Morris Circle: A Smyrna Tear Down

We closed on the purchase of our Morris Circle property in 2018. It is a small 2-bedroom, 1-bath house with 1,046 square feet built in 1946. We went into this project with the intent of performing a major renovation that would more than double the square footage. Our plans included a “pop-the-top” second floor addition and expanding the footprint for an attached garage and even more living space. However, as we got into it, we determined it would be more cost effective to tear it down and start from scratch. This article describes how our plans changed from a pop-the top renovation to a complete tear-down.

Background

The most attractive feature of this property is its location in the heart of the desirable Williams Park neighborhood of Smyrna. Williams Park, billed as Smyrna’s oldest and most historic neighborhood, is in easy walking distance of the Market Village and Village Green of the completely renovated downtown area of Smyrna, Georgia. The neighborhood contains many historic homes more than 100 years old, along with many (often small) houses built in the 1940s and 1950s.

The area saw significant growth in the 1940s when Bell Bomber began producing B-29 bombers for World War II. Their facility was being built next to the planned Rickenbacker Field, although the airfield was was renamed the Marietta Army Airfield in 1942 at its dedication ceremony, with Captain Eddie Rickenbacker in attendance. It was again renamed to Dobbins Air Force Base in 1950 when the Air Force was created and took command. Lockheed took over the Bell Bomber facility in 1951, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Numerous homes in the neighborhood have not stood the test of time. While many have been well maintained and renovated, a large number fell into disrepair and have subsequently been torn down, allowing newer, much larger, homes to go up in their place. Williams Park, once predominately small two-bedroom cottages of less than 1,000 square feet, now contains mostly newer homes built in the 2000s consisting of 3,00 square feet or more.

The Property As Purchased

A successful renovation in this neighborhood would require adding a second floor and expanding the foot print to achieve the needed size. Although the Morris Circle house is the oldest and one of the smallest houses we ever purchased, it is also happened to be one of the the cleanest. However, given that we were planning a major renovation, that cleanliness didn’t really benefit us.

The first image in the gallery below shows the home’s footprint. The original 1946 structure and foundation consisted of an 814 square foot home with a 70 square foot front porch. At some point, the previous owner put an addition on the house, which added 232 square feet of heated/cooled space at the back of the house and a 127 square foot screened porch on the right side.

The house had no garage, but it did have an asphalt parking pad with an aluminum carport cover. The backyard contained a storage shed and a massive oak tree. The original structure had a living room, kitchen with a small eating area, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. The 232 square foot addition was divided into three parts. One part was a sun room off of the kitchen, and another part was a laundry area off the back of the rear bedroom. The third part was used to expand the bathroom in a very unique way. The sales literature touted this house as having a “bathroom with two commodes,” and sure enough, there were two toilets in the bathroom.

We hired an engineer to inspect the foundation to determine if it was strong enough to support a second floor. As we suspected, the prior additions had little or no foundation, and they would have to be removed. The engineer’s report stated the foundation under the original part structure was in good condition and able to support the load of a second floor. However, even with a second floor addition that also covered the front porch, it would only add 884 square feet. Therefore, a “pop-the-top” renovation would yield a total of just 1,698 square feet of living space, and that would not be enough.

Adjusting the Plan

We were considering about a half-a-dozen different options to boost the overall size of the house. Since we also planned on building a garage, adding a second story to the garage was a no-brainer. If we added a 450 square foot garage, the second floor above the garage would then boost our total area to 2,148 square feet. Still quite small by Williams Park neighborhood standards, where the sweet spot is above 3,000 square feet.

Mold and asbestos are a consideration with almost any house you purchase, and homes built in the 1940s are practically guaranteed to require some sort of abatement. We figured the house had asbestos, but we were surprised at the extent of it. As it turns out, there was asbestos in the walls, the ceiling, and much of the flooring.

Any new additions to the house would involve the removal of the rear and right side exterior walls, plus the roof structure. The asbestos abatement would result in almost none of the interior space being salvageable. A new foundation would be required for the footprint changes needed to include a garage and additional living space. Newer homes typically have either 9′ or 10′ ceilings on the main floor in this area, so the two exterior walls that were potentially salvageable would need to be modified from their existing 8′ ceiling height.

At that point, we had to ask ourselves what was being salvaged and was that small amount worth the price of being forced to adapt the new structure to the placement, height, and nuances of the existing one. In short, that answer was no. The potential savings were not worth as much as the freedom and clean slate provided by a complete tear down.

We made the decision to completely demolish the house. A tear down is more difficult than it sounds, because it still requires a complete asbestos abatement. Before we embarked on that path, we needed to come up with a fresh house plan. Once we had a new set of house plans, we could determine if any zoning variances would be required, and then proceed to get a demolition permit. The demolition process is a subject for a future article.