U.S. Veterans Hospital No. 62, Garage, 1 Freedom Way, Augusta

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA-2424-C. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

This group of buildings served senior medical personnel and the director of the hospital as housing until the early The buildings form a historic district with the original hospital buildings to the west, and are arranged around a courtyard aligned with the axis of the hospital. There are five residential buildings and three garages in the quarters area. They are significant for their use as on-site housing for senior medical staff, following a former policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs. They are also significant as part of an early boom period in standardized veteran hospital construction. 1 Nickie Wall, personal conversation with author, 24 August and 30 September U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 2) PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A.

Physical History: 1. Date of erection: An untitled, undated list of buildings and their "year built" dates for up to is in the files of the Facilities Management for the CNVAMC, and lists as the construction date for this building. This building and another one of the exact same specifications, built across the quarters courtyard were labeled Building No. 65 and Building No. 66, respectively, by the Veterans Hospital. 2. Architects: Not known 3. Original and subsequent owners: The U.S. Veterans Bureau was the original owner. The U.S. Veterans Bureau was absorbed into the new U.S. Veterans Administration in 2 4. Original and subsequent uses: The building was originally used as a garage. It has likely been vacant since the when the adjacent residential buildings were closed by the CNVAMC. 5.

Contractor, Suppliers: Not known 6. Original Plans and construction: There are no extant original drawings or photographs of this building available. Physical examination suggests that its original appearance was the same as its current appearance. The four-bay, single story garage had a single pitch roof, a north-facing fagade, solid walls on the east and west sides, and a four-bay south fagade with small windows in each bay. The concrete slab floor in each garage bay had a long rectangular opening in the center, oriented north to south, to accommodate a person working underneath an automobile. Interior rear walls were exposed hollow core tile, while the side walls are galvanized metal and the ceiling was left unfinished, exposing the roof 2 Robinson E.

Adkins, Medical Care of Veterans, report prepared by the Veterans Administration Department of Medicine and Surgery (Washington, GPO, U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 3) rafters. Exterior walls were finished with rough stucco. The wood garage doors in each of the four bays are composed of four panels created by vertical and horizontal intersecting trim. 7. Alterations and additions: The central rectangular openings in the garage floors have been infilled with dirt and sand. The roof material has likely been replaced several times throughout the years, and has an asphalt shingle covering at present. B.

Historical Context These garages were built to accommodate the personal vehicles of the senior staff that resided in the four duplexes between the and Notably, each duplex resident had access to a single garage space, as they were communal buildings shared by the four residents or resident families that occupies the two duplexes on each side of the courtyard. Part II. ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION A. General Statement 1. Architectural character: This utilitarian garage building does not display any distinctive characteristics of a particular architectural style. However, it is well proportioned, with a symmetrical and simple f a9ade made up of the evenly spaced garage doors. 2.

Condition of fabric: This building appears to be structurally sound throughout the visible foundation, floors, and walls. Some water infiltration and partial roof collapse in one of the garage bays exposes some localized water damage and loss of fabric on the roof. B. Description of Exterior: 1. Overall dimensions: This is a single story, four-bay building approximately 42' wide across the fa9ade and rear sides and approximately 20' deep. The fa9ade is approximately in height. U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 4) 2. Foundation: The poured concrete foundation is approximately 8" thick and projects slightly from the exterior walls on all sides except the fagade. 3. Walls: The walls are hollow core terra cotta tile and covered with rough finished stucco. 4.

Structural Systems, framing: The building's structural system is an evident part of its exterior and interior appearance. The regularly coursed hollow core tile walls forming the exterior walls are load-bearing. A central wood posts in each interior dividing wall supports a cross beam for the unfinished ceiling but the remaining wood frame of the interior walls are non-load-bearing. 5. Openings a. Doorways and doors: There are four garage sized doorways and doors on the fagade, each of them filling a single bay of the four-bay fagade. There are no pedestrian sized doors on the building. The wood garage doors have a four- panel design created by perpendicular vertical and horizontal trim. b. Windows and shutters: There are four windows symmetrically placed along the rear side.

Each window opening is approximately x and has a single-pane casement window hinged along the bottom. Sills are made of a single row of brick. 6. Roof: a. Shape, covering: Single pitch roof, covered with asphalt shingle. b. Cornice, eaves: The eaves project slightly from the fagade and rear. The remaining two sides of the building only have a cornice board flush to building. U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 5) c. Description of Interior: 1. Floor plans: The layout of this building is a simple and symmetrical four-bay arrangement with a single garage door opening on the fa~ade for each bay, and no interior access between the bays. Each bay is approximately x 10' wide. 3.

