Queen Anne. You have Neoclassical in the school building at St. John's, and you have finish off with two Second Empire buildings. Just in that little couple of blocks, you have a lot of variation, and each one of those styles speaks about a very specific distinguishing feature that makes it that style of building. In the State Street area, which is also quite interesting, in just a group of houses, maybe 12 or so that were surveyed there, you have some important properties. You have a shingle style, you have a Tudor style in the upper right. Mansour designed that building. You have Colonial Revival. If you look at that one on the right in the middle, you'll see a very distinctive pediment that has kind of, it's called a split pediment on in that middle gable. That's a really distinguishing feature of that style of, and so soon you're going to have so much experience with this, you're going to be able to look at a property and say, I can tell that style because of this or that. So that's what those are, the sort of things that are distinguishing to these properties. In the lower right is really a shingle-style house. If you look very closely at that, you're going to see a pattern of muntins just in the top sash and not in the bottom. That's a real distinguishing feature for both Craftsmen and shingle-style houses. It's called a cottage window, cottage style. The one in the bottom has had some modification, but it was originally considered a Gothic Revival house. It has some stick work, what's called stick work up in the gable, and the lower left you have a pure Colonial house, and then you have a shingle style carriage house. So finishing off, that's a big group also within just 12 or so properties, big changes. So let's go through each one of the styles and point out some of the things that are important. This actually is a house that the commission had Reviewed an application a couple months ago, I think within the last few months, I think it was. It's on High Street, might be 20 High Street. The placard on the building says 1820, circa 1820. We think it's a little bit later than that, 1825, but that doesn't matter, we're not going to squibble about that. But typically the windows are five ranked, and by that they mean again the bays, if you want to count them as bays, there's across that front you have what's considered five ranked window columns. The windows are usually double hung, almost always. In this case it's six over six, but they can be more than that. Earlier houses had smaller paints of glass, so the Colonial and Federal style, Federal style begins, to this house on the right is actually more Federal. I'm sorry to interrupt you, can you explain six over six to me? Oh, six muntins, the pains, sorry, I should, yeah, I should have explained that. In the drawing to the left, this is, well that's 12 over 12, yeah, right, yeah, well they can be nine over nine, but they're usually symmetrical, so if it's Colonial it's, it six over six is pretty common in Bangor. Also I wanted to point out, if you look closely you can barely see those muntins because they're so very fine in Bangor, especially where they had access to really quality wood, they kept, they molded those things to what was considered about a three-eighths inch muntin, which is very tight. They almost wanted them to be somewhat invisible, but yet do their job. So these are probably original from the 1820 period. In a Federal style house you might see a transom light above the door. In this case, if you look closely on the photo at the right, you'll see what looks like a wooden fan above the door. That wooden fan distinguishes this as a Federal style versus Colonial style, so a little bit of a distinction there. Panel doors, I didn't highlight that, but a panel door is typical. So if somebody was coming to you as an applicant and saying I'm going to take out that historic panel door, I'm going to put a flush door, it's smooth and it's easy to take care of, you might say that could be a distinguishing quality of that style. Not even going to get into chimneys because this one shows the center chimney, and in our case we have chimneys on the outside walls, that's more common locally. The center chimney would be even an earlier house. You know, some, this is another John Ham house, this guy was busy, he did some really beautiful homes in Bangor. This is on the corner of Somerset and Broadway and Banger, or You can see very good evidence of a federal arch above the door here. Sometimes those are glazed in certain houses. I can't think of many in Bangor, but sometimes that arch is glazed and has a pattern, you know, an organic pattern of glass. Are the lights next to the door the part of that? I mean, is that light? Lights are definitely a pattern of the federal period. Yep, side lights very common in this house. Again, we're six over six mountain patterns and the bay that you see on the Somerset Street side was actually added quite a bit later than the original block house, so it does look a little bit different and it's detailed a little bit different, and that's not to confuse commissions in later years. That was basically done, they were growing, that part of the house needed some growth. He built a bay on there and he did it in the style basically of that period, which was later than the federal style. Not unusual, you sometimes have houses that merge various styles or have an addition that's in a different style from the house. We saw it on the Stephen King house, so-called, where there's actually a colonial revival porch on the front and then there's a turret, queen and turret from that period on the house, which was originally Italianate. So you see sometimes mixes going on. Again, side lights, the narrow mountains here again are in evidence. This style is very big in Bangor, has some of the best examples in the nation of Greek Revival style homes, and we're very lucky that way. And in Bangor the one of the more distinguishing features is