Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 193, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1920 — Home Town Helps [ARTICLE]

Home Town Helps

“MAKING OVER" OLD HOUSES Architect* Have Shown That They Can Do Wonder* With Present Unsightly Structure*. There never was a time when the services, taste and special knowledge of the trained architect were more needed or more in demand. The carpenter and builder have for years been the consulting experts in the building of thousands of suburban homes and farmhouses, and let us give > them credit, at least, before the jigsaw era, for many beautiful and charming old houses. Following the building shortage in these latter years has come an appreciation of the fact that any old house, or new, be it a* hopelessly ugly as it may be, has possibilities. Architecture has shown many instances of “before and after” of old ramshackle, barnlike structures, altered Into most delightful homes. Old barns have_ been made over into charming studios and living quarters, woodsheds incorporated Into the redesigning of an old farmhouse. Everywhere is shown a wider appreciation that nothing is impossible to the architect of taste and skill. The old and hopelessly ugly city brown-stone house and the little two or three-stopy brick house or stable on a side street have been made into artistic and attractive apartments or studio buildings. It is to the architect that we owe this renaissance and we have only made a beginning toward the development of the city beautiful from old and unsightly and out-of-date structures. Lest some should say that we are dealing with merely idealistic matters, with our own desire for better things artistically, we remark that In every instance these “artistic" improvements have proved the very best of'“business in increased rents and more desirable tenants. If the cost of new buildings has deterred many from carrying out their long-cherished dream of owning their own home, there is abundant opportunity almost everywhere for the alteration of old places at very moderate cost. And old houses nearly always offer the nucleus of a more substantial structure than many hurriedly built modern hpuses put up in quantities for speculative purposes.—From Architecture.