Throughout the country, tourists spend billions of dollars visiting historic sites and cultural attractions every year, they stay longer and spend more money than other kinds of tourists. This weekend, many of those people will be in town to get a glimpse behind the festively decorated doors on Historic Benefit Street. Benefit Street is an amazingly intact and preserved neighborhood with homes that span the late 1700's through the early 1900's, like a living condensed history of American Architecture. It is hard to believe it was not always this way. In the 1950's, during that dark period of "urban renewal", most of the homes were in disrepair and slated for the wrecking ball. Fortunately, there were a few forward thinking people who understood the importance of preserving those old houses. Eventually, these people founded
The Providence Preservation Society, one of the earliest and most ambitious preservation groups in the country. When the society first started, they would hold street fairs to demonstrate preservation techniques and get people interested in buying and restoring historic homes. The Holiday Festival and Historic Benefit Street Stroll was an outgrowth of these fairs. If you have ever wanted to see inside some of these great old homes you won't want to miss this year's
Holiday Festival Saturday, Dec. 4. The nine houses on the tour represent a range of architectural styles built in the 18th and 19th centuries. While touring, you will see that people really do live in these houses rather than treating them like museums, and they all will be properly festive for the Holidays. There are Single family homes, Condominiums and Multi units, and a variety of rental units from studios to luxury apartments if you want to live on our mile of history. Presently there are no Single Families, but the five condominiums on the market range from a totally renovated
600 Square foot studio with exposed beams and stone walls for $129,000, to a 2 bed 2 bath for $630,000. There have been 7 sales on Benefit Street this year, four Single Families and three Condo's.
This Week's Real Estate Insight: The economic impacts and benefits of historic preservation are far-reaching. Research on economics and historic preservation has concluded that few categories of economic activity have as much economic impact measured as jobs created, increase in household income, and demand created on other industries as the rehabilitation of historic buildings. When our founding fathers changed the name from Back Street to Benefit back in the 1700's " for the benefit of all" do you think they were imagining the economic engine it would be today?
