One of the many things that makes the character of Saratoga Springs so unique is the architecture and the appreciation everyone here has for preserving old buildings and homes. The Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation has an Historic Plaque Program, which not only adds to the character and historic integrity of the home, but helps in educating passersby about when the home was built; the plaque also displays the name(s) and occupation(s) of the original resident(s). You might recall the intro from this post about my first trip to Saratoga Springs: “1860. It’s not our new address; it’s the year the historic building that we’ll soon call home was built.” That building had a plaque marking the year it was built, and so, too, will our house.
Every since we bought our house about a year-and-a-half ago, we’ve wanted to apply for the Historic Plaque Program. We finally got around to it, and got the application prepared yesterday. It’s sitting on the mailbox ready for mailing now, so hopefully in a few months, we’ll have a new plaque for our historic home, built in 1925-1926. Based on the research already conducted by SSPF on behalf of a prior owner, it was determined, based on assessed value at the time, that a different structure was here in 1925. Then, in 1926, the assessed value increased dramatically — from $150 to $1,000 (if only we had been around to buy our house in 1926!).
Some houses I’ve seen around town have two years on their plaques — for example, 1925/1926. Visually speaking, I’m not as fond of that, so our plaque will probably end up saying 1926. Pretty exciting.
I bought the infamous Ding-King yesterday at the local As Seen on TV store, so hopefully it will work as advertised to remove an annoying dent from the right fender of the WRX that’s been there for way too long.
It snowed several inches overnight, and I love it. I did tons of shoveling and plowing of my driveway and my neighbor’s driveway this morning.
