After 3-year battle over demolition, fate of polka-dotted Columbia house is decided
When Columbia officials wouldn’t allow a local home builder to tear down a rundown 70-year-old duplex, he turned the house into a polka-dotted spectacle in protest.
Now, the city has changed its tune, and the pink-spotted Shandon duplex will be razed after all.
It’s been a more than three-year battle over the fate of the house at the corner of Rosewood Drive and South Walker Street.
Allen Rutter, a local builder who’s renovated a number of houses in the Shandon neighborhood, bought the duplex in 2017, planning to tear it down and build one or two new single-family homes on the lot. The duplex, built in 1940, was in disrepair at the time, but city officials said it was significant to the history of Shandon and that demolishing it would erode the character of the neighborhood.
Shandon is an upscale neighborhood with a special zoning overlay that allows city officials a say in the demolition of homes there in order to preserve the neighborhood’s character.
Rutter fought in vain for permission to tear down the duplex, even with the support of several neighbors living nearby. Having been denied twice, in 2018, Rutter painted the large, pink polka dots on the house to make a statement against the city. He hung a banner on the front porch that read, “Do you think this duplex is architecturally significant? The city of Columbia does and refuses to issue a demo permit.”
After pursuing legal action against the city in 2019 and failing still, Rutter sought to sell the property.
Lee Willm, a fellow local builder, bit.
Willm agreed to buy the property under the condition that the city allow the house to come down, and he picked up the fight where Rutter left off.
It wouldn’t make financial sense to repair the home in the state it’s in, Willm said.
“It wasn’t actually built to last. They didn’t build it structurally sound,” Willm told The State. “I’ve renovated a lot of historic houses in the last 20 years, and this is one (where) the finances just don’t equal out.”
Repairs to the duplex would cost around $150,000 or more, while Willm estimates spending around $282,000 to build from scratch on the property, according to staff comments submitted to the design board.
On Thursday, the city’s Design/Development Review Commission voted at last to allow the demolition. City staff members agreed that the house’s construction was not structurally sound and said that over the past two years, the house had further deteriorated to the point where it should be torn down.
When new homes eventually take the place of the duplex, Willm said, there won’t be any polka dots in the design plans.
This story was originally published October 8, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
