2004 Preservation Awards
1213 Spaight Street
[photo: Larry Lester]
1213 Spaight Street
Steve and Holly Haas, owners
Award: Residential restoration
Steve and Holly Haas have infused new beauty and life into a simple-yet-elegant two-story frame house on Madison’s near East Side. They had extra incentive: the house was Steve’s boyhood home.
Built around 1900, the house over the years had suffered some unflattering alterations. Its distinctive cedar shake shingle roof had been overlain by common asphalt shingles. Its cedar clapboard siding was covered by white asbestos siding, and its full-length front porch was removed around 1955.
When Steve purchased the house in 1991 he was quite familiar with it. His parents had bought the house in 1947 and he grew up there until 1971. After he bought it, Steve rented out the two flats while he lived in Stoughton. He had a new front porch designed in 1993. Because the house is in the Third Lake Ridge Historic District, the porch design was subject to the approval of Madison Landmarks Commission. The Commission approved the design without hesitation and the porch was built.
Since moving into the house in 1999, Steve and Holly have spent many hours restoring the house’s dignity. They removed the unflattering asbestos siding, loading and hauling all three and a half tons of it away themselves, and restored the original cedar clapboards underneath. Only a few boards had to be replaced. In 2001 they had three layers of roofing removed and replaced with design-sensitive Timberline composite shingles. New rain gutters and downspouts were installed, the vintage front doors were stripped and refinished, and a deteriorated part of the front sidewalk replaced.
The Haas’s have been sensitive to historic details as well. Last spring, they replaced, with their own hands and the help of a neighbor, the corbelled brackets under the second-story bay, and the dentils along the cornice. The bulk of a meticulous repainting project was done in 2002 and completed last summer. Steve and Holly undertook several interior projects as well, including refinishing woodwork and updating the electrical, heating and air conditioning systems.
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1213 Spaight Street
