Business & Labor
World Monuments Fund Helping to Save Historic Gulf Coast Homes
(archrecord.construction.com - 01/09/06)
By Sam
Lubell
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| Workers begin dismantling
the Hecker House. Image courtesy World Monuments Fund
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Two historic Gulf Coast homes damaged
by Hurricane Katrina are receiving some much-needed help from
the World Monuments Fund. The New York-based preservation
group launched a restoration pilot program in December with
$260,000 in start-up funding from American Express, The David
Berg Foundation, and The Florence Gould Foundation. The two
landmark residences, the Phillips House and the Hecker House,
are located in Bay St. Louis, a small waterfront community
30 miles west of Biloxi, Mississippi.
“This program is an important way
to bring communities together and show them alternatives to
wholesale demolition,” says Morris Hylton III, WMF's
new project development manager.
The 1 1/2-story Phillips House, built
in 1840, represents antebellum architecture common to the
period with its distinctive wood detailing, a raised central
hall, and broad gallery. The two-room Hecker House is a shotgun-type
worker’s cottage, which dates back to 1780, and which
was once located near an oyster factory. Both homes are situated
side-by-side along North Beach Boulevard, a National Register
Landmark District known for its rich residential architecture
in a variety of period styles, from Greek Revival and Queen
Anne to Colonial Revival and Mission.
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The Phillips and Hecker houses both
sustained significant wind and flood damage, and will require
extensive repair and rebuilding. Their eventual resurrection
is meant to call attention to the importance of preserving
the area's local heritage and culture. A project timeline
and budget have yet to be established. "It works on very
basic level by explaining what to salvage and photograph,
and who to contact to rebuild and restore,” says Hylton,
of the pilot program.
The Hecker House has since been documented,
disassembled, and stored in order to save the original timbers,
siding, windows and doors. Charles Hecker, 86, its current
owner, is planning to sell the building’s lot. But he
has donated the building materials and remnants to the WMF,
which is acting as project steward. The town of Bay St. Louis
and the Hancock County Historic Society are now in charge
of finding a new site.
The Phillips House, presently owned
by Dorothy Phillips, lost its wood siding, second story, and
most of its front porch during Katrina. It will be documented
and rebuilt at its current site with assistance from the Mississippi
Heritage Trust, The Preservation Network, and Mississippi
Dept. of Archives and History.
WMF is also developing a demonstration
project for a 19th century double-shotgun house in the Holy
Cross neighborhood of New Orleans, which it expects to rollout
in early spring 2006.
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