that if you look at the gable end, that's the end where the pediment is, that occurs on each end of the house, you see that they basically develop that as a closed pediment, not like the illustration which is a split one. They more common here locally is a closed pediment, so it looks more like the Greek temple. And then the outside corners, and it's hard to see in this, but if you go by any of these homes you'll see evidence where the corner pilasters are built out, they're built out to so that they look like columns, they look like columns that support that what's called an entablature or that heavy trim up above. This is all part of Greek architecture, so they were borrowing pretty heavily and directly from Greek architecture, especially in the porticos on the front of the buildings where the columns were actually verbatim or very close to, you know, original to the classic Greeks forms. So you may well see on this style of a house a gabled or a hip Roof with a low pitch, a lower pitch than maybe the colonial homes, were transom lights and side lights, not uncommon, pretty common. And in our case, in Bangor, we see a lot of painted brick buildings, and they were painted to look more like a stone. I think that house probably was not painted originally white. It was probably more of a gray or a warmer gray to look like stone, and they might have highlighted the trim on that house. So at one meeting we had, it might have been the one on High Street, we talked about this thing called the entablature. So if they're pointing to the cornice lines, it says emphasize with wide divided band of trim. Well, there's really three parts of that. I think the commission needs to understand that those three parts make up what's called an entablature. The entablature can also move up the rake of the house. The rake is that sloping part that goes up along. So if you see they carry that same profile up the rake and back down on the other side, that entablature is made up of a cornice in the top. If you remember that application we had, that's where the gutter is going to be out there. That's the top part of it. Underneath that is a band called the freeze band, and then under that is another architrave strip of wood. So if you look at these houses up closely, one of the most distinguishing features is that two band strip that runs under the soffit. You'll see that consistently on a Greek revival, on the Greek
[22:09] Nathaniel King: Bible house. I have a question. Yeah, so this is actually something I was just thinking about the other day. So the front porch area, I don't know what that's called, the portico, is it original to have the sides completely blocked in? Yeah, that's all original. Okay, I think
[22:27] Peter James Sachs: so they wouldn't have added it for like no. And if you get a chance to go by this house, look closely, because you're going to see a lot of ornate work was done in wood and applied above and below that window. Okay, on the side that you're talking about, yeah, well, there's a balustrade on the top of that's original, I think. Yeah, with cast iron, Peter. Oftentimes that those were cast iron profiles on any of the few houses that still have their cast iron. That's a really critical part that we would not want to lose to lose that would be losing distinguishing quality this is called a temple front house temple front greek revival and a temple hunt temple front is really strictly trying to match to the temples of ancient greece this is a little bit of a crossover in that you see a arched window in the pediment up top that's a little bit of a mention back to federal so it's basically a mixture of styles here but this house and i think the most amazing thing about this the zebulon smith house is that it's a brick house. It's a brick house that's been faced on the front facade, on the main facade of the house, all with wooden detailing. And the wooden detailing is Bangor's way of saying, showing the world, this is what you can do with wood. And it's really amazing to think that behind that is a solid brick wall, and the brick wall carries on three sides of the house, and the bay window you see on the left is actually wooden. But it's just a wonderful story to think that Bangor was really promoting, we had some fantastic craftsmen here promoting these details in wood. So you see the kid aparts again, these illustrations I borrowed pretty heavily from American, A Field Guide to American Houses, which you've probably all seen. That is a great, a great resource, source to go back and say, for instance, where you see in the lower right here, wood panels beneath open for access to porches, the detailing of that is actually rather similar to what you're seeing here on the Zebulon Smith house, deep panels that really show a lot of relief. They were doing things in wood that today, with the quality of wood, we would not be able to do, but with the highest quality of fresh cut wood, that maybe some of it was prime cut, very dense. And it reacts differently to moisture. So basically on that wooden front facade, they did what was called flush boards. Those are basically a tongue and groove board that locks into the one above and below it. And it's held up for, since 1850. So this is just a remarkable story. So there's all sorts of different details. This one happens to have Ionic columns on it. The capitals are Ionic. That's one of the capital styles you can see. Doric is more common. Ionic is occasional, you'll see it. And also notice back behind that, they built out a pilaster, a square cut pilaster back on the wood portion. That's a good way of ending and framing that beautiful front facade the way they've done. Again, the entablature is very heavy. In this case, it looks like a couple of bands up there to look like it's really being supported. The columns are really doing their job supporting that. Fantastic style. This house is so unique. I just couldn't leave it out. It's a Greek revival house of real