New Haven Preservation Trust Hails ​“Good Works”

A ​“ghost” house in Fair Haven Heights has become a ​“most” house — most beautiful and certainly most shiny and, after receiving a gut-rehab, newest-looking on the block, even though its foundations were laid back in 1833.

The house in question, the early 19th century Brown-Foote house, modest former oysterman’s residence at 387 Lenox St. at the corner of Clifton, has received the New Haven Preservation Trust’s House Preservation Award.

Proceedings honoring that restoration achievement, undertaken by Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Haven, and the preservation work of others, took place Wednesday afternoon at the annual NHPT award ceremonies convened at the newly monikered Patricia Mauro Lawlor second floor atrium rotunda at City Hall.

The afternoon’s second award, NHPT’s Merit Plaque, was presented to John Cavaliere in recognition of his labors of preservation love over a decade that have restored and sensitively rehabilitated Lyric Hall. The building at 827 Whalley Ave., originally a 1913 vaudeville theater and then a movie house, has been brought back from other incarnations such as a repair garage, to become, once again, a center for cultural life in Westville.

“Since I was a kid I’ve been in awe of New Haven’s rich cultural history … and now I’m a part of it,” Cavaliere said in brief acceptance remarks.

The Trust’s Landmark Award went to the Yale Divinity School in recognition of its stewardship and renovation of the 1930s Sterling Divinity Quadrangle. School officials resisted over the years an attempt to tear down the triangle and its anchoring Marquand Chapel. Over recent years it has been brought back to life with useful common rooms and study halls.

The Trust’s citation reads, in part, that ​“the architectural unity of the preserved historic quadrangle underscores the coming together of Christian, Jewish, Moslem, and denominationally uncommitted spiritual seekers.”

The Trust’s awards committee chair, Duo Dickinson, presented the fourth and final award of the ceremonies, a certificate of recognition, to the New Haven Museum to mark the exemplary restoration of its 1930 J. Frederick Kelly-designed Colonial revival building. Dickinson spoke of how historical preservation is about not just saving buildings but ​“who we are as a culture.”

The project involved careful and loving repairs and conservation of walls, ceilings and roof, complex sash windows, the granite front steps, the wrought iron front urns, and even crystal chandeliers, all to the high standards of the U.S. Department of Interior treatment of historic properties standards, said Channing Harris, an NHPT board and awards committee member.

The restoration of the Fair Haven Heights oysterman’s house cost Habitat for Humanity twice its normal restoration costs for the more than 100 houses it has built for New Haven working families, said the group’s CEO Bill Casey.

It was worth it. Full disclosure: your reporter spent a work day with Habitat’s volunteer crews, punching in nails and applying caulk so the paint would go on smoothly)

Casey said the owners, Edwin and Ada Sanchez, who were not able to be at the ceremonies, put in 600 hours of sweat-equity themselves, part of the terms of purchase.

“Nonprofits exist to do what the private sector can’t,” Casey said. ​“Preservation isn’t just for the wealthy, but for working families as well.”