Rhinebeck’s historic district has always had a pleasing mix of small, modest houses and larger grand ones. The grandest of them often occupy only the corners, with the exception of one or two streets with stately houses and very deep setbacks. Buildings are about the same height. Sidewalk materials start out consistently bluestone until heaved out of place and replaced with concrete. Trees are spaced regularly down the length of the street and remain there until the end of their lifespan. On the best of streets there is a sense of regularity and order.
When you walk through the village, round a corner and turn down a street, it either feels good immediately, or it doesn’t. There ought to be a sense of “rightness” in the spaces between one house and the next, and if there isn’t the absence can leave you a bit unmoored. This has nothing to do with “taste;” it is about order and context.
This was tested recently on a quiet day in June as cars slowed and walkers stopped in their tracks to watch the planting of a three-story tall Norway Spruce in a previously unadorned front yard. This was just the beginning of the wholesale transformation of a dignified 1900 house sitting squarely on its lot, always slightly unapproachable but still putting its best face forward to its neighbors.
Deemed “an excellent example of the mature Colonial Revival style in Rhinebeck – the best example in this particular area” by the Rhinebeck Historical Society, it languished on the market for several years before being purchased by a man who had already transformed part of a grand estate on the river.
As the planting continued, consternation in the village grew. Iron fences and gates were installed. A few village houses have gated front walks, more ornamental than forbidding, but a gated driveway with a coded entry is not exactly neighborly. Elaborate security systems are more often found on large properties set well away from the road and often unoccupied. One of the best reasons for living on a village street is that you don’t need any of this. Neighbors look out for one another.
Inside the gate to the front walk is a bench and an arbor festooned with what appears to be plastic roses. Live roses have been planted at the base and with hope will live to replace the plastic ones. A few bronze plaques hang from the iron fence, one with the address, two asking for “please no pee-pee,” and one announcing video surveillance, the last perhaps designed to capture dog owners not in compliance.
A large screen of artificial foliage provides privacy to one side of the front porch. That same side of the porch blocks out its neighbors with a screen of several more mature Norway spruce. The property is ringed with about 60 boxwoods, give or take a few, but I couldn’t stand there long enough to count before being told to leave.
At some point this dark and sober house was painted white. The combination of the new brightness, the gated walkway and driveway, the security code, the notices on the fence, and the dense plantings closing the house off from its neighbors can be intimidating.
The only other house on the street that has turned its back on the character and traditions of historic districts happens to be directly across the street, so one house has the company of the other. The rest of the street will probably continue along its quiet way.
In fairness to the homeowner, a planting plan was submitted to the Planning Board and approved. But even if he had chosen to plant in harmony with the street there is not much guidance available on historic district landscapes. There are a few photographs of the house on file in the Rhinebeck Historical Society and as much documentation on the house itself as was available at the time of the photographs.
In the absence of specific guidelines, a good rule to follow is to respect your neighbors and the neighborhood. You will not have to consider this if you own a very large property or are in the middle of a forest. But in a village with sidewalks and neighbors whatever you do should at least bear some relationship to whatever is going on next door and down the block. You may not like it, but deal with it kindly.
Harmony should be the underlying effect of a fine streetscape; the parts should fit together as a whole. When historic districts are designated, the preservation and landmark ordinances tend to be entirely focused on the structures themselves and as a result bypass and do not curate the landscape of the front yards, trees, walks and streets that connect them. Memorable landscapes are made when multiple properties share basic guiding principles that are enhanced and inspired by the origins that created the historic district.
This of course occurs only in the best of all possible worlds. To codify this risks a municipality becoming the Design Police, but without laying out guidelines it is easy to lose the very character of the streets that drew families and visitors and businesses to Rhinebeck in the first place.
The Village Board of Trustees is well aware of these concerns and is in the process of forming a Streetscape Issues Committee to address the multiplicity of concerns that factor into maintaining a memorable historic district. So please -- all of you to whom this matters, stay tuned.
