Historic Homes in Ghent

Ghent and North Ghent

Ghent is Norfolk's first planned suburb. A Philadelphia civil engineer, John Graham, laid it out along the Y-shaped waterway known as the Hague, with concentric tree-lined streets and landscaped open space in the City Beautiful and Beaux Arts traditions, and with water, sewer and gas lines built in from the start.

• Ghent Historic District was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1979 and the National Register in 1980. Most houses were built between 1890 and 1905 in Queen Anne, Colonial Revival and Shingle styles.
• North Ghent was listed in 1999 and 2001. It grew between 1897 and 1912 along Colonial Avenue, mixing houses with multi-family buildings from the era of the 1907 Jamestown Exposition, and includes Stockley Gardens, a park built over a filled stream. Architects of the period included John Kevan Peebles and Finlay Forbes Ferguson.
• Nearby, the Colley Avenue and 21st Street corridor holds independent shops, restaurants and the Naro Expanded Cinema, about a mile from the downtown waterfront.

Sources: Virginia Department of Historic Resources, City of Norfolk and VisitNorfolk.

Buying in a Local Historic District

Ghent is also a local historic district, which is different from a National Register listing. Local designation comes with design review, and it is the part that affects your renovation plans.

• Exterior alterations, new construction and often demolition require a Certificate of Appropriateness from Norfolk's Architectural Review Board, which meets bimonthly.
• Plan your timeline around those meeting dates, and ask the city's Historic Preservation Officer which work needs review before you budget a project.
• Norfolk's other local districts are Downtown, East and West Freemason, Norfolk & Western Railroad, and Hodges House.

Rehabilitation tax credits

• Virginia's state rehabilitation tax credit is 25 percent of eligible expenses and does apply to owner-occupied homes.
• For an owner-occupied building, eligible expenses must be at least 25 percent of the building's assessed value, the building must be a certified historic structure (including a contributing building in a listed district), and the work must meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards.
• The federal 20 percent credit applies only to income-producing property.

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