Each year, the Preservation Dallas awards are such an inspiration. With annual submissions that range from residential to commercial, from schools and barns to churches and theaters, they are always exciting. But what we all can relate to most is a historic home, and this Preservation Achievement Award winner at 5307 Worth St. is one of the most impressive saves you’ll ever see.
Preservation Dallas Executive Director David Preziosi mentioned to me last week that a Junius Heights home had won an award. When he mentioned it was the fourth award-winning home for Tam Pham, owner of Steel Toe Stiletto Construction, my jaw dropped and I knew I had to talk to this phenomanal woman. If you win four Preservation Achievement awards, you are doing something extremely right.
“Tam takes the worst possible homes and does a great job with them,” Preziosi said. But even with Pham’s self-taught background in historic home preservation, this 1910 Craftsman/Colonial Revival restoration proved to be a doozy.
A Diamond in Rough Shape
It’s easy to see what attracted her. Even before restoration, it was adorable with a unique, oversized eyebrow porch. The barrel-vault porch ceiling is lined with original beadboard planks punctuated by dentil and crown molding on the arch’s front edge and supported by round Doric columns. It was like something you’d see in a movie until you got close and started looking around.
“It was sitting on the ground,” Pham said. “I knew it needed a new foundation because the home was four inches out of level, pitching hard from the left to the right side. Four inches may sound minor. However, in house foundation terms, this is a significant delta from one side to another. We did not have an understanding or appreciation for how bad it was because we could not see it. The way that it was sitting on the ground, it was rotting the wood. We had to excavate because the beams, girders, joists, and subflooring were entirely enveloped by the dirt under the home. The wood had been rotting for decades. From a City Code perspective, consider that the minimum clearance between the ground and the joist’s bottom is 18 inches. This meant we needed to clear 24 inches, at minimum, to meet the code. Excavating was the best worst-case solution, as lifting was impossible due to lack of clearance and the brittle nature of the rotting wood under the home’s entirety. “
This is not the fun part of restoring a historic home. Any cosmetic repairs are essentially putting lipstick on a pig without a strong foundation. For all of you wanna-be flippers thinking this will be such fun and a quick return on investment, think again. The unexpected foundation work resulted in a cost that was over six times the original estimate.
“People don’t understand what’s involved,” Pham said. “You cannot flip a historic house. Flippers don’t realize what a historic district requires, and they start to cut corners. It’s a disservice to themselves, the home, and the buyers. We work to allow a house to continue to stand another 100 years.”
The original three-over-one, double-hung wood windows were in a significant state of disrepair due to neglect. Pham had the windows completely restored with each sash hand-repaired and the glass re-glazed.
That gorgeous, eye-catching front porch had to be carefully and slowly raised nine inches to return to its proper alignment with the house without causing further damage to the porch structure.
“The right column was visibly tilted due to the lack of foundation maintenance,” Pham said. “The column bases had literally disintegrated over time, and the shafts were splitting, so repairs were made to the column to pull the two halves together, and new bases were made to support the column shafts to return it to its original look.”
Now The Fun Begins
All of this work was completed before any of the fun interior work could begin.
Pham is an expert at not only restoration but also in bringing a historic home into this century. She’s adept at designing the expected open layout and adding modern amenities buyers want today. Opening up the living and dining areas, she was able to showcase the interior ceiling shiplap and expose the old chimney’s beauty.
“My goal is to take the worst of the worst home, the one people would like to demolish, but they can’t because this is a historic district, and save it,” Pham said. I like to say I take it from shanty to show home! It’s not a cheap or easy path. It’s definitely a labor of love and my passion.”
And yes, when Pham is not knee-deep in the foundation dirt of her latest project, you can hire her Steel Toe Stiletto Construction company to help you with your renovation, and she may even tell you the genesis of the name!
