Too Late ...

This article won a first prize in the Chesapeake Publishing editorial contest 2006.

March 23, 2006
Kent County News
By Craig O’Donnell

CHESTERTOWN – If these walls could talk, they’d sing the blues.

And across the Eastern Shore, once-grand houses would swell the chorus.

Faint, rattling rhythms would come from the dry bones of Deptford, Hopewell, and Maple Grove, and the many farmhouses now in the records only as: “Site.”

On Saturday, March 11, Queen Anne’s county firefighters were permitted to burn down the 150-year-old Cahall Farm house, just south of Church Hill.

Unknown to many, under what looked like white clapboard siding was a mansion of brick.
That afternoon, after the house was burned, new owner Bill Sharp said that he had considered trying to rehabilitate the house, but that termite damage and an engineer’s report that the brickwork was unsound led him to conclude he could not afford the project.

So, he said, he “jumped through the hoops” to get a county burn permit. He plans to build at least one single-story, modern dwelling on the property.

“How can a house that wonderful get torn down?” said Elizabeth Watson, executive director of the Stories of the Chesapeake Heritage Area, Monday. “All too easily. By the time someone applies for a demo permit, it’s too late.”

Amanda Apple, Queen Anne’s County heritage coordinator, said Tuesday “all that’s on the books is a demolition permit re-view … to document the building that is going to be demolished.”

She feels the clock is ticking. “There are about 500 structures in the county that are not documented. We’ve got about 30 of them documented. They’re being demolished faster than we can get to them.”

In Kent, demolition permits do not even require review.

The Cahall Farm was first assessed by the Maryland Historical Trust in 1980.

At the time, surveyor Orlando Ridout V wrote that the farm “is one of the most carefully preserved mid-19th century houses in the county … (it) remains virtually untouched, and the few changes have been minor. Details of particular interest include … the slate roof Victorian meat house and a very well preserved wind mill with cistern.”

Ridout also noted a “granary with flanking cribs dating to the latter part of the 19th century.”
The house and nearly 214 acres on the east side of Route 213 belonged to Zebulon J. Brodie until late last year.

Property records show that Brodie paid $605,000 in 1988, when Charles M. Cahall sold it. Sharp paid $1,850,000 on Nov. 22

Outbuildings were removed during the Brodie ownership. The house itself became a B&B.
But now melted plastic sagged along the remaining brick walls. According to local historian Marge Fallaw, vinyl siding was applied in the 1990s. Sharp said the siding was suggested to Brodie by “an engineer, to protect the brick.”

Watson is well aware of the effect that losing old buildings can produce.

Keeping the traditional working landscape intact in the four-county heritage area – it encompasses Kent, Queen Anne’s, Tal-bot, and Caroline – is one of her organization’s priorities.
She said, “Protecting our heritage is the greatest conservation challenge we’ve got. This loss shows protecting land will not necessarily protect the character of our countryside.

“The farm has an easement on it -- the land will remain open no matter what building might occur on the 10-acre home site.

“But the quality of the view and the visitor experience on that stretch of the National Scenic Byway is gone forever -- historic buildings are irreplaceable.”

Maryland’s 20-percent rehabilitation tax rebate might have helped save the Cahall house. It is the poster child for farmhouses in outlying areas of Kent, Queen Anne’s and Caroline counties, threatened because of the rehab cost. But the tax rebate rules are strict: a property must be on the National Register of Historic Places; or there must be a local historic district in place. Cecil and Talbot counties have both opted for local control.

Apple said many people do not understand what a National Register listing is. It can be costly to prepare the nomination, yet it does not protect a property from demolition, she said.

Nor did the National Scenic Byway, passing just yards from the house, provide protection; it does not ease the route to reha-bilitation rebates for abutting property owners.

Jennie Schmidt, scenic byway coordinator, said in a March 15 e-mail, “I was aware that the private property owner had been granted permission to burn the building. The scenic byway board is sensitive to the qualities along the byway and try to work with each byway county who have different ordinances and permitting processes.”

She did not reply to followup e-mails.

Apple said that the byway “is only for tourists – but preservation doesn’t start with the visitor.
“Queen Anne’s County may be the gateway to the Eastern Shore but we don’t want to look like the western shore. We have something special, and we need to cherish and nurture it.”
Interviewed last fall, Martin Sokolich, Talbot County long-range planner, said the 30-year-old preservation district there is nothing more than a zoning overlay.

“Listing a property is voluntary,” he said, “and generally it’s been on the house, say two acres out of 50.” There are 30 county historic districts in Talbot; most are individual structures. Because it’s voluntary, he said, there have been few problems.