WOMAN VENTURES TO SAVE SIX SHOTGUN HOUSES IN HOPE OF PRESERVING HISTORY

By Lydia Earhart | photos By Dallas Goins

ON THE COVER KELLY RICH

It’s been a year since Kelly Rich had a big dream for six small shotgun houses currently located on Peabody Street. With the local community rallying support she is summing up this year as “a good chaos.” Her dream was to save six shotgun houses and preserve their structure providing a benefit to downtown Shreveport and hopefully spur some enthusiasm in preserving local history. Starting her journey, Rich created Norla, a nonprofit preservation society local to Shreveport-Bossier City, kicking off her effort to fight to save a part of history.

ROOTS OF ATTRACTION

For her first project, Rich contacted Community Development – city of Shreveport to see which shotgun houses were owned by the city.

“When I first talked to property standards, these were all on the same list of demos,” Rich said.

Rich said she reached a compromise with Community Development on the houses that were available for preservation.

“The compromise came from the ones that are too far gone, and there is nothing that we can do about them,” Rich said. “[I wanted to] work out a deal were we can use the salvage [houses] for our rehab, and so there was a verbal agreement of trying to coordinate some salvage days for these homes.”

Soon after, Rich attended a meeting in New Orleans with Liz Swaine, executive director of the Downtown Development Authority. During the trip, Rich said Swaine gave her the confidence to move forward on the shotgun house project.

The six houses on Peabody Street bring an emotion in residents, Rich said.

“They are kind of faded but they are still kind of brightly colored. They have been painted and photographed multiple times and most people are familiar with them,” Rich said. “It evokes a warm emotional response, and they have become our adopted little mascot of what we are trying to save.”

FUELING THE PROJECT

Backing out of a rehab project in Minden was the fuel that drove Rich to keep at the shotgun house project.

Several years ago, Rich sought out a building in downtown Minden with hopes of creating residential lofts upstairs and a retail space downstairs.

“I got scared. I walked away,” she said.

“It has always kinda bugged me [walking away].”

Rich said learning the Shreveport shotguns would be torn down ignited some action inside of her.

“It triggered a little bit of responsibility – if I don’t do something now, they are going to be gone,” Rich said. “It was me stepping up, asking questions, gaining a little bit of encouragement and support and running with it.”

Soon the public was gaining interest and some community members even stepped out to work with Rich to move forward.

“It helped me gain my confidence of this is not going to just be some little girl on her own,” she said. “There are opportunities and people [willing to help].”

PLANNING STAGES

Establishing a Norla board was the first order of business. Rich recruited some friends and other contacts to work together and meet to have brainstorming sessions.

From the board implementation, Rich is coordinating with the city of Shreveport asking for the shotguns to be donated to Norla. Once the donation moves forward, the houses will be owned by Norla, under the city’s requirement that the houses be moved, rehabilitated and not used for residential purposes.

In working with the board, Rich set forth an idea to move the shotgun houses off Peabody to Baker Street (still located in the same central area).

Rich said she is trying to keep a local attraction to downtown Shreveport, seeing the shotguns as an opportunity.

“All the stuff that is happening downtown, is behind the walls. That is what I look forward to in five or 10 years. I think downtown Shreveport is going to be completely different and continually vibrant. There’s a lot of opportunity down here, and I’m glad to be one of the front runners pushing forward.”

After the move, the rehab will begin.

Rehab costs will fall to Norla, which is where Rich is hoping on salvaging other pieces from other historic shotguns.

Next, Rich and the Norla board will follow up with interested businesses and rent out each of the houses. Rich said she is seeking out a diverse group of businesses, hoping to add value to spending time in the “Baker Street Bottoms,” a running name Norla is considering.

“We want it to be a tourist attraction,” Rich said. “We want it to be like you cannot just go to one [shotgun house].”

Historically present In seeking a location in the so-called “bottoms,” Rich said it is important to her to maintain the historical significance of the location.

Naming rights of each of the eight shotguns is one of the ways Norla will add historical significance to the houses.

“Because of the music history, it will be a continual theme,” Rich said. “So each house will be named after musicians significant to the ‘bottoms’ area.

“So this is where sponsorship and donor opportunities come from – where someone can come and sponsor a house.”

Naming rights to each house will help leave a mark on the structures. Rich said businesses will come and go, but the name of the houses will never change.

Rich said the group is also trying to keep as much of the structures’ authenticity as possible. Contractors have said the structures are solid and made out of Cypress.

Rich said Norla has a ballpark idea that each of the shotguns will incur costs of about $50,000 per house for rehab.

“We cannot do a lot of site evaluations just yet,” Rich said.

Future in tHe making Rich, also a mother of a 13-year-old daughter, said she first became interested in history because of her father, who shared a love of local history.

“He would share books with me and take me on trips around local towns,” Rich said.

As a mother, Rich said she hopes her daughter is gaining an interest in her efforts. It was at the Makers Fair, when she heard her daughter telling the story of the shotguns to a resident. Rich said she got a little teary-eyed hearing her daughter express the need for preserving the shotgun houses.

It triggered a little bit oF responsibility – iF i don t do sometHing now, tHey are going to be gone.

– Kelly Rich

Norla is working on a goal of 24 months until moving and open for business in 2016.

After this project, Rich said she will enjoy the new development of the “Baker Street Bottoms” and eagerly seek out her next project.

Rich has been active in preservation for more than 10 years and has been involved in different historical preservation groups in Grand Cane, Minden and now in Highland.

“The newer generation is coming back and it’s becoming trendy again,” Rich said. “I was a preservation nerd before it was cool.” •