Liberty Town House Demolished Following Attempts to Enforce Maintenance
The house was associated with developer Henry Deane, who built many houses in the neighborhood for Black owners.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
A circa-1910 house on Liberty Street in Fredericksburg that was associated with Black developer Henry Deane was demolished last week, following a three-year process of attempts by the city to enforce maintenance of the structure.
“The house at 904 Liberty Street was demolished at the end of a long process of maintenance enforcement,” wrote Sonja Cantu, a spokeswoman for the City of Fredericksburg, in an email to the Advance.
Cantu said efforts employed by the city include “a tax sale to a new owner, consideration of partial demolition and rehabilitation, and ultimately demolition of the structure due to unsafe conditions.”
“Contractors found evidence of multiple fires in the building as well,” she wrote.
According to a timeline compiled by Building Official John Schaffer, the property received notices of violation for trash, debris, and a falling down fence in January and February of 2022. In July of that year, it received a notice of violation for being a vacant, unsafe structure.
The property was sold in November of 2022 for $257,500, according to the city’s geographic information system, but in September of 2023, it received another notice of violation for the exterior being in disrepair.
The city sent a “letter of concern” to the property owner in January of 2024, stating that repairs were necessary and requesting a timeline of when they would be completed, according to Schaffer’s timeline.
A Tyvek air barrier was installed in February of that year and the owner was “exploring options,” according to the timeline. The city requested updates via email in April.
Also that month, according to city public records, the city issued a permit for a partial demolition of the rear of the house.
In August of 2024, the city sent an email to the owner about a window missing upstairs, which was covered several days later, according to the timeline.
In February of this year, the city sent another notice of violation for the falling down fence. In May, the city requested a “decision regarding the property,” noting that the Tyvek was coming loose and that the property was not in compliance with the Virginia Property Maintenance Code.
On June 12, Shaffer approved changing the 2024 permit for partial demolition to full demolition. Water and sewer were also disconnected on June 12.
Demolition started on June 24 and was completed on July 1, according to the timeline.
Fredericksburg has a spot blight policy, most recently revised in March of 2022, that allows the city to use public funds to acquire or repair private property that has been declared “blighted” by City Council vote.
But Cantu said the house at 904 Liberty Street “had been neglected for so long that the city's spot blight policy would have yielded the same results and caused the structure to be demolished.”
She said that though the house is “associated with Black residents of Liberty Street, developing concurrently with Henry Deane's houses in this block,” it is not located in the city’s local Historic District or in a listed National Register District.
“Should an application for new development be submitted, the City's archaeological ordinance will apply,” Cantu said.
According to an article by Gary Stanton, emeritus professor of historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington, and Matt Scott, Henry Deane and his wife built and sold many houses in the Liberty Town neighborhood to Black men and women in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
“Henry Deane’s ambition did not seek to compete with white entrepreneurs—contractors, merchants, or capitalists—in providing homes for the middle class; he sought to have built buildings that met the needs of men and women who were not able to aspire to the middle class, because segregation stigmatized them in their access to work, education, and property,” the article states.
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another case of the City doing "too little too late." The damage was already done by the time the City sent the first notice in 2022. That building had been vacant and deteriorated for a long time.