Holger and Sally Christiansen decided they needed their own sound wall to buffer their home in the historic Old North End neighborhood, north of downtown, from the growing roar of traffic on nearby Uintah Street.
So they imported red brick from Virginia and got busy erecting a massive wall around the perimeter of their property at 1221 N. Cascade Ave. The only problem . . . they didn’t get the necessary city building permits or permission from the Historic Preservation Board, which regulates what is done to homes in the North End Historic Overlay Zone.
Here is a map of the area:
Making things worse, the wall is taller than 6 feet, violating city code for construction without a permit. Here are some photos of the wall.
Traffic, like the trucks rumbling up Cascade in the photo below, is the main reason the Christiansens want their wall. Some neighbors fear the North End will be a succession of similar walls if the Christiansens’ are allowed to keep their wall.
Generally, the wall runs just under 7 feet tall. But it reaches nearly 11 feet at the top of its ornate columns with their elaborate caps and finials. Here are a couple photos.
Other homes in the North End have fences and walls. But they generally are low wood-picket or ornamental iron fences or low rock walls.
To learn more about the Old North End, visit it’s web site via this link.
And a more detailed map of the neighborhood and his historic district is available via this link: oldnorthendmap.pdf
=====================================
JUST ANOTHER BRICK in the wall is a post from: Side Streets