UNC_Samurai: I'm generally opposed to development in the face of any loss of historically significant land, but on the surface this sounds like it's not worth the trouble. Are there structures on the property that allow us to interpret how people raised horses in the 18th century? Is there any other historical significance?

Yeah I'm with you on that. My employer leased some land for development and there are 2 areas that are on the national historic registry. Neither one of them are near where we are developing so it's not an issue, but one of them is a run down barn. It's just an old barn, no real historic significance other than its old. It's a huge fire hazard, the guy who lives in a house near it would love to see it go. Can't touch it though. The other actually DOES belong there, it's an old stone tavern dating back to the 1790s with a lot of history behind it.

There absolutely is a case to be made for preserving our heritage. It doesn't sound like this is historically relavent though.

I don't know, the horse's name was Blueskin. It's not every day you meet a horse named Blueskin.

Of course, of course.

UNC_Samurai: I'm generally opposed to development

I'm opposed to most "development" in general. It's far better to raze an unwanted structure and put in a new one as needed than to destroy someplace that's probably pretty nice and replace it with ugly McMansions or anther frogdamn stripmall.

Our first house was a home built in the 1870's that needed a bunch of work done on it. Right after we bought the place I found a bronze plate about the size of a historical marker that said "In 1880 on this site absolutely nothing happened". Thinking it was funny I bought it & put it on the front of the house.

On more than one occasion we has a contractor come over to give us a bid on some work, start to get out of his truck, glance at the door, see the sign (too far away to read - logical assumption being that it was a historical landmark designation) & get back in the truck & drive away without saying a word.

/not that I blame them. I wouldn't want to deal with all the idiotic regulations (& draconian punishments for inadvertently violating them) for doing work on a registered landmark either.

Recoil Therapy: /not that I blame them. I wouldn't want to deal with all the idiotic regulations (& draconian punishments for inadvertently violating them) for doing work on a registered landmark either.

I wouldn't blame them either. If I had it in my mind to do ANYTHING with a place on the national historic registry, I wouldn't do a thing without running it by an attorney first. That stuff is serious business.

/Hot

UNC_Samurai: I'm generally opposed to development in the face of any loss of historically significant land, but on the surface this sounds like it's not worth the trouble. Are there structures on the property that allow us to interpret how people raised horses in the 18th century? Is there any other historical significance?

Welcome to the MD-VA-DC hell. You can't spit in any direction around here without hitting something George Washington/Thomas Jefferson, and most especially Robert E. Lee was somehow connected to.

In less than a mile from my house (which is in a town re-named for RE Lee's GRANDFATHER after the revolution made the name "georgetown" politically incorrect) you can find a place George Washington ate, A set of Courthouse steps from which the Declaration of Independance was read, two cemetaries with headstones going back to at least 1705, the mass cemetary for Union dead during the civil war, and a half dozen historic markers from revolutionary or civil war events.

I'm sympathetic to perserving the big , important stuff, so I don't think a casino belongs literally on the outskirts of the Gettysburg battlefield, nor luxury condos on part of the Antietam site, but givent hat we already have MT. Vernon, I think a stable that maybe produced a horse that was kinda important, is getting ridiculous. Though, knowing the poltics of this area I suspect the historical preservation argument is merely a front for some NIMBY homeowners who want to keep the riff-raff out.

Please--if you grew up in the Northeast, you know that almost every town has some George Washington connection--he stayed in a house there during the Revolution, etc. If there is some significant piece of archaeologically significant evidence that may be there? Perhaps hold off until we take a look. If he once took a dump on the property, we can build.

I live right near the old coach road that was the main route around here before about 1820, so my house should be a historic place, because George Washington may have shiat in my woods?

/puh-leeze

Rashnu: I call foal.


Ha!

Magorn: Welcome to the MD-VA-DC hell. You can't spit in any direction around here without hitting something George Washington/Thomas Jefferson, and most especially Robert E. Lee was somehow connected to.

The land on which the house I grew up in stands used to be on the grounds of Mount Vernon. Most of southwest Fairfax County was.

Route 1 would look a lot nicer if these preservationists had been around 60 years ago.

nekom: It's just an old barn, no real historic significance other than its old. It's a huge fire hazard, the guy who lives in a house near it would love to see it go.

Hmmm fire hazard you say? If I lived next to to it, I would be shocked, totaly shocked, that somehow the thing caught fire and burned down

Cant touch torch it though.
Fixed it there for ya...

MythDragon: Hmmm fire hazard you say? If I lived next to to it, I would be shocked, totaly shocked, that somehow the thing caught fire and burned down

Yeah there are some who might take that route. Only problem with that is that even if it were unlikely he'd get caught, if he did that's arson, even if it is a vacant old barn nobody gives a shiat about. Friend of mine's uncle went to jail for arson, sentenced to 20 years, served 10 or 15. Came out gay, NTTAWWT.

Anyway seems too much of a risk just for him to get rid of an eyesore.

Property taxes pretty much force development. If a plot of land suddenly gets surrounded by new developments, the county/city will jack up the tax rates on it to the point that it has to be developed to pay the tax.

Any news story that mirrors the plot of Caddyshack II is OK in my book.

Go bulldoze a golf course or a cemetery first.