The Real Deal

By Kevin Lee Associate Editor

What goes around comes around and one Mobilian hopes his establishment of a revolving fund to renovate historic houses can revive past glory. Palmer Hamilton, a Mobile lawyer, Washington lobbyist and historic redevelopment proponent thinks the movement can do more than merely eradicate eyesores. “We want to be a catalyst,” said Hamilton. “We want to make sure that things proceed in the right direction since things are starting to pick up down here. We want to create a paradigm to be emulated.”

Hamilton’s sizable estate in the more affluent quarters of the historic Oakleigh District was surrounded by similar architectural gems, but other portions of the neighborhood weren’t quite as lucky, “You’d see homeowners that didn’t quite have the resources for the projects they were tackling,” he recalled. “They would try to take shortcuts with the renovations that weren’t going to maximize the house’s potential.”

Hamilton had an idea and went into motion. He assembled a war chest from a variety of sources such as the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Bedsole family and Amsouth Bank. “We got some good interest rates and put together close to a million dollars for this,” said Hamilton.

Over the last four years, the revolving fund has bankrolled the renovation or construction of close to 25 houses. “We’re able to take risks a lot of individuals can’t because we’re working on a quantity basis,” said Hamilton. “In fact, we just bought three more houses in Oakleigh.”

Hamilton thinks the most difficult stage is the initial one. “Identifying the houses we want to work on is probably the hardest part,” he said. “I’ll confer with Chris King from Roberts Brothers Realty, our architect Douglas Kearley and David Newell to figure out which places we can focus on.” Hamilton lauds Kearley for his attention to historic detail and ability to work within existing styles in the historic sectors.

Hamilton seems particularly proud of new construction in a previously empty lot at Palmetto and Marine streets on the eastern end of Oakleigh.

Word of the fund’s success has spread throughout the state. “Artur Davis, a Congressman from Birmingham, asked our help in getting a similar project started up there,” said Hamilton. Davis’ efforts, though valiant, haven’t met with quite the same success thus far.

The revolving fund isn’t just contained to Oakleigh. “The Bedsoles contacted us about getting involved in downtown,” Hamilton said. “The next phases of downtown development involve filling in some of the vacant spaces and we want to make sure everything has the same architectural and historic continuity.” Hamilton mentioned the residences under construction at Dauphin and Cedar streets as prime examples. “We have some federal style places and some Creole there, too.”

Construction of the Dauphin and Cedar complex is contracted to a firm owned by Mobile City Councilman William Carroll who also developed other projects for the revolving fund. Hamilton seems fond of Carroll’s performance. “He does good work,” said Hamilton. He said the fund has used other contractors in the past but they didn’t seem to work out as well.

Will the revolving fund reach out to other areas of Mobile? “I don’t really see that happening right now,” said Hamilton. “I think the other areas are fine and the market seems to be taking care of them as it is. We’re really interested in concentrating on our neighborhoods and working south from where we are right now.”

Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, it is noted that Palmer Hamilton, though he holds the lease for the Lagniappe office space, held no sway over the content of this article.

If you have an interest in contributing to Lagniappe’s real estate news, please e-mail us at editor@lagniappemobile.com.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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