importance. It shows up in some of the national magazines because it's so incredible this is a double house you have two front doors there and the floor plans for both are the same but just mirrored opposite so the bay window you see on the right exists on the on the left side this was a charles bryant design very talented architect in bangor's history and here you see examples of flush wood siding done very well sometimes that's rusticated in this case it was intended to just be flat and look rather stone like again this house may not have been painted bright white but it is now and it looks beautiful his signature by the way is those Doric columns with the wreath above them done ornately you'll see that on the portico that was on the Bangor house which is probably by him anytime you see that on broadway columns with the wreath above is probably charles bryan's work so the other thing to notice here is that the low pitch roof this is a style of house that actually exists the pitch is so slow that this photograph i think i took this obviously in the winter but it was so low that i couldn't even pick up a view of that you can see just you can see the chimneys but so that low pitch is kind of an interesting detail for this house but this house again has round fluted door columns and it has these square cut ones that really are very pronounced an incredible feature of this house is that those windows on the second floor go almost to the floor that would be a really interesting detail to see from inside and again peter those are cast iron the rails that you see so the house has a lot of distinguishing qualities to it if somebody was to come into you and say you know i'm putting glass railings i'm replacing those doggone cast iron ones that are so hard to keep a very distinguishing feature to
[28:17] Speaker G (unidentified): me is i don't know what you call them but the they look like grates essentially above i mean
[28:22] Peter James Sachs: they're very organic yeah those yeah that actually covers a window into the attic oh those
[28:28] Speaker G (unidentified): Those are windows, yeah, behind it, so that is wooden, that's wooden, yeah. Wow, well, it's been protected
[28:38] Peter James Sachs: by, you know, the soffit a bit, so rain doesn't get to it so much, otherwise it probably would have fallen apart, yeah. As far as I know, those are, those are windows, and then the line of dentals. See what the architect did here, he's kind of tricking your eye. He says, okay, I can do Greek Revival, but going to do it a little differently. So his two bands, which are almost equal in size, are separated by that row of dentals that you see. All right, that's just clever, that's done right, clever. So the dentals, oh the dentals are those teeth like, thank you, that's all like then like then beef, they're like kind of like Spongebob, you know. So the other thing you notice, this is a very symmetrical house, so if there was ever a suggestion of, say, changing the symmetry that would be visible, say from the front, that might be something that commission might say, you know, that's a distinguishing characteristic. There's
[29:33] Speaker G (unidentified): so many distinguishing features, I know that's hard to believe you could change anything, it's true.
[29:40] Peter James Sachs: That's true. Okay, speaking of changes, this is the Thomas Hill House, just renovated recently. The portico has been rebuilt entirely back to the way it was originally. Good example of Greek Revival, Richard Upjohn, the famous architect, nationally famous architect, designed this. It never had those odd dormers on it. Those are considered Flemish dormers, they're called. And they were added some years later. The house dates to 1835, and he did the house across the street, the Isaac Farrow Mansion. It's about the same time, and both in Greek Revival style. And he went on to become probably one of the most renowned Gothic Revival church designers in the nation. But the thing to point out is that those Flemish dormers, when they put those in, they added that sloped roof. The roof there prior to that was flat. The portico was actually just a flat roof section that went back to the house. And I know it's, so it just shows you change can occur, and sometimes change needs to be respected. Change is an important part of the evolution of a house or a property. So the thing that I think is so cool here though, is that they put slate on the lower sloped roof, then it goes vertically up a short face as a facing on the wall, exterior wall, then picks up again on the top roof. So it's just a marvelous detail and a clever way to conclude it. Again, those are Ionic. You see that photo on the right that shows you what a hand carved ionic column could look like. 1835 cast iron snow guards I just mentioned because I do, I know the historical society would never get rid of them, but you have to look very closely or next time you go by this building look at the upper roof edge. About every couple of feet there's actually a cast iron snow guards there, which is rather unique and probably, yeah, not so common. They may have been in other houses, Rebecca, but maybe we're taken down for whatever reason, but I don't know of another house in town that has no snowbirds like that. Huh, I don't know of another house. No, not another one. So some of these things are very unique. Again, this is a special Greek Revival house. Peter, you might be interested in this style, Gothic Revival. What can you say? Steeply pitched roofs, really sharp corners, sharp details, you know, finials to highlight, you know, intersections at the roof. Gables are often decorated with verge boards or barge boards or gingerbread, whatever you want to call it, but it's a really important distinguishing quality of these houses. That's, that's it. Window hoods, you might see hoods above the windows like you see here, and in this case it says windows extending into the gables in the Gothic shape, so pointed windows, pointed detailing, pointed roof, sharp roofs, is it's all a distinguishing quality. Peter, you want to tell the story about this place? This
