HPC approves Hawthorn addition
♦ Ira Levy also is nearing completion of the major renovation of an 1880 home on Fourth Avenue.
Plans for a 35-room addition to the Hawthorn Suites hotel downtown were approved by the Rome Historic Preservation Commission on Wednesday with hopes that developer Ira Levy will have room in his budget to make some enhancements to the exterior facade.
The HPC gave Levy the green light for the new four-story building, which will run parallel to the river between the existing hotel and the Third Avenue Parking deck, but at least two members expressed some concern that the facade could use some different texture.
The project features a full Hardie board facade, but the motion which was approved by the HPC allows for administrative approval if Levy has funds in the budget to switch the first floor of the facade to include brick. Levy said the Hardie board treatment will be similar to the siding of the old warehouse building section of the existing hotel.
“A warehouse or downtown building like this would have been all brick at one time,” said HPC member Beth Dunay.
HPC Chairwoman Audrey Kendrick recalled that original plans for the addition did include brick and asked if it had been changed due to cost, and Levy said that was the case.
HPC member David Clonts also questioned the extensive Hardie board exterior.
“Let me see what the costs come in. If it comes in at the number they gave me I may be able to schmaltz it up a little bit for you,” Levy said.
Members of the HPC also got a tour of the old Tower Place residence on East Fourth Avenue that Levy and his wife Libby have been renovating over the past year.
“I hope it shows you that any old house can be saved. We lose a lot of them,” Levy said.
The six-bedroom, six and a half bath home had been slated for demolition until Levy purchased the building and started a complete renovation.
He said contractors should pretty much finish work over the course of the next month or so.
The kitchen will be left unfinished so that whoever the purchaser is can customize the kitchen to their liking.
HPC members were also briefed on plans for a major Preservation Month event scheduled for next May in conjunction with the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation. A major preservation event will be held at the DeSoto Theatre offering continuing education credits to preservations across the state.
Experts including Mark McDonald, president and CEO of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation; the Savannah College of Art and Design; Lydia Simpson, a former Roman who is now a professor in historic preservation at Middle Tennessee State University; and the Fox Theatre in Atlanta are all expected to be on the stage for the daylong event.