Ask its current and former owners and you’ll hear that it’s dangerous and beyond repair.
Ask local preservation advocates and you’ll hear that saving it is worth trying.
The two-story blue house next door to the Brown County Democrat’s office on East Main Street in Nashville will be demolished later this month. That’s new owner Bruce Gould’s plan.
Since his request for a demolition permit went before the Nashville Development Review Commission in April, a few folks have been asking for a halt.
David Martin appealed to the town council last month. Two representatives from Peaceful Valley Heritage Inc. wrote letters to the editor in this week’s paper.
Nobody’s made any use of the building at 169 E. Main for about 15 years, as its roof caved in and raccoons took up residence inside. However, it’s part of Nashville’s history, advocates said.
A Nashville ordinance passed in 2006 allows any historic building to be demolished in town as long as the owner waits up to 45 days to do so. The owner has to seek a permit from the town, but there’s not much listed in the ordinance that any town board or commission can do to prevent demolitions from taking place besides raising awareness, “to afford citizens an opportunity to consider and determine alternatives to demolition,” the ordinance says.
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“Historic” is defined as any building constructed in whole or in part before Dec. 7 1941, the start of World War II.
Other considerations include the rating given to the structure in the 1995 Brown County Interim Report; the location of the building in relation to the main thoroughfares in town; the building’s condition; its architectural uniqueness or lack thereof; and the historical significance of the building’s present or prior occupants.
“Architecturally, the original section of the house illustrates the vernacular tradition in house design and building in Nashville after the Civil War,” wrote James A. Glass, a historic preservation expert hired by local group Peaceful Valley Heritage Inc. to assess the blue house. “Its Greek Revival-inspired trim shows the late survival of such features in Nashville long after they had disappeared elsewhere,” he wrote. “The original house is clearly visible and could be restored after removing the additions.”
Gould appeared before the Nashville Development Review Commission April 17 to seek a demolition permit. He said the nine-member commission split its votes down the middle 4-4 about how long he would have to wait. Gould, who’s also a member of the DRC, abstained from the vote since he’s also the property owner.
The compromise the commission came to was to have a public hearing on May 15, and then Gould could get his permit, he said. That would make the waiting period about 30 days.
At the April town council meeting, Martin gave council members a history of the blue house and asked them to take another look at the town’s “demolition delay” rules.
“I keep thinking of all the properties that could come up for sale in the next who-knows-what time period, and they could all be demolished,” he said.
The history
The blue house on East Main Street used to be the home of the John “Dennis” Calvin family.
Dennis Calvin’s grandfather, Timothy Downing Calvin, was among the early settlers of Nashville, coming from southern Ohio in 1854, according to Martin’s handout.
T.D. Calvin was appointed postmaster in 1885 — coincidentally, the job Gould held a century later for 27 years.
One of T.D. Calvin’s sons, T.D. Calvin Jr., owned a dry goods store in Nashville. He built an ornate home at Van Buren and Franklin streets in 1875, which still stands.
The middle son, John B. Calvin, built a popular hardware and furniture store on East Main Street opposite the Brown County courthouse. When he died at age 40, the business passed to his sons, 14-year-old John “Dennis” Calvin and 12-year-old William “Duard” Calvin.
Both brothers lived within walking distance of the store, which no longer exists. Duard’s house stood where Peter Grant’s gallery is now, and Dennis’ was the blue house on East Main now slated for demolition.
Dennis was elected county sheriff twice before World War I, Martin reported. Both brothers continued to run their hardware business until their deaths in the 1938 and 1944.
“The Dennis Calvin house is one of the very few historic structures still in existence in 2018 on East Main Street,” Martin’s handout said. Two others from that era are the McGrayel family home (1879), which is now a tourist rental next door to the Dennis Calvin house, and the former “county poor farm” (1870), now used as the Brown County Schools administration building.
The McGrayel family home was moved across the street in the 1980s to make way for Fifth Third Bank, Martin reported.
“These historic structures are no less valuable than those that stand in downtown Nashville,” Martin wrote. “It is a reminder of bygone days in the village and the lifelong hard work of the Calvin brothers and their family.”
The future
Gould has a soft spot for historic houses; he’s restored several of them, including “Tudie’s house” at 123 E. Main, which used to be part of the Village Motel. It’s now a tourist rental, next door to the Cornerstone Cottages which the Goulds built on Village Motel land.
However, the Dennis Calvin house is in such bad shape, with the roof and floor caving in, and is so oddly configured, with two rooms upstairs and down and no bathroom, he doesn’t know how it could make any financial sense to keep it.
He first went inside about two years ago when he and his wife, Pam, were thinking of buying it. “It was a lot worse than what I thought it would look like. It was most definitely beyond repair,” he said.
It was appraised at negative-$25,000, he said, which is the estimated cost to demolish it.
Monica “Jean” Kafoure is the former owner of the blue house and the office complex next door. The office complex houses the newspaper office, an architecture firm and an investment company.
She built the office complex, and an attached condo where she lived, in 2002 where artist C. Curry Bohm’s home used to stand. The Bohm house’s support structure was made of logs, which were deteriorating. The blue house is built in the same way, she said. After living in the Bohm house for about six years, she had it demolished in 2001.
Kafoure had planned to knock down the blue house and put another office building where it stands, but the economy wasn’t right then for that sort of venture, she said. She decided to wait, and instead made much more off the stock market than she could have made from that piece of real estate, she said.
“I’m so happy they got that property,” Kafoure said about the Goulds. “It does my heart good to think about them doing things for the community, to bring people in. That’s what they’ll do.”
The Goulds have talked about possible uses for the land where the blue house sits, but they aren’t set on anything yet. Ideas include tourist lodging or affordable long-term housing for people who work in Brown County, such as teachers, Gould said.
In the meantime, it’ll become a pay parking lot.
“We don’t want to tear it down, but we’re not a not-for-profit organization,” Gould said. “We need to look at the best use of the property to run a business, and what’s best for the community.”
The oldest part of the house could be saved, and Gould is looking at how he could salvage at least some of it, “but what would you do with it if you saved it?” he said.
“The land it sits on has an assessed value of $327,000. And if you fixed it up, that puts you up to a half-million-dollar investment in there, so what are you going to do with a two-room house with no bathroom? … What would you do with that property to generate the kind of money to make the payment on a half-million-dollar loan? … You’d need to generate $5,000 to $6,000 a month off that piece of property. … If you rented it out to a business, you’re looking at $600 to $700 there, so where do you make the difference up?
“The best use of that property does not include that house being there.”
The Goulds’ purchase included the office building next door with attached condo. The condo will be remodeled and turned into a tourist rental, Gould said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
WHAT: Public hearing on demolishing the Dennis Calvin House at 169 E. Main St.
WHEN: 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 15
WHERE: Nashville Town Hall, 200 Commercial St.
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