Winchester Historic House Still Debated

Front Page Sentinel News

WINCHESTER — Developers hoping to bring a branch of a national chain of discount stores to Main Street aren’t giving up without a fight.
Winchester’s historic district commission last month denied an application by Zaremba Group of Cleveland to demolish the 200-year-old house at 71 Main St. and replace it with a new Dollar General store.
The house is located in the historic district and, under the town’s 1997 historic district ordinance, permission from the commission is required before it can be torn down.
But now the developer has appealed to the town’s zoning board to overturn the commission’s ruling. The zoning board will review the petition at its meeting next week.
Acting on the assessment of a historic preservation consultant hired by the board at the applicant’s expense, the commission denied the application. While the house on its own does not have enough historic value to make it a candidate for historic preservation, the commission decided, it adds value to the Main Street historic district as a whole.
Combined with three neighboring buildings of the same period, the house is part of a continuous, historic streetscape and demolition would hurt the “historic, cultural and architectural values of the district,” Michael Haman, chairman of the historic district commission, wrote in the panel’s decision.
Zaremba Group’s attorney, Silas Little 3rd of Peterborough, calls on the zoning board to dismiss this idea in the company’s letter of appeal.
“A comparison to pictures of the Town taken in the late 19th century and published in the 2011 town report shows the complete degradation and diminution of the properties in the vicinity of this property so as to remove any historic character. ... The architectural ‘style’ is an agglomeration of disrepair, 20th century facelift and 20th century new construction,” Little wrote.
The petition also invokes the legal rights of property owners.
“To require the property not to be developed to contribute to the general ambiance of the district introduces a public purpose which constitutes a taking. ... The Historic District Commission’s imposition of a restriction on this property to benefit a general public purpose is unconstitutional,” Little wrote.
The house was built around 1810 and was the home and office space of doctors who served Winchester residents from 1812 to 1848, according to Lynne Emerson Monroe of Kensington, the historical preservationist hired to consult with the commission.
The building itself is not a candidate for official designation on the National Register of Historic Places, but it makes a “substantial contribution” to the Winchester Historic District, Monroe wrote in her report on the building.
If the district as a whole were added to the national register, the owner of the house would be able to take advantage of tax credits to refurbish it as a business, Monroe said in an interview last month. She also said she believes the district is a strong candidate for the designation.
Margaret A. Sharra and James S. Shannon, both of Winchester, and their brother, Michael P. Shannon of Connecticut, own the house and its 4-acre lot. Sharra is a member of the town planning board and serves as an administrative assistant to the planning and zoning boards.
The owners have said that they have been trying to sell the building for some time, but some members of the historic commission questioned why they had not seen it listed for sale. The commission also noted, in its written decision, that the owners had left board members with the impression that they hadn’t looked for other ways to use the building, which factored into the commission’s denial of a demolition permit.
u The zoning board will take up the application for appeal on Thursday, Sept. 1, at 7 p.m. in Winchester Town Hall. If the application is complete, the board will move directly into a public hearing on the matter