The Roanoke Times | File January

On a 4-1 vote, Blacksburg Town Council upheld a previous Historic Design Review Board decision to deny a demolition permit for the historic Taylor's Frames & Things building on Main Street, also known as the Bennett-Pugh House.

BLACKSBURG -- The old Taylor's Frames & Things building on Main Street will remain standing -- for now.

On a 4-1 vote, Blacksburg Town Council upheld a previous Historic Design Review Board decision to deny a demolition permit for the historic structure, also known as the Bennett-Pugh House.

Councilmen Don Langrehr and Derek Myers were absent for Tuesday's vote. Vice Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith, the former Downtown Merchants of Blacksburg director, cast the lone vote to approve the demolition permit.

"I know we've all been tormented over this," Hager-Smith said.

She urged the council to grant the permit and then order the salvaging of the building's architecturally significant materials for use in other historic structures. She also argued that documentation of the historical aspects of the building and site could preserve much of its value to the historic district.

A dozen supporters in attendance spoke on Taylor's behalf. At one point, about two-thirds of the nearly full council chambers stood in support of her appeal. But it wasn't enough to sway a council majority.

"We can't base our vote on what's best for Ms. Taylor," Councilwoman Susan Anderson said. Instead, Anderson said the decision must be based on the town's ordinances.

Taylor and her late husband, Addison, operated a framing business in the house beginning in 1982. They bought the property in 2002. After her husband died unexpectedly in 2007, Taylor shuttered the business to care for her ailing mother, who died later that year.

A historic district is not just one building, Mayor Ron Rordam said. Rather it is like a tapestry woven of many threads. Taking out one thread can damage it slightly, he said. But putting the wrong thread back in can do significant harm.

Rordam supported a suggestion put forward by Councilman Tom Sherman, who appealed to interested buyers of the property to come forward. Sherman called it an opportunity for the council to "resolve problems associated with this structure as well as to have some say in the property's future."

The house, built in 1900, and the 0.3 acres on which it sits have been on the market since 2005 and is assessed for tax purposes at $419,300.

Taylor has said every potential buyer balked at purchasing the building, which requires $300,000 or more in structural repairs. In its current condition, under state building codes no one may inhabit the property or run a business there, Blacksburg Building Official Cathy Cook has said.

According to Taylor, two interested buyers have said they would purchase the land if the building were removed. Because it is listed in the town code as a "contributing structure" to the downtown historic district, demolition of the building requires approval from the Historic Design Review Board.

Taylor said she faces dire financial consequences if she does not soon sell the property. Friends who spoke to council on Taylor's behalf said she is withdrawing her retirement savings to keep up with mortgage payments on a building she can't use and can't sell.

Officials say the Historic Design Review Board ruled against demolition to avoid setting a precedent of destroying historic buildings that fall into disrepair. Such a precedent could pose a grave threat to the future of the historic district, and, officials say, to plans to revitalize the downtown as an arts and cultural center.

Two doors down, the old National Bank building has sat vacant since it was closed to the public several years ago. An old dry cleaning building beside the Taylor house has sat dark for decades.

Council members have quashed hopes that the town might take ownership of the Bennett-Pugh house, as it did with the Alexander Black House in 2002. The town already owns a handful of vacant historical buildings and is struggling to find money to rehabilitate them.

The Taylor case has also brought to light a loophole in the town code. If the council had overruled the Historic Design Review Board's decision Tuesday, the code allows little regulation of what could replace it.

So Rordam, with the support of the council, has asked the planning commission to draft new regulations that would give the board authority to modify or deny redevelopment proposals. It is hoped this change could further protect the integrity of the historic district.

Taylor's son, Will Armstrong, said after the vote that his mother has not decided if she will appeal the council's decision to Montgomery County Circuit Court. She has 30 days to do so.

She has already notified the town that the house and property is again for sale, however. If it hasn't sold within a year, under town code the demolition request must then be granted.

Of her future plans, Taylor said: "And we go and we pray and we put it back in the hands of God. I'm not defeated. And we are not hopeless."