Flooring: The floor is concrete slab with a large rectangular trough in the center of the floor measuring 3' x 11' which was used to accommodate a person working under a car. It is filled in with dirt and sand. 3. Wall and ceiling finish: The rear walls are exposed terra cotta (hollow core tile) masonry, and are load- bearing. Interior dividing walls between the bays are non-load-bearing and are wood frame clad in galvanized metal panels. Wood roof rafters are left exposed. 4. Openings: a. Doorways and doors: There are no interior doorways. The garage doors along the fa~ade are the only doors. b. Windows: Each window opening is approximately x and has a single-pane casement window hinged along the bottom. Simple wood trim finishes the interior around the window. 5.

Decorative features and trim: There are no decorative features or trim. 6. Hardware: There are large metal springs and a metal brace attached to the door, which swings upward. Small wheels along the sides of the door glide along a metal channel hung near the ceiling. The windows have small metal hinges, a simple push bolt lock and a small chain hung near the top to limit the distance the window can swing down. 7. Mechanical Equipment: U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 6) a. Lighting: There is a single bulb light fixture hung from the center of the ceiling in each bay. b. Plumbing: There is no plumbing in the building. D. Site: 1. Historic landscape design: This utilitarian building likely did not have a formal landscape plan.

It is set back from the road deeper than the residential buildings nearby, and is fronted by a large concrete pad stretching from the fa~ade to the road. Grass is on the remaining three sides of the building. This building and its surrounds are part of a group of residential and garage buildings organized around a U- shaped road and the subsequent grassy courtyard. A single hickory tree is located at each of the two ends of the grassy courtyard. To the rear and sides of the buildings composing the quarters area, there are a number of mature shade trees, such as live oak, birch, mulberry, maple, water oak, sycamore and hackberry. In the front yards of several of the buildings are crepe myrtle trees, and dense boxwood and other shrubs are adjacent to the facades of the residential buildings.

All of these elements combine to create a designed landscape, the mature trees help disguise the busy roads to the north and east, and the traffic utilizing the main entry road to the west. Part III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION A. Architectural Drawings: There are no extant original architectural drawings for this building. B. Interviews: Nick Wall, Project Manager for the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center interviewed August 24, on site. Mary Sickman, Facility Management Executive for the CNVAMC, interviewed June 22, on site. C.

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS GA-2424-C. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Adkins, Robinson E. Medical Care of Veterans, report U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 7) prepared by the Veterans Administration Department of Medicine and Surgery. Washington, Government Printing Office, Available from the Department of Veterans Affairs. D. Likely Sources Not Yet Investigated: The current staff for facilities management at the CNVAMC has indicated that a former staff member served as an informal historian for the facility but she has since left and her accumulated materials moved to an unknown location at the CNVAMC. Current staff has been unable to locate these materials. E. Supplemental Materials: There are measured drawings from created for a renovation project that apparently did not take place. The CNVAMC has these drawings.

There are also measured floor plan drawings from drawn by S. Filipovic of Virgo Gambill Architects in Augusta, Georgia. Part IV. PROJECT INFORMATION This project was completed following the execution of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Georgia State Historic Preservation Officer and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation regarding construction of a new Fisher House at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center (CNVAMC)-Uptown Division in Augusta, Georgia. The construction of the Fisher House required the removal of the historic quarters on the grounds of the CNVAMC.

The historic quarters were among the few buildings that remained from the hospital's earliest years, and were located across from the original buildings used for the hospital, Building Nos. 18, 19 and 20; these buildings were eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Another historic building on campus, not eligible for nomination, is Building No. 7, a former ward and nursing home care unit, built in The MOA stipulations included documentation of the building types that comprise the quarters area as well as Building No. 7 through preparation of a Historic American Building Survey Level II report, with some modifications.

Since the quarters area had only three types of buildings, only those features typical for each type were documented, with discussion of the modifications U.S. VETERANS HOSPITAL NO. 62, GARAGE HABS No. GA-2424-C (Page 8) made to other examples of the type. Photographs are also representative of the typical type. Exterior large format photography of Building Nos. 18, 19, and 20 were also stipulated as well as contextual views of the district. This documentation was prepared by New South Associates (NSA) under the direction of Principal Investigator Mary Beth Reed, President of NSA. Photography was completed by NSA Graphics Director David Diener, assisted by NSA Historian/Architectural Historian Staci Richey, who also prepared the historical report.

Nickie Wall of the CNVAMC assisted Diener and Richey in the field with building access and provided Joe Gambill of Virgo Gambill Architects with copies of original floor plans and elevations, which were photographed by Diener. s. Filipovic of Virgo Gambill Architects prepared measured drawings, and Tom Quinn of New South Associates utilized these drawings to create a photo key.