With more and more people buying houses, mainly as second homes or vacation rentals, the paint colors chosen to ‘re-do’ homes in the historic district have been dubious at best, and in many cases appear to be weak, failed attempts at mimicking the ‘jelly bean’ cottages of Marina Villages. Disturbed, frustrated and generally fed up by the general lack of taste and regard for the Historic Register, the Historic District Review Board aims to take matters into their own hands by coming up with some form of color palette that would provide a foundation for acceptable use for the historic homes of Cape Charles. Also, the color proposed for “new buildings or additions should be compatible with those in use on historic buildings in the historic district”.
Currently, the Historic District Guidelines do make an attempt to define the types of colors to be used in the Town’s Historic District, however there is quite a bit of leeway. That said the “Board is empowered to place specific colors in the Guidelines”.
Planner Larry DiRe has put together a swatch of potential colors based somewhat on the ‘Color Chart of Historically Accurate Paint Colors in the Old and Historic Alexandria District and the Parker-Gray District’. Other colors, including Williamsburg palettes, were also supplied by other board members. Chairman Joe Fehrer has tasked the board to take the palettes home and come up with 15 to 20 that they feel are appropriate, and which may be used to build some form of consensus.
I really hope the HDRB will reconsider. I enjoy walking through town and seeing all the various ways residents express their creativity and individuality, whether it be through landscaping, art, or even a wacky paint scheme. It’s part of what makes Cape Charles cool. It’s just paint after all. It’s not as if these people are modifying architectural elements or making irrevocable changes. The homes in the historic district will always have something that the Jelly Bean houses can’t duplicate: authenticity. Even a coat of lime green paint won’t change that.
I agree with Chris Willis.
Cape Charles is NOT Alexandria or Williamsburg. The town needs to consider how they want to be marketed and perceived. Is it a Victorian living museum, or an artsy beach town? Before throwing stones at the colors of houses in the historic district, perhaps HDRB might take on the abandoned houses, or trailers parked on the street in front of houses, or decrepit sheds, or rusty fences, or sinks/toilets/etc outside. Individually, “authentic” paint colors look lovely on a house, but collectively, the colors suggested make a street boring! Maybe I wouldn’t have chosen the paint scheme on the house pictured, but those owners spent a lot of money to have their house painted, which is preferable to the houses that have not been painted in years! It seems mean-spirited to me, to shine the spotlight on one house for this article.
Editor’s Note: Julie, I agree with you, that it was mean to pick on that one house, but it was the only when really mentioned, and we did want to give some form of visual example (since we are talking about colors) of what the HDRB might be looking at.