[Summit] The next Blackstone Battle ? (by David Brussat)

[David Kolsky]

[From the blog of David Brussat, formerly architecture critic of The Providence Journal:]

The headline refers to the failed effort, in 2014, to divide up the Granoff estate. The property behind it, 25 Balton Rd., has the same dark cloud gathering over it. Many people are familiar with the Bodell mansion from having driven (or walked) down Cole Avenue, between the Granoff estate (now owned by a Dallas developer, apparently) and the gigantic hedge of bushes through a gap in which may be seen the several fancy garage doors of a magnificent old house. Finished in 1929 to the design of architect William T. Aldrich, who designed the original RISD Museum of Art on Benefit Street, the Georgian Revival mansion was once known around town for its colorful gardens. Frederick Bodell was a stockbroker and a naturalist.

Of the invaluable emails sent to the Blackstone neighborhood by David Kolsky the latest shows that on Tuesday afternoon, the City Plan Commission will discuss a plan to subdivide the four acres much as the Granoffs had hoped to subdivide their larger parcel of land. The house, according to my source, is to be retained but at least four much smaller houses are to be erected....

My information here is very sketchy but my source fears that, while the Blackstone neighbors beat back the subdivision attempt by the Granoffs, its new owner could have another go at it, a task that would be easier if the Bodell property next door is successfully subdivided.

....

The meeting is at 4 on the first floor of the Department of Planning and Development, across Empire from the beautiful building on Westminster that it used to be in, and in the Brutalist structure it now inhabits at 444 Westminster, on the way up the path to the Cathedral of Sts. Peter & Paul.

https://architecturehereandthere.com/2016/08/14/next-blackstone-granoff-battle/ (with full text and illustrations) 

¶ I can take no strong position myself until I hear more from both sides, perhaps at Tuesday's Plan Commission meeting.

Having just been priced out of the East Side myself, I see the danger of the East Side, because of housing demand and scarcity, becoming even less diverse than it already is. I can also see the dilemma caused by the City's pressing financial needs combined with taxing property on ever-increasing values (forcing increases in selling prices, rents and pressure on existing property owners, that in turn make maintaining large properties, as they once were, increasingly difficult, in turn increasing pressure to subdivide or develop).

On the other hand, the larger open estates are resources that all of us can sometimes enjoy (especially if the owners lowered or opened up some of those thick, opaque walls and hedges) and ones that, once subdivided and built upon, will be almost impossible to restore or replicate within Providence's city limits.

David Kolsky