[32:54] Speaker G (unidentified): this structure is now a house, but it was the stable that was part of the property that I own. This is my, our next door neighbor's house. It used to be down behind the house, sort of hanging off. See how the slope goes down below it. There's actually a lower, you can enter from the back and this was hanging off the edge of the back such that they could enter from below. And,, it was the stable. They had the you know, they would lift the carriages up into the second floor. You know, for the winters and the and the sleighs down. That's the way they did that. It's a sort of a sort of t-shaped house in a sense. You can see the portion going off to the left and that's where the stable were where the horses were actually kept. And they're actually small windows that are tall high up that create light there and the story is this is the this of course is the Godfrey Kellogg house, as it's known, and Kellogg's, when they owned it, he was a physician, and he worked in the Peace Corps at times, and he was off one summer on the Good Show of Hope working, and his wife had this moved from behind the house up to, this is Kanduske Avenue, right? This curve you're seeing in front of you. So it was moved up to the road, and they made it into his office. Then he had a younger partner join him, Bill Woods, somewhat later, and eventually Bill worked at St. Joe's, and Bill and his wife Vicky bought this house from the Kellogg's about the structure and made it their house, and it's still their house, their next door neighbors. I don't actually no, I'm like in the 70s, maybe I would say the late, probably late 70s. Yeah, it was actually, it was moved in the 70s, so it must have been after that. Yeah, fascinating. Yeah, the, and the process of moving it was very interesting, how they do this, they built it up, they crib it up on little, it looked like Lincoln log, you know, things that they put up, and then they build a thing structure next to it, and they pull it over onto it. In this case it had to be pulled over up over up multiple times together to the level of, oh, somebody to do
[35:16] Peter James Sachs: that today and they'd say you're crazy, but this on this one you can see some of the features that are really distinguishing, kind of character defining features, the verge boards or barge boards if you call them, the drip moldings above the windows are very unique, the board and batten was a very common material for finish on these gothic revival houses, it's got a lot of distinguishing qualities to it. I just want to point out on the left in the illustrations something called false shaping and that's not uncommon. I'm going to show you an example of one where they use fault shaping to give a pointed detail to a square window, but it's this house right here. Yes, so rather clever, I mean, what was done here is quite unique, and this was again a house that Bob and Suzanne Kelly saved. It was situated where the addition to the Jewish churches on is that York Street. Yeah, so that had to be moved off that property, it was moved a couple blocks away, it was set down on a foundation that looks Very much like its original foundation. You would think that it was actually built here, but it wasn't. Yeah, and so here again we have sharp pointed roofs. We have a quadrifoil from gothic churches up in the gable, and this false shaping that gives, that's a very distinctive detail of this house. Lovely house, this style. The next time we're talking about is Italianate, and features of the Italianate houses on the right is, if you know Reese Perkins, that's Reese's house up near the standpoint. Yeah, always want to get that. I would love to go. Well, if you get in, let me know, we'll all go together. I'd love to see a view from the cupola. Right, okay, we'll go up after this meeting and we're not gonna. Rebecca, you rock, you knock on the door. Okay, no, it's, this is almost, you know, the block Italianate house verbatim. So you would see often in this style low-pitched roofs, oftentimes hip roofs like we see here. You might see a cupola on it like you see here in Bangor. Arch top windows and paired windows were common very much like this, and in this case we have an arch top shop dormer if you look closely. Oh yeah, that's a really distinguishing quality of these. They often had metal roofs on them, copper roofs, and they beautiful as an addition. So you see segmented art shop windows most of the house. Wonderful details. The brackets are really an important part of this style, the Italianate style. How cool, like the bottom windows are all arched and the top was straight. Yeah, I know, except for, except for the double arch chops, and look at the entrance. The entrance is, oh, that would be beautiful going in through that. Yeah, I know, incredible. So that was, it was celebrating, you know, elaborate window detailing and bracket work. In this case at Perkins house you can see double brackets, dual double brackets is very common in Bangor. So I don't know who lives here, but what a house. Anyway, when I do this, I do a talk for school kids and this house comes up and they're always like, ah, I know who lives there. They want to tell you like who really so you can see the original italianate house was the tower with the double arch top windows on it and a block behind it with hip roofs the turret on the left far left side was added quite a few years later and the colonial revival porches and the port cochere was added later so double windows paired windows are rather common in this style and if you look closely on the tower you can see that 's also rusticated flat work siding sometimes that scored sometimes they dado That detail out a little bit so it's more pronounced, the shadow is more pronounced. And in some cases, they even score it vertically to look