Town Blocks Historic Home Renovations, So Owner Paints The Houses Bright Colonial Colors Until They Give In

Heather Hall

1 month ago

Sometimes, owning a home doesn’t mean you get to make all the decisions.

So, what would you do if you tried to make updates but kept hitting roadblocks because the home is considered “historic?”

Would you just stick to what’s allowed?

Or would you come up with a creative way to make the town rethink its restrictions?

In the following story, one homeowner finds themselves in this very predicament. Here’s what he did.

Won’t let me do renovations to the outside of my buildings because they’re in a “historic district”, let’s see how you like them now.

I live in a University town, and a few years back, a guy who owned three colonial-era houses and rented them out to students wanted to renovate the outside.

He started doing things like putting in double-paned windows and a new coat of paint, taking down porches that were falling apart, and other minor issues.

Our town put a stop work order on him and took him to court because the houses were “historic.”

All he was allowed to do was do minor safety repairs on the porches and paint the houses in a manner appropriate to their era.

Be careful what you wish for.

Well, he did some research and found that colonial houses could be all sorts of colors, so he painted (what used to be tasteful white homes) them orange, lime green, and puke yellow.

The town took him to court again, but he was able to show proof that that wasn’t unusual for a colonial-era home in our area, so it was thrown out of court.

The town lived with garish colors on Main Street until the town gave him permission to do the upgrades he requested.

Yikes! Those must’ve been some ugly homes.

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit have to say about what he did.

This sounds horrific.