Rehabilitation case studies: four lessons for owners of old houses

What to take away

Case studies get read for the wrong thing. People go looking for a number and leave with one that describes somebody else's building and year. Meanwhile the genuinely portable material, which is how the decisions were reached, goes unread. Old house renovation case studies are no different. The four lessons below come from named projects, not a template.

Where documented old-building case studies live

Public collections of documented rehabilitation projects exist, and they are worth an evening. The Park Service publishes a set of case studies of successful rehabilitation projects organized by theme, including adaptive reuse, affordable housing, continued historic use and neighborhood revitalization.

Public files and the Park Service collection include large old buildings that were once houses, hotels, factories or markets. Five useful examples show the range.

The American Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland, built in 1887, became Humanim's headquarters around 2009. The landmark tower and brick shell stayed.

The Ford Assembly Building in Richmond, California, a 1931 Albert Kahn factory, reopened in the late 2000s as the Craneway Pavilion and offices. Industrial sash and craneways were kept.

The Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit, Michigan, opened in 1924 and reopened in 2008 as the Westin Book Cadillac. Its facade and ballroom were restored.

The Arcade in Cleveland, Ohio, an 1890 glass-roofed arcade, became the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at The Arcade. Its atrium was kept.

Eastern Market in Washington, D.C., an 1873 market, reopened in 2009 after a 2007 fire. Its brick walls and roof were rebuilt.

Those projects went through federal review, which makes them useful. Each decision's reasoning had to be written down and defended. The Park Service overview of the 20 percent rehabilitation credit describes the program and states that owner-occupied residential properties do not qualify.

That matters for reading the case studies honestly. These are income-producing buildings, and their economics differ from a house.

What transfers and what does not

Read the left column. Ignore the right one, or at least never quote it at your own contractor.

The four lessons, with named case studies

Lesson 1: Find the constraint. Every project has one thing that drove everything else: a budget, a code requirement, a deadline, a structural failure. At the American Brewery, the nonprofit budget and the need for a headquarters drove the plan. The landmark tower stayed.

Lesson 2: Note what was kept. The retained features tell you what the team judged character-defining. The Ford Assembly Building kept its industrial sash and craneways. The Arcade kept its glass-roofed atrium. Those choices show what the reviewers, architects and owners treated as the building's identity.

Lesson 3: Note what was changed and where. In almost every successful project the change is concentrated in secondary areas. The Book Cadillac Hotel restored its facade and ballroom, then inserted modern hotel rooms and systems behind them. Eastern Market rebuilt its brick walls and roof after the 2007 fire, while adding current market systems.

Lesson 4: Look for the compromise. Good case studies name one, and that is the most instructive paragraph. The Arcade kept a Victorian atrium while meeting modern fire code. The Book Cadillac had to meet hotel standards inside a 1924 plan. The compromise is the lesson, not the glossy after photo.

If a case study contains no compromise, it is marketing. The same test works on a contractor's references, where a client whose project had a problem tells you more than a flawless record.

One more habit: read three projects in the same building type, not one inspiring project. Patterns across three show what the type demands. A single example shows what one team preferred, and you cannot tell the difference from inside one story.

Other building types teach the same way: a cemetery or a barn shows material behavior faster than a house does.

Build your own case file

Start one on the day you buy the house. Photographs by date, decisions with reasons, prices paid, products used, contractors used. Quotes declined, what worked and what did not. Ten years of that is worth more than any published example, because it is about your building.

The cost structure such a file records is set out in our restoration budget breakdown, and the planning sequence it should follow is in our start-to-finish project guide.

Common questions