like alternating blocks of stone. We're going to see that in just a minute. So you might see double doors into these houses, towers or cupolas. Yeah, I get that. Here's a magnificent house designed by Calvin Ryder. It's on Court Street in Bangor. I think this is where Prentice and Carlisle is, maybe it today. Yeah, so you look at this house and some of the things that are most incredible are the fact that they're doing using the second empire mansard roof. This is a Parisian idea or French idea. So they basically carry the roof detailing down of story onto the house or develop their attics with these beautiful roofs. In this one in Bangor it's a concave slate roof. Look if you ever get by this house, look closely because oftentimes these have scalloped shaped slates that enable them to do a curve. Otherwise a square slate, Matt, I think that would be hard to do with square cut. You can, okay, it's just not as flexible, those slates. You just step on it. Oh, I see. That's what That's what you do. So again, we may have paired brackets like you see in this house. There's a lot of detail on this house. I just wanted to point out, this is one of those houses, if you see it, that has what we call rusticated wood siding, and that's rusticated, again, and scored to look like block stone. So it very likely would have been painted in gray or daub color to look like a stone house. The trim might've been detailed in a slightly different color. But look at the celebration of arches and round shapes. You see this all over this house, it's just marvelous. Calvin Ryder was a very skilled architect who did several houses in Bangor and he did a very important one in Belfast as well, big white house at the intersection there that you see. So this dormer that you see, the big central dormers can call the bell dormer, and it's just a marvelous piece of work. Look above all the windows, you see incredibly heavy drip moldings above these details. If any of that was to be modified, it would diminish the important contributing characteristics of this house, I think. And you see hoods over the windows, those actually were for purpose. They would shed water, not onto the glass, because that would oftentimes be grainy and leave stains on glass and make them dirty. So sometimes these things were done cleverly to pitch water and keep it off the glass, which was smart. You see the window pattern here is two over two. So if someone was to come in and say, you know, I'm changing those out, I'm going to put the six over six because Lowe's has got a deal on them this week, whatever you might say, that's a character, a defining feature of this house of this style of house so this i just love these guys they are built within a year or two of each other they call them siblings because they're kind of like at each other but look at the detail in the slate work if you look up in the mansard roof on this on both houses you can see some really detailed geometric slate that's that's so special to this house we don't have a lot of it in bangor so wherever we do have it 's really wonderful to be able to see it again you look at the house beyond, you can see heavy rustication to look like bands of stone on the house, the way it was built. These two houses, just First Street, I think this is on First Street up above Davenport Park, and it must be an old picture because the Unitarian Church doesn't look all rusted and fallen apart. So we're not going to get into, yeah, that additional kind of like steeper pitched roof on top of the tower that's unique to that structure. I've never seen, it's unique, and it's a, I believe it's original, Matt, you too. And you look at the windows up above, the windows have those, yeah, beautiful, unique. I don't know who the designer was here. Again, you might check your karma forms on this one, guys. Might get more information than I've got for you. But really clever. The mansard roof was very popular. You see it in parts of Bangor all over, built in that period. You know, this was more in the 1865 to 1885 period. Very nice. My favorite house in Bangor is this one, Sophia Bragg House. And there you go, there's those scallop shingles showing up, which make a beautiful concave roof, and the metal edge, you guys will notice there's a metal drip edge or an apron along the eaves. That's important. So if there was to be a replacement roof, you might ask the question, well, are you intending to still keep the metal pans that exist along the eave of the house? Again, I love the symmetry of this one. Everything's stacked up nice and neatly, architect's dream, right, and double brackets, beautifully Well executed double doors, it's just got everything going for it. Is it truly is a very special house. So that symmetry tree, what is it? Yeah, they absolutely do. And again, two over two is also a detail that's stressing the verticality, you know, of the windows and the panels, all of it, all works. So and again, when I do this talk for school kids in Bangor, we always ask at the end, well, what's your favorite house style? And guess what? Queen Anne is everybody's favorite in the world. I mean, 90% of them raised their hands because it's so unpredictable. I mean, it was designed to look actually rather like castles in Europe. So it really goes wild. It says you can do, this is not symmetrical in any way. Take big chunky pieces and masses of buildings and glom them together and make it work. In this case we're seeing examples of that projected gable here that forms a really beautiful detail, and there's panel work and stick work it's called in the in the eaves, the turret that's added on the corner gives that must be really beautiful interior space, you know, when you come into a room like that, but also it's a very distinguishing part of the, you know, characteristics of this style. Again, there's a slate cap on it with a wash at the bottom, you know, a bit of a curve, so that's all of that contributes to the qualities of this place.
