1239 Congress St.

Staff Recommendations: 

1239 Congress Street is a one-story frame shotgun building constructed in ca. 1920. Although completed in no definitive style, the building retains several original features including front façade quoining and brackets. The building is surmounted by a hipped roof with front dormer and three (3) chimneys, showing its interior division of rooms and the fact that it was once a two-family building. Several unsympathetic alterations have been made throughout the building’s history. In 2015, an HDLC violation (#15-04586) for working without permits was placed on the property. In 2023, a non-structural renovation permit (#23-16057) was opened to address the violations to bring the building back into compliance. The property owner currently has an HDLC Certificate of Appropriateness (CofA) to replace inappropriate windows at the left-side elevation, repair deteriorated masonry at the front wall foundation, cap existing vertical board fencing, and perform general maintenance as needed. The property owner is seeking retention of one item in the current violation: the removal of existing louvered shutters at windows. The building’s louvered shutters were removed between 2007-2011 prior to the current owner’s period of ownership. Because the applicant has agreed to replace windows and shutters were removed over a decade before ownership, Staff recommends retention of the removed shutters.