Weirs house at center of preservation-vs-development tug of war

LACONIA — A plan to demolish a 150-year-old house in the heart of Weirs Beach is stirring competing interests of historic preservation on the one hand, and economic development on the other.

Robert Csendes has applied for a permit to tear down a twin-gabled, Victorian gingerbread house at 76 Lakeside Ave. He plans to eventually rebuild on the property, which has an unobstructed view of Lake Winnipesaukee.

The demolition permit request prompted people to speak against the plan at the Nov. 12 meeting of the city’s Heritage Commission, which has now scheduled a public hearing on the matter for next Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Due to COVID concerns, the meeting will be held virtually on Zoom.

The building is located only a few hundred feet away from the New Hampshire Veterans Association compound, a cluster of summer properties built in the years following the Civil War for gatherings of Union veterans. Those buildings are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“The whole street is historic,” said Robert Ames, a lifelong Weirs Beach resident who operates a number of seasonal businesses there.

“The importance of the building is obvious,” said Tara Shore, who voiced her concern about the demolition at last month’s Heritage Commission meeting.

Csendes bought the property four years ago and said that the building has been unoccupied for the past three years.

“I don’t want the building to be sitting vacant,” Csendes said, explaining why he wants to tear it down.

He was able to rent the house soon after he bought it, he said. But the tenant moved out after only about a year because of the high cost to heat the 1,600-square-foot house, and difficulty to climb the steep stairs between the first and second floors. Recently he said the building received considerable water damage after a pipe burst.

For much of the last century the home was occupied by Hazel Tarlson Cannon, a piano teacher who played for local dance bands, and was also the organist at Trinity Community United Methodist Church in Weirs Beach for more than 50 years. Cannon died in 1984, and the home changed hands three times before Csendes bought it in 2016, according to city records.

Csendes is unsure what he will build on the property. The land is zoned Resort-Commercial, which Csendes said, means that a building can cover 70 percent of the lot, in this case, one that measures 0.3 of an acre.

“The highest and best use of the property is not a single-family house,” Csendes said.

The house is valued for tax purposes at $217,700, and the land at $158,500, according to city records.

“The house doesn’t lend itself to modern living,” Csendes said. “It has many issues that would need to be addressed to get to the point where I would want to live there.”

But Ames said he had been inside the house several times when it was owned by former City Councilor Judy Krahulec and her husband, and said the couple had done a lot to update the residence.

Csendes, who said he started coming to Weirs Beach 40 years ago, said the area has seen little development “since I’ve been alive.”

He said he wants to construct a building that “will add to the community, is safe and could be used. If it’s just good to look at,” he said in reference to the house, ”I don’t know if that’s good for the community.”

For his part, Ames sees the area’s historic character as an asset that can draw people, and hence business.

“I feel that history is something that is relatable to attracting people to Weirs Beach,” he said.

Ames serves as president and treasurer of the Weirs Action Committee. But he stressed that his opinions regarding the house were strictly his own, and that the committee has not taken a position on the matter.

Heritage Commission Chairman Michael Sweet said he is unsure what action the panel might take after listening to the comments at next week’s public hearing.

“Maybe those comments will cause the owner to reconsider,” he said.

But Sweet acknowledged the commission is powerless to block the demolition.

“We don’t have any teeth to do anything other than to review them (demolition applications),” he said.