Can new materials keep an old St. Pete home historic?

A roughly 117-year-old St. Petersburg house needed new siding. City preservation staff wanted the replacement to remain wood.

The people responsible for deciding otherwise spent much of Tuesday afternoon asking whether that still made sense.

The Community Planning and Preservation Commission unanimously approved fiber-cement shingles for the Bayboro House, a Queen Anne landmark overlooking Lassing Park in the Old Southeast neighborhood. The vote went against a staff recommendation to deny the material, which commissioners said they had not previously approved in this form on a historic property.

The project itself is relatively small, covering about 352 square feet around gables, bay windows and other accent areas. But the discussion widened as commissioners compared the original material with what is available to property owners trying to maintain old buildings today.

Built around 1909 for Charles A. Harvey, the Bayboro House has been a local historic landmark since 1993. The waterfront property later operated as the Bayboro House Bed & Breakfast and now serves as the main accommodation and gathering place for the Bayboro Bruderhof Community. Its exterior has changed over the decades, too. City records show asbestos siding was applied in 1945 and vinyl siding followed in 1987.

That vinyl is now failing. Architect Rob Harrison, representing the property owner, said years of sun exposure have left it brittle and peppered with holes. Water is already entering the building during storms.

“We absolutely do need to do something about the siding to protect the house,” Harrison said. “It’s not going to be a historic landmark if it’s falling apart.”

Removing portions of the vinyl revealed older wood shingles underneath. Harrison proposed replacing affected sections with Hardie fiber-cement shingles, installed with the smooth side facing outward to resemble the original material.

City preservation staff objected to replacing historic wood that may still be repairable. St. Petersburg’s preservation guidelines generally call for deteriorated historic features to be repaired before they are replaced. When replacement is necessary, the city looks for a close match to the original.

Staff found meaningful differences here. Historic wood shingles taper toward the top and are thicker along the bottom, creating deeper shadows and a less uniform surface. The fiber-cement shingles are thinner and do not carry the same taper.

Staff also warned that replacing original material a little at a time can eventually change the character of a building.

“The proposal will have a diminishing effect on the historic significance and character of the property since the historic wood shingle siding material is proposed for removal,” the staff report states. “While only a limited replacement is proposed at this time, incremental replacement of the historic materials can add up and have a cumulative effect over time on a historic property.”

Harrison said replacing the wood would make the house easier to maintain.

The house sits roughly 210 feet from the water, where salt, moisture and sunlight are hard on exterior wood. Harrison said the old-growth cypress commonly used when homes like the Bayboro House were built is difficult to obtain today, while newer wood products require substantially more upkeep.

He said fiber cement resists termites, warping and weathering and can last longer with less maintenance. Some of the siding also sits high enough on the house that routine work requires specialized equipment.

Commissioner Robert Jeffrey said that long-term burden matters when the city asks property owners to preserve historic materials.

“It’s one thing for us to sit up here and approve something that 20 minutes later they’re out the door,” Jeffrey said. “But someone’s got to maintain that building for the next 30 or 50 years.”

Jeffrey said he was willing to accept a newer material if it could preserve the appearance of the house while reducing the maintenance burden.

“If you can get the same appearance and you can get the maintenance quality of something that lasts longer than wood shingles, then I’m very much in favor of that,” Jeffrey said.

Harrison brought samples of the wood and fiber-cement products for commissioners to compare.

Alternate Commissioner Monica Drake was less comfortable with the proposal. She called it a “really slippery slope,” particularly because of the prominence of the Bayboro House and the lack of a previous local example using the same material.

Drake acknowledged the challenges of marine exposure and maintenance but said the commission also operates under preservation standards intended to protect details that distinguish historic buildings.

“The bottom line is, again, we as the commission subscribe to the design guidelines and city ordinances that dictate how we are supposed to make these decisions,” Drake said.

She pointed to differences in thickness, taper, shadow lines, texture and uniformity between the old and new siding. Modern wood options remain available, she said, even if some are more expensive or harder to find.

Commissioners were advised that approval at the Bayboro House would not automatically determine what happens at another historic property. Each certificate of appropriateness is reviewed on its own circumstances.

Still, previous decisions can become reference points when similar applications come before the city, and commissioners discussed how the finished Bayboro House could inform future cases.

Commissioners ultimately allowed the fiber cement but required individual shingles rather than the larger panels originally proposed. The shingles must be matched as closely as possible to the widths and exposure of the existing wood and installed smooth-side out in a staggered pattern.

Workers will also have to document what is found beneath the vinyl before removing historic material. If another section reveals a different siding pattern, the replacement must follow that pattern rather than applying the same treatment across the house.

Commissioner Domenico Pontoriero supported using individual fiber-cement shingles.

“To me, what makes these homes so special is the craftsmanship over the materials,” Pontoriero said. “And I think if the Hardie wood … does emulate the aesthetic properties of the wood shingles enough, if installed properly with the craftsmanship that the house was constructed with, I think that would suffice in terms of historic preservation.”

The commission approved the project unanimously with the staff conditions. Pontoriero said the relatively small amount of replacement siding gives commissioners a chance to see what the material actually looks like once it is installed on one of the city’s landmarks.

“I will go by the Bayboro House when it’s all complete to see what it looks like,” Pontoriero said, “and that I think will inform future decisions that involve wood shingles of this type.”