Window Treatment Work in Herron-Morton Place

Local Window Treatment Experience in Herron-Morton Place

Twenty one years and one architectural moment

Compare the build window with the neighbors and the point makes itself. Irvington took seventy eight years and twenty recorded plats. The Old Northside, immediately south across 16th Street, took forty four years and shows Gothic Revival at one end and Colonial Revival influence at the other. Herron-Morton did most of its building between 1870 and 1891. The result is upscale residential lots carrying imposing two and three story houses with several cottages worked in between them, plus some commercial development where the major thoroughfares cross. Four styles account for nearly all of it: Queen Anne predominant, then Italianate, Tudor Revival and American Four-Square.

The ground has a history most residential districts don't. Governor Oliver P. Morton requisitioned this land during the Civil War to induct and train soldiers, and Camp Morton subsequently held captured Confederate troops. It later served as the state fairgrounds. The neighborhood's other name comes from John Herron, whose 1895 bequest turned the Tinker House into the first home of the Herron Art Institute; it opened in January 1902, became part of Indiana University in 1967, and is now the Herron School of Art and Design. This district is named for a governor and an art school rather than for a developer, which is rare in Indianapolis.

Curved glass, faceted bays and colored margin lights

Queen Anne is the most window various style in American domestic building and this district is full of it. A tower can be round, in which case the glass curves and no flat product will ever sit inside the opening, or it can be faceted, in which case you have three or five narrow units meeting at angles and each one needs its own finished width. Oriels project from the wall and often have no usable depth at the head. Transoms carry colored and leaded margin lights that a badly placed headrail will cut in half. This is the most specification sensitive district we work in outside of Golden Hill and the Crows Nest estates.

The depth situation is better than the geometry. High style houses from 1870 to 1891 carry deep wood jambs with substantial applied casing and weight pockets, so where an opening is genuinely rectangular you usually have plenty of room for an inside mounted cassette or a shutter frame. The problem is knowing which openings those are. On the grid here, with Pennsylvania, Delaware, Alabama, New Jersey and Central all running north to south, the houses present east and west fronts and the long side elevations face north and south. The principal front rooms on one side of each street take the full afternoon and those opposite take the morning.

What we specify most in Herron-Morton Place

No price band was published for this district when we last looked, though the Old Northside immediately south runs $525,000 list against $499,900 sale and Fall Creek Place sits immediately north across 22nd Street. What we can say is that a 24 to 34 opening house with no repeating units is a phased project for most people. The way it usually goes is principal rooms first, then bedrooms, then the awkward stair and tower units last once the palette is settled. National ranges put shutters at roughly $175 to $800 a window and drapery at $300 to $4,000, with specialty shapes above that.

Getting around Herron-Morton Place

The district sits directly north of the Old Northside across 16th Street and directly south of Fall Creek Place across 22nd. Those three consecutive near north side neighborhoods carry three different regulatory positions, which is worth knowing if you're comparing notes with a friend six blocks away: the Old Northside is IHPC regulated, Herron-Morton is IHPC regulated, and Fall Creek Place isn't regulated at all. Herron-Morton Place Park occupies the former Camp Morton and state fairgrounds site. The Harrison Center for the Arts and the original Herron buildings anchor the arts side of the neighborhood, and Provident Vineyard is on the same short list of places people name when they describe where they live.

The association, the commission and which one binds you

The Herron-Morton Place Association was incorporated in 1978 and it's a neighborhood association rather than a mandatory homeowners association. It has no architectural control over your property. The body that does is the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, and its authority comes from IC 36-7-11.1-9(a), which requires a certificate of appropriateness before anyone constructs an exterior architectural structure or feature in a historic area, or reconstructs or alters an exterior or designated interior feature. That's a two limb test and interior window coverings in a private house fail both limbs, which is the good news: your blinds, shades, shutters and drapery aren't reviewable. An awning or an exterior solar shade bolted to the wall is a different matter and should be treated as needing a certificate. Each district sets its own exemptions in its adopted preservation plan under IC 36-7-11.1-7(a), and we couldn't read this one, so check with IHPC before ordering anything exterior.

Window Treatment Services in Herron-Morton Place

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Herron-Morton Place Window Treatment FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Herron-Morton Place homeowners.