Constructed Water Features

Capturing and harnessing water for the domestic and agricultural uses of the property were critical to its function and viability as a home and economic enterprise. The infrastructure associated with harnessing water spans from the invisible to the highly visible.

Evaluate the viability of restoring one or all the historic wells, especially if the springs that supported them are still functioning. This could include restoring the windmill or pump house that was part of that infrastructure. See related recommendations under Natural Systems.

. The type and level of rehabilitation will depend on their current condition and planned use. For example, stock tanks that remain in use for grazing livestock will need to be rehabilitated for that use and those that will be adapted to support wildlife habitat or as landscape amenities for guests will be rehabilitated for that use. In the second example, water quality and riparian edge restoration will likely be needed in many cases. In all cases, the location, scale, and structural components of the stock tank should be preserved as best as possible to ensure the legibility of this critical historic landscape feature remains.

The view to the Bassett House and from it to the road was a distinctive element of this landscape and the Bassett family’s relationship to the property and the community.

Prioritize the restoration and future management of the view to and from the Bassett House and Kosse-Marlin Road. Some vegetation clearing will be needed to restore the viewshed and that configuration should be maintained with no new plantings in areas where plants did not exist during most of the historic period. This may also include replanting trees adjacent to the house that shielded from view the various outbuildings behind the house. Though most of the buildings are in similar locations to those present during the historic period, some are new or have changed so locations for new plantings should reflect the current building locations. Though views were possible from a section of the road, the prime viewpoint exists at the center of the historic entry road near where it intersected the county road.

Intentional tree lines (such as those along the north edge of the domestic core between Bassett House and the outbuildings) and mature specimen trees existed at Home Place during the period of significance. Clearing should focus on mid-sized trees, shrubs, and brush. Opportunities for clearing include: views and vistas may be identified and managed to improve sightlines and visitor use. Consideration should be made to ensure these views don’t impact or detract from historic viewsheds.

• The fence alignments along both edges of the Historic Kosse-Marlin Road in front of Bassett House.

• The full width of the front yard at Bassett House between the driveway and the edge of the former kitchen garden site.

• The east and west yards at Bassett House.

Small-scale features are often overlooked, but collectively they often provide defining character details within a cultural landscape. If too many are lost then those critical details are lost, and if too many contemporary small-scale features are added they can overwhelm the character of the property as a whole.

Maintain and preserve as many historic fence alignments as possible. For example,

• If a particular alignment is no longer actively used, then maintain its location only.

• If a fence alignment is still used, but its historic type no longer meets the current use then explore rehabilitation options for that fence. For example, historic photos show a wood post and barbed wire fence demarcating the property line along County Road 666 in front of Home Place where the non-historic metal ornamental fence is currently aligned.8

• If a historic fence meets its current use, then complete regular maintenance to ensure that remains the case.

• Seek grant funding from the United States Department of Agriculture to repair and maintain existing fences along the riparian corridors.

8 Basset Farms Conservancy: Historic Photographs, 40.

Maintain and preserve as many distinctive historic fence types that remain. This will likely require a survey of the different fence types around Bassett Farms, which can be incorporated into a preservation education workshop or partnering student education program. Note that the ornamental metal fence at Home Place was installed after the period of significance and is not considered historic.

Restore the historic wood fencing in the domestic core and remove the metal fence that was added after the period of significance to help rehabilitate a historic feature and the core’s spatial organization. This will also facilitate better informal pedestrian flow around the through the domestic core.

Prioritize restoration of known but non-extant fence alignments wherever possible when siting new fencing. Unless extraordinary circumstances arise, all new fences should be minimal and contemporary in appearance and be easily movable and removable. For example, temporary vv fencing has been used very effectively to control cattle in the historic ranches of Point Reyes National Seashore when the historic alignments and fences don’t meet current herd management needs. See related recommendation about trails and fence types under Circulation.

Continue to maintain and preserve cattle related infrastructure such as cattle guards, corrals, and the cattle wash (or dipping vat). While this is especially important for those features that remain in use, those that are not in use should follow similar guidelines as established earlier for historic fences. Restoration of the cattle wash could be considered if it’s feasible.

An exception to this recommendation includes the cattle guards along the non-historic ornamental fence line at Home Place. These features were installed after the period of significance and present a hazard to pedestrians visiting the Bassett House. The cattle guards may be removed and stored or moved to areas of the farm where cattle historically ranged.

Continue to institute a less is more approach for signage at Home Place than is typically present in cultural landscapes adapted for contemporary uses. For example,

• Use temporary interpretive signage that can be easily installed and removed for events.

• Develop a wayfinding signage plan that uses a minimal amount of discrete signage focused on navigation to critical facilities such as the site, parking on the site, and restrooms.

• For any other interpretive or wayfinding needs, use staff or volunteers to disseminate information, or develop digital or tactile methods for individual self-guided use.

• Permanent or more visually prominent signage can be used with more frequency and is more appropriate in the outlying areas of Bassett Farms that will not be regularly staffed.

Site all contemporary infrastructure in the least visible locations possible. This includes security elements, utilities, etc.

Design and install a minimal amount of lighting that is needed for regular evening and night use and safety.

• The light fixtures should be dark sky compliant, be sited in the least visible locations possible, and utilize any existing infrastructure to avoid new additions to the landscape.

