Recently, the Port Washington Times ran a letter from a resident of the Village of Baxter Estates who has ascribed a “lynch mob” mentality to individuals in Port Washington who are concerned about the condition of the Baxter House and want to see the village require the owner to maintain her historically designated property as required by the law.
While the writer felt compelled to provide “background” in order to inform people that the owner “is not the villain,” in our opinion he failed to provide the complete picture and frankly missed the point.
Must there be a villain?
Certainly, the good law-abiding residents of Baxter Estates and Port Washington who want to live in a community in which the rule of law applies aren’t villains.
The property was landmarked in 2005 by the Village of Baxter Estates under authority contained in the village code and under New York State Law.
The owner, who fought the designation at the Village level, never availed herself of the opportunity to challenge that determination in State Supreme Court as was her absolute right.
Rather, she accepted the designation and moved into the home for a period of time.
At one point, however, according to village records, she illegally converted the one family house into a multiple occupancy and illegally rented the house.
At some point, the original front door and leaded glass windows were removed without seeking permission from the Historic Preservation Committee.
For the past several years, she has not maintained the home and indeed has allowed the roof to go unpatched in spots, resulting in a village-hired independent inspector to note that birds were nesting in the house.
Rather than maintain the house as one might expect of any owner, she has allowed it to run down to the point that she has claimed it cannot be saved and must be demolished so that she can build another house — presumably a larger one — or subdivide the property and place two houses there, a subdivision that she has applied for twice in the last eight years only to withdraw both applications.
It is indeed unfortunate that many unkind comments have been directed toward the current owner of the Baxter House.
We believe these comments reflect how strongly the Port Washington community feels about the potential loss of the historic Baxter House.
Anyone driving down Shore Road can see that the house has not been maintained and allowed to fester in decay.
Whose responsibility is that if not the owner’s?
The leaded windows and original front door have been replaced, in violation of VBE’s preservation laws.
Not only is the house unsightly with the black and blue tarps, but those deteriorated tarps are ending up on neighbor’s lawns, as well as in the Baxter Pond and Manhasset Bay.
The owner can renovate the interior as she likes — although she is not permitted to subdivide and rent out the house to multiple individuals, as she has done.
While the law allows her to erase the historic beauty of the interior, it is worth noting that recent photographs of the interior reveal beautiful detail that cannot be recreated and which anyone would be glad to live in.
The exterior of the house belongs to our history and has been allowed to decay.
Why?
Who knows, but some speculate that the owner wants to tear down the house and build a McMansion she can sell.
Does any of this make the owner a villain?
No, but it does paint a slightly different picture than the one painted by some.
We are not looking for, as the writer put it, a “pound of flesh,” what we are looking for is an equal application of the law by the village.
Every resident is responsible and accountable for the upkeep of our homes, it seems that only one resident of the Village has not been called to account.
We do desire that the house be preserved, but we also desire that the owner of the Baxter House live under Village law as the rest of us do.
Kathy Coley
Port Washington