[46:46] Speaker G (unidentified): What a beautiful detail over the side windows on that second story bay. Oh my gosh, this is
[46:52] Peter James Sachs: it's incredible. Yes, I see. Yeah, where you mean where they're chamfered back, you mean, Peter? Yeah, you see that quite often in this period of house. They got a little bit of everything, and the panel work, when I say here paneled wall treatment, that panel work is basically up that center panel on the top of the turret where they do recess panels, so they did that to pick up the shadow. This is all about shadows and picking up strong geometric shapes and masses. The architect tries to balance things by putting the porch columns on a regular pattern, but everything else about this house is freestyle. So again, cantilevered wall extensions, bands of shingles, a trim here's, here's a unique house for you. This is really special. I think Patterson, Frank Patterson might have designed this house, I'm not sure, but I love it because it's got, it's mixing some Styles, it's got a little bit of, it's got a lot of shingle style and it's kind of really coming out of the Queen Anne period, so you see, You see waves, They cut the shingles to look like waves or sawtooths or flat, and then they put clapboards down. It's just a mix of everything. But the massing of this, to have a turret on this right side and then have that turret that is above the entrance doors, so powerful. That in itself, when you walk underneath that, it must feel like- Because it looks scary. Yeah, it would. would i'm thinking thanks you know i mean halloween night peter you know you 're wondering should i even go to the door it's kind of spooky so yeah you'd be going underneath something that's where the oil will come down on you yeah for the oil boiling oil at that point so okay you kids get out of here but yeah no this is and this extends back you can see a little bit of the L that extends back to the carriage house, just a marvelous mixture. Now here again, look at the top of that right turret, you see geometric glass. We've been through this on a recent application where you might find, you know, where they've used geometric glass, colored glass like that. And sometimes on the other turret, you see it's just in the perimeters around the outside edges not uncommon that's a fairly important detail too to not want to lose so the stick work too up in the gables you see these little fans made out of spindle work this was a time when they were learning how to turn wood and they really wanted to share it with the world and you know here we can get all these wonderful spindle shapes and you guys can use this on your buildings things and they did so Another lovely house up across from the hospital rather simple a gambrel roof you know like a barn roof but it's in shingle style and you again you see muttons just in the top sash not in the bottom sash distinguishing feature if somebody was to come into you and say I'm going to put two over two windows here you might say this is a distinguishing quality of this house we think it's important to preserve so shingled wall surfaces at one time this was shingled all over the walls now I think are Still shingled but the roof has probably been re-roofed but it probably originally had shingles because they wanted this to look like sculpture I mean what that what that did was it covered all surfaces and it made some really beautiful sculpture out of the house I don't know what to do with this one on the left but it's It's really glorious house, but it shows you what you can do when you take these strong features and mass them together. This is the house just to the left of Stephen King's up on West Broadway, beautiful house. But the architect really had some fun with this, and he brought pieces together, balconies and porches and details that was once a Palladian window up in the front gable, but he intersects it with another roof gable and says, oh, that's okay, I'm just going to cut it off. So you could do that sort of thing. It's rather freestyle, but it's very powerful once you put it together again. Strong shadows. You see the house on the right is on Hammond Street, Wilfred Mansour house. You see a little bit of stick style, but it's Queen Anne mostly. And here he used almost perfect circle to develop a roof above the pool. That's so cool, just an amazing detail. So it's like, yeah, we can do that, we're gonna do it. Craftsman style, we have a few in Bangor, a couple of examples. But what you might see on the Craftsman style houses is exposed framing coming out the side, especially roof framing coming out, the rafters ends project out beyond the wall, and it's kind of celebrating creating a return to handmade quality. Craftsman was all about abandoning industrial form and construction and building things with your hands. It's like by the hand of man. So Frank Lloyd Wright came out of this stuff, and it spread quickly across the nation. It's a very interesting style when you see it done right. And this one happens to be one, I think that was done right. It's on the way up to Vesey, and you see that the rafter tails are all exposed. It gives you an understanding of how the house is built. It speaks about its structure, and the windows are leaded glass. Inside I understand they have all handmade tiles around the fireplace. Fireplace is done in stone. So you have this combination of natural materials here with cedar shingles and stone. own and I always ask the third graders, well, you see those arch openings there, what do you think that was for? And they get all kinds of answers. Some say to shoot bow and arrow, you know, somebody coming up the path. No, it's not that, but it was a very clever idea, and actually it was a scupper to drain the deck. So you can imagine the deck slightly pitched, water hits that, which is mostly protected