Preservation Society documents historic buildings after Helene

There’s not usually much work in the mountains for Chelsea Freeland. After all, the maritime archaeologist typically studies shipwrecks. But after Tropical Storm Helene put much of Western North Carolina underwater Sept. 27, she unexpectedly found a use for her skillset right in her backyard.

Freeland, a remote research fellow at East Carolina University (ECU) who lives in Asheville, wanted to apply her expertise to help with storm recovery. Meanwhile, Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County members worried that historic homes in eastern Buncombe County could be demolished before being documented.

The two joined forces. ECU made Freeland’s work with the Preservation Society part of her job, and she began to document about 1,200 historic buildings from Swannanoa to Montreat.

The work is about halfway done, estimates Jessie Landl, executive director of the Preservation Society, thanks in part to graduate archaeology students from ECU who came to do a survey blitz Jan. 25-26.

The partnership between an archaeologist who specializes in underwater artifacts and a nonprofit interested in historic architecture is an unusual one, but a useful one in this case, Landl says. Freeland’s experience studying and restoring shipwrecks harmed by spending years underwater brings a unique perspective to documenting historic structures damaged by a historic flood.

“Because I studied as an archaeologist, I’m used to seeing a bunch of wood on the ground. That’s basically what a shipwreck looks like,” Freeland says. “[The Preservation Society] is used to seeing buildings that are upright, and we saw a lot of buildings that are no longer upright.”

Freeland studied how a house appeared to have been knocked off its foundation or how the position of certain debris told her where it came from, all of which helped determine what the building may have looked like before the storm.

“There were a couple places where we were able to say, ‘Oh, I bet this goes with this.’ Or ‘This fell apart this way,’” Freeland says. “It’s just a different framework. It’s just a different way to look at things while you’re trying to capture as much information about how this happened.”

Beyond making a record of previously undocumented structures, such as those in Swannanoa’s Beacon Village, Landl hopes the project will answer several questions. Did older homes fare better than newer construction? Did builders learn from previous floods about where — or how — homes should be built? How can builders learn from the latest disaster to design more resilient homes?

Landl plans to submit survey results to Buncombe County Public Library Special Collections as part of the Come Hell or High Water project documenting the impacts of Helene.

Survey says?

Beyond providing historical perspective, Landl says the project is important for people living in historic neighborhoods like Beacon Village. “Their communities are not only important to them; they’re important to the whole region,” she notes.

To Landl’s knowledge, the Preservation Society hasn’t conducted a survey of historic homes like this, at least in the eight years she’s been executive director, she says. Usually, private consultants are hired to determine if a certain building belongs on the National Park Services’ National Register of Historic Places. But after Helene, Landl says, a couple dozen volunteers wanted something to do.

After surveying damage in the county at large, Landl, her small staff and volunteers decided to focus on the heavily damaged eastern part of the county, including Botany Woods in East Asheville, where several homes had recently gotten a historic designation.

Teams of volunteers went out to take photos of buildings identified by Freeland and the society as historic and note any debris, damage or apparent recent changes the buildings had undergone.

In Swannanoa, Beacon Village was of interest because the neighborhood, constructed in 1924 to support the adjacent Beacon Mill, had never been inventoried. Because of extensive damage, Landl was concerned that there would be a spree of demolition in the area.

“We were really looking to get that documented as quickly as we could. So we had our architectural historian write the history of the place, and we did the survey work that we’ve been doing in other neighborhoods there quickly, just to hopefully get in front of any potential losses,” Landl says.

Just a month after the storm, Freeland went out with an architect to start documenting the area, taking photos of buildings and taking note of any damage observed.

“The only documentation that exists of those houses is the rapid photo survey that we did with the Preservation Society,” Freeland notes.

In the field

Most volunteers for the Preservation Society are retirees. The surveys they’ve worked on have been conducted largely from their cars. But in Montreat, the town’s narrow, winding roads required on-the-ground work.

That’s where Freeland’s connection to ECU came in handy again. Professor Jennifer McKinnon made the trip to Montreat with 12 graduate students to help survey all of Montreat in one weekend, amounting to about 400 buildings built before 1974. Xpress tagged along with one of the two-student teams.

Evan Olinger and Cory Van Ness had conducted surveys of historic structures before but never in an area affected by a natural disaster.

“This project feels meaningful. It feels good to volunteer,” Van Ness said as they trudged up one of Montreat’s narrow, steep roads.

Following a map designed by Freeland that noted each house they wanted to survey, the students wandered through Monreat for two days, photographing old homes from multiple angles while noting any debris, damage or other possible storm impacts along the way.

It was relatively easy work, especially for students well-versed in data collection. But for Landl, their help was invaluable, she says.

Once the society completes its initial round of work, Landl says she hopes to expand the survey work to areas like Fairview and Barnardsville. The outreach also has the added benefit of spreading the word about the society’s grant program, designed to help property owners fund rehabilitation projects on their historic buildings. Thus far, the society has given out $230,000 in $5,000 grants to individuals; about $50,000 is left, Landl says.

To apply for one of the grants or learn more about the Preservation Society’s survey work, go to psabc.org.