On a stroll through Annapolis' quaint downtown streets, Donna Hole, the city's preservation chief, points out how the historic district is eroding brick by brick.
She kneels on an East Street stoop to show where the home's 18th-century bricks are wearing away because the owner patched it with the wrong kind of mortar. Then she points out standard hardware-store porch balusters that are inappropriate for a Pinkney Street rowhouse.
At another East Street home, she stops to talk to a contractor who is refurbishing historic windows and notes she frequently gets word of someone ripping out historic windows and replacing them with modern ones.
These might seem like petty grievances, but Hole and other preservationists say the details make all the difference in maintaining the character of the state capital's 3-century-old downtown.
"What we are talking about is the historic fabric of Annapolis: the bricks, the mortar, the wood siding, the roofs, the windows, the doors," says David Blick, chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission, which reviews historic-district projects. "We are slowly erasing the `historic,' and pretty soon we are not going to have what we are trying to preserve."
Some blame a lack of education about the rules. Others point out that unlike some other historic cities, Annapolis does not have a staff to roam the streets and cite those who violate its historic-district rules.
Whatever the cause, preservationists say it is time for the city to do more to protect the architecture that distinguishes it and has made Annapolis a popular tourist destination with a thriving downtown.
"We are not Any City, USA," says Mayor Ellen O. Moyer. "We are a very special place for a lot of different reasons, but principally for the look and feel of this city, which is rooted in its heritage."
Foundation created
The preservation movement in Annapolis began 50 years ago, when residents formed the Historic Annapolis Foundation to save historic downtown structures from the bulldozers of eager developers.
The group, led for many years by preservationist St. Claire Wright, began buying and renovating historic buildings and lobbying to preserve downtown - where the Treaty of Paris was signed, Gen. George Washington resigned his Army commission and Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independence had homes.