by roof, but it can get in there. So if somebody came to you and said, you know, I don't like those things because we could shoot bow and arrows out of it I'm gonna close them up like that doesn't have a little bit of fortress look to it does yeah I suppose it does you're right Peter so that was pretty much the show I was gonna say if you had any questions or I know we covered a lot, and there's a lot of distinguishing quality that you see on these houses, but if you can just remember it by the style, I think you're going to be well ahead. The Park Service Secretary of the Interior also has a method. I'll share it with you guys, and I'll send it to Ann, and she can distribute it around to you. And it talks about a three-point method if you really need to get into describing what the character-defining features of a play style are. They talk about a distant view of something, recording what you see from a distance, what you see up close, like within 30 feet of it, again, and then what you see at arm's length from the building. And sometimes the arm's length will bring on details like beaded mortar work, you know, around the stones that you might not see from across the street. So all of you have the capability now. You've been deemed loyal subjects that you can now go in and look at these places and maybe see what are distinguishing features on those houses. And again, we'll do this for commercial properties because that would be great detailing. I know a lot about homes. I don't know a lot about commercial. Well, most of your applications seem to come in from homes, yeah, or many of them do, so it means we'll get squared away about that. So if we have
[55:05] Nathaniel King: karma at our fingertips. So let's say that we have a Greek Revival that comes to the table in order for us to better understand, oh, is that a defining feature, we can go to karma and look at other Greek Revival, yeah, to help indicate okay, that does have that feature in multiple ones, so
[55:26] Speaker G (unidentified): So, that must be a defining feature, but also the book that you took some of these drawings from, if you could all get a copy of that, because it can look up the style and then it details those things too.
[55:38] Peter James Sachs: That's a great resource because you can dial it up and you're not going to see just bang or you'll see examples from across the nation. But banger has, like, I would say, Rebecca, I don't know many different types of.
[55:53] Nathaniel King: That's known for all the way across. That's interesting, like, you know how it's like all the way across, it's like makes it look like a actual temple, yeah, oh yeah, the pediment, I didn't
[56:07] Peter James Sachs: Know that was just like a Bangor thing. It's not just in Bangor, but that drawing that I was showing was a split pediment, right, basically kept him completely changed the look of it does. Yes. Yeah. Yep. I think most of them you'll see in Bangor are closed. It makes a perfect pediment triangle of shape. But things like that in tablature. Now, the cornice, that came up on one of the applications, remember on High Street, where they needed to understand that they were replicating a cornice element, you know, back to, I haven't seen if they've even put a gutter up or downspouts but next time I'm by there I'll take a I'll take a check but yeah they're all going to be there's going to be distinguishing qualities in most of these properties so it challenges you to find out in it before the meeting what is it that distinguishes this place and you can have your say about it that's what I'll I'll as long as I'm working with you I'll still try to point out what some of those features are so that you get a clue but I think now you may be more grounded in it and it might make more sense but I don't have any property problem and if you want to share this powerpoint yeah no that would be great members you can use
[57:32] Rebecca Krupke: it to get put it on the city's website under the HPC yeah do it section yeah I mean that would be
[57:41] Katie Coe: I had a question regarding a hodgepodge building. So a building that already has multiple elements from multiple different styles. And if they wanted to add on to it in one of the styles that they already had there, but not matched the original, like we're looking at Stephen King's house with the tower that you said was of a different style if they wanted to add on something else similar to that would that be something that would be
[58:17] Peter James Sachs: considered well there's there's an interesting argument that is made with additions and what style the editions would be in. Your 10-part review criteria, the standards that you use for review, do strongly say that you do not copy the historic style. They do strongly say that you make something that's distinguished, separate from that. So oftentimes, when editions are made for a larger part piece to go on a building, you'll sometimes see that they use like a transparent glass connector. Not uncommon, it's actually highly encouraged because then you can still look through the glass and you can still see the evidence of the original, and then the glass separates this new piece that's been added. So they're not, they would not say that you want to copy any of the styles of the original house. Is that why you so often see like a hyper modern
[59:26] Katie Coe: edition on right? Yeah, that's really interesting, like the library is a good example. Yeah, library's
[59:31] Peter James Sachs: a good example. You might carry the same materials, they might carry some of the details, but they want it to be distinguished, separate from the original. No fake old. Yeah, no, it's not, it's not
[59:48] Katie Coe: Very cool. So modern is one take on that. But what if they took that in a different turn and did like a craftsman edition to like a Queen Anne? You could probably pull off that. You could pull
