Your house might be an English cottage in Arlington Heights, a Tudor in Park Hill or Berkeley Place, a brick ranch in Westcliff, or a wood-frame bungalow in Fairmount. Each kind of house has its own construction quirks, and each one changes what a renovation involves.
Restoring old Fort Worth homes is where 6th Ave Homes started, and today it’s one part of the design and construction work we do across the city.
What Counts as “Historic” in Fort Worth
The city of Fort Worth lists fourteen local historic districts. One of them, Hillcrest, sits inside Arlington Heights. Three more sit in the Near Southside: Mistletoe Heights, Elizabeth Boulevard (it runs through Ryan Place), and Fairmount. A single house can also carry a landmark designation of its own, so look up the address on the city’s zoning map instead of going by the neighborhood name.
Beyond the designated districts, plenty of Fort Worth homes are “historic” in the practical sense: built before 1950, with original architectural features worth preserving, even without formal designation. The 1920s craftsman, the 1930s Tudor, the 1940s brick ranch: these houses have their own construction realities regardless of whether they’re under formal preservation review.
We take on both: houses in a designated district and older houses that aren’t.
The Approval Process When You’re in a Designated District
If your house is in a Fort Worth historic district and you’re changing the outside of it (siding, windows, doors, roofing, porches, additions, foundation work, even fences and driveways), you need a Certificate of Appropriateness before you pull permits or start construction. A kitchen or bath that stays inside the walls of the house isn’t a Certificate of Appropriateness job. Replacing a window in that kitchen is.
You apply online with the city, and staff review your plans against the district’s standards. Staff can approve most of them. Cases like new construction, demolition and requests to waive the guidelines go to the Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission (HCLC), which meets the second Monday of every month. Applications for those cases are due by the third Monday of the month before the meeting.
The review goes further than a standard permit. A district’s design guidelines are specific to that district, and they’re used alongside the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. In Hillcrest, for example, the district’s guidelines say original materials are kept, repaired or reused when possible, historically unpainted masonry can’t be painted, and the primary material for additions has to be mortared brick.
We know the Certificate of Appropriateness process, and we draw the plans to the district’s standards from the first sketch.
The Construction Realities of Pre-1970 Fort Worth Homes
Pier-and-beam foundations. Many pre-1950 Fort Worth homes are on pier-and-beam, not slab, so there’s a crawl space where someone can reach the joists and the pipes. Joists may need sistering (a new board fastened alongside a weak one). Piers may need shimming or replacement. A major renovation is also the time to deal with moisture down there: the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) says in its Residential Rehabilitation Inspection Guide (2000) that an uncovered earth floor in a crawl space can significantly increase moisture in the building. Foundation repair by itself is a job for a foundation specialist. We handle structural work as part of a larger remodel or addition.
Knob-and-tube electrical. HUD’s guide says this wiring is still found fairly often in houses built before 1930, and that its greatest problem is insulation that turns dry and brittle with age. HUD says to replace it during a rehabilitation. The exception is wiring that’s properly installed and grounded, needs no changes, has enough capacity, has no failed insulation and is otherwise in good condition. Check whether your home insurance policy excludes it, too. What a rewire costs depends on the size of the house and how hard the walls are to get into.
Galvanized plumbing. As our bathroom renovation guide covers, HUD’s inspection guide puts galvanized steel piping at 20 to 50 years of service life. If it’s exposed during a renovation, HUD’s advice is to consider replacing it.
Cast iron drains. A different story. Age alone doesn’t mean they have to go. Have a plumber run a camera through them, and replace what’s cracked, corroded or leaking while the walls are open.
Lath-and-plaster walls. The National Park Service’s preservation brief on plaster recommends keeping historic plaster if at all possible. It resists fire, reduces sound transmission, and is often not as badly damaged as it first appears. Cutting it for new electrical or plumbing takes more care than cutting drywall. We don’t tear out original plaster walls unless we have to, and where we open one, we design the new work to match it.
Original wood floors. If there’s hardwood under the old carpet or vinyl, it’s usually worth restoring. Before anyone sands, pull a floor register or a piece of baseboard and look at how much wood is left. HUD’s guide warns that too much sanding will expose the floor nails.
What else turns up behind the walls. Beyond the wiring and the pipes, the usual surprises in a house built before about 1970 are framing that is out of square and walls carrying weight the drawings don’t show. We budget for the kinds of surprises these houses hold. When one turns up, we show you and price it in the open, not as a change order you learn about later.
