Audio
John Chamberlin Interview Clip: Waterford, Va. NHL Oral History Project
Transcript
CHAMBERLIN: In terms of the preservation of buildings and open spaces, there were two major things. One was, we started the program of placing easements, facade easements, on all of the structures that the Foundation owned and encouraged people, just regular homeowners, to do the same. And quite a number did. I know, at that time, my parents owned two or three houses right there on the main street and they protected those, and other people did as well. So that—there was some resistance to it because I think people thought it might, in the long term, affect the value of their property. But I think it was fairly successful in getting a lot of people to do it and that kind of thing is some peer pressure, you know, to do the same thing your neighbors were doing.
Description
John Chamberlin's grandfather was one of the first to restore historic houses there during the 1930s. Chamberlin talks about the preservation of the buildings and open spaces and about the creation of a program to place façade easements on all the structures that the Waterford Foundation owned, thus encouraging homeowners to do the same. He notes there was some resistance to their efforts, but there was a “peer-pressure” element that got a lot of Waterford residents to join in with their neighbors.
Credit
NPS / University of Delaware, Center for Historic Architecture and Design staff, December 2019
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