[1:00:02] Peter James Sachs: off something as long as it didn't look like it was from the same period. Yeah. Because they want to be able, anyone to be able to view it and say, oh, that's the 1860s house. And there's the 2026 edition to be able to visually understand that. Very cool, thank you. Seems contradictory, but it's actually the language in your ordinance. There's, there's something quite clearly to that effect. So Matt, I don't know, can we get to Karma here from here? Can you do that? Can you take the commission to, oh yeah, you're probably going to need this, but yeah, no, the, I, we ought to go back and read that clause in your, in your review comments because being historic Preservation Commission has I had, I did an addition years ago to the library in Bucksport, children's edition on the back, and i had an entry colonnade, you know, with a cluster of columns. i thought was really lovely going into this entrance into the children's museum, and earl shuttleworth at the time said you're not going to do that, and i said well what if i made it more modern, he said no i don't think anyone i don't recommend you do that at all, just let the door entrance glass and people see it, and I understand and I think He was right. So well you could be right once in a while. So let's go in Matt if you could just go into that's so the dark red ones are National Register. I remember if you're on Broadway if you could pick up I was maybe a father up a little bit corner. I don't know what the gray ones. I don't think they make the cut. Oh yeah we don't want to do that Matt. How about this one on the corner right here? Yeah that one. So click on that so he gets a little pin on there. Then you go up to the wrench no left to the wrench. Oh did that come on? Try picking that wrench and see what it does. See no that's not it. Oh try historic properties I'm sorry. Okay pick the wrench. Yeah go up a little bit. There you go there you go. That one form report you see where it says on the bottom look what's
[1:03:04] Nathaniel King: there all the way in the bottom
[1:03:09] Peter James Sachs: Yeah when you pick form report port you usually get something like that. So that's how you get access to hundreds of bengal properties. That's again that house the ham house on the corner of Broadway
[1:03:26] Rebecca Krupke: in Somerset. Wow that's such a great resource for people.
[1:03:35] Peter James Sachs: We're trying to keep it secret from you that didn't work to test my art history. So again that's available and it has a wealth of information. Could tell you who the architect was when it was built. Some of the features of the house sometimes are described. Usually has photography so and even barns and carriage houses had to be done separately. So really so again interesting subject. We'll pull one together for commercial buildings because they have their own unique issues as you all know things like bulkhead and storefront and we'll explain the evolution of that. An interesting community to go through if you in are into commercial buildings is scohegan downton has some terribly unique buildings. And by that I mean I know of at least one that was done with a stamped metal the entire facade of the of the building is done in metal forms that connected together. It was a system that was sold all over the country and you would order up you build a flush wall and you would apply this metal onto it So I'll show you examples of that. I don't think there's any in Bangor but there's one on Hammond Street. Oh is there? It looks like brick but it's not. Yeah that's it 's where Mossimo's used to be that building. Yes I think you're right. Oh you're right that is it is fake. I didn't know it's like why is there this weird seam. Oh no you're right that's funny. Yeah, so the one thing you see on commercial buildings that you didn't see here is sometimes stonework or terracotta. You have an application coming in down here, which is a terracotta storefront, so the Pride Staples block where Rock and Art Shop is, not them but adjacent, somewhat adjacent, in that building, and that building is terracotta. Yeah, there's only two in Bangor that I know of, that one and to the left of Bangor Savings Bank on State Street is a terracotta. That one's held up pretty good, yeah. Trouble terracotta is it gets crazed. The outside glazing will get crazed and then water can get inside and it blows that finish off, cracks it off with ice. Well, there, you didn't all fall asleep.
[1:06:27] Nathaniel King: This is my, yeah, this is like dessert. You kidding me? This is why I'm on.
[1:06:39] Peter Keebler: So now we've got the other business, which is to schedule the next special meeting date.
[1:06:48] Matthew R. Weitkamp: You do this every quarter?
[1:06:54] Katie Coe: Oh, I realized the other day that I'm gonna be missing the meeting on the ninth. There's a possibility that I could participate virtually maybe if absolutely necessary. But are we gonna have enough people here to have a quorum? Without me I should be here. Awesome, then I will not be here and I'll let on you know so.
[1:07:25] Nathaniel King: What dates are we looking at or what month so three months out so.
[1:07:32] Matthew R. Weitkamp: September so the.
[1:07:37] Peter Keebler: 17th or the 24th let's do the 17th the meeting's going to be on the 10th.
[1:07:45] Nathaniel King: Let's do the 24th.
[1:07:50] Matthew R. Weitkamp: I'll take the 24th I could do yeah I vote 24th that'll work 24th of which month September.
[1:07:59] Rebecca Krupke: September okay good all right we'll put that down do.
[1:08:07] Peter James Sachs: You all know what you're going to be special about that get worked out between now and then yeah yes okay.
[1:08:18] Peter Keebler: Cool well with that I think that concludes our special meeting.