• Using non-contributing buildings or landscape features would be the first choice, and negative impacts to any contributing building or landscape feature should be avoided.

• All lighting should be designed so that it can be turned on only when needed, and that it remains off when not needed. Motion sensors can be used in places to provide safety and security lighting where regular movement occurs by staff and guests during nighttime hours.

Top: Any new lighting should be compatible, yet distinct from what is known to have existed during the historic period. Within agricutlrual landscapes lighting is often affixed to buidlings. This is appropriate if installation causes no irreperable damage to historic building fabric. (Steel Lighting Co)

Bottom Left: Simple contemporary light fixtures can be added in necessary locations. (Trex Lighting)

Bottom Right: Corten steel is a simple, durable material that evokes both a contemporary and rustic agricultural character and could be used for visitor orientation signage. (Gnee Steels)

Top: Another example of corten steel used for a sign that is scaled to be seen from the road for use with vehicular traffic. This could be used to note the visitor entrance from the Kosse-Marlin Road. (Strootman Landscape Architecture/Harry Cock)

Bottom: Electric fencing is ideally suited for managing livestock in historic pastures due to its minimal appearance which fades into the background, and the ease of moving it within larger pasture areas to manage grazing animals. (Wellscroft)

McClelland, Linda Flint, J. Timothy Keller, Genevieve Keller, and Robert Z. Melnick. National Register Bulletin: Guidelines for Evaluating and Documenting Rural Historic Landscapes. Washington, D.C.: US Department of the Interior, 1990.

National Park Service. Central Alaska Inventory & Monitoring Network: Soundscapes. https://www.nps.gov/im/cakn/sounds. htm. Accessed May 2020.

National Park Service. The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and the Guidelines for the Treatment of Cultural Landscapes. 1996.

National Park Service. National Register Bulletin: How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation. Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, 1997.

Page, Robert R., Cathy A. Gilbert, and Susan A. Dolan. A Guide to Cultural Landscape Reports; Contents, Processes, and Techniques. Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, 1998.

Bassett Farms Conservancy. https://www. bassettfarms.org, n.d.

Thompson, Evan R (Compiled and arranged by). Bassett Farms Conservancy: Historic Photographs. October 2021.

Thompson, Evan R. Bassett Farms Site History, Part One: General Overview DRAFT. October 2021.

Thompson, Evan R. Bassett Farms Site History, Part Two: Bassett Home Place DRAFT. October 2021.

Thompson, Evan R. Bassett Farms Site History, Part Three: The Blum Place DRAFT. October 2021.

Thompson, Evan R. Bassett Farms Site History, Part Four: The Hirshfield Farm DRAFT. October 2021.

Note to Reviewers: If there are other terms that you feel would be beneficial to add to this appendix please let us know.

Character-Defining Features (see Landscape Features)

Conifer

A conifer is a plant that produces cones as seeds. Conifers are primarily evergreen, but there are deciduous varieties as well.

Cultural Resources

Cultural resources include districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects generally older than 50 years and considered to be important to a culture, subculture, or community for scientific, traditional, religious, or other reasons. They include prehistoric resources, historic-era resources, cultural landscapes, and traditional cultural properties.

Cultural Landscape

A cultural landscape is defined as a geographic area (including both cultural and natural resources and the wildlife therein) associated with a historic event, activity, or person or exhibiting other cultural or aesthetic values.

Deciduous

A deciduous plant is one that sheds its leaves or needles in the fall and remains dormant during the winter months before re-emerging in the spring.

Evergreen

An evergreen plant is one that retains its leaves or needles throughout the entire year. Evergreen plants can have either leaves or needles.

Historic District (often abbreviated to district)

A historic district is a geographically definable area, urban or rural, possessing a significant concentration, linkage, or continuity of sites, landscapes, structures, or objects, united by past events or aesthetically by plan or physical developments.

Historic Period (see Period of Significance)

Historic Property (sometimes shortened to Property)

A historic property is the umbrella term for one of the five types of resources that can be listed in the National Register of Historic Places: historic buildings, districts, sites, structures, and objects. Cultural landscapes are typically recognized as districts or sites.

Historic Site

A landscape significant for its association with a historic event, activity, or person.

Historic Vernacular Landscape

A landscape whose use, construction, or physical layout reflects endemic traditions, customs, beliefs, or values; expresses cultural values, social behavior, and individual actions over time, is manifested in physical features and materials and their interrelationships, including patterns of spatial organization, land use, circulation, vegetation, structures, and objects. It is a landscape whose physical, biological, and cultural features reflect the customs and everyday lives of people.

Integrity (also referred to as historical integrity)

Integrity is the authenticity of a cultural landscape’s historic identity evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during its historic or prehistoric period. It refers to the ability of a historic place to convey its significance. It’s also defined as the extent to which a cultural landscape retains its historic appearance.

Landscape Characteristics

Landscape characteristics include tangible and intangible aspects of a landscape from the historic period(s); these aspects individually and collectively give a landscape its historic character and aid in the understanding of its cultural importance. Landscape characteristics range from large-scale patterns and relationships to site details and materials. The characteristics are categories under which individual associated features can be grouped. For example, the landscape characteristic, vegetation, may include such features as a specimen tree, hedgerow, woodlot, and perennial bed.

Landscape Features (also referred to as Character-Defining Features)

Landscape features are prominent or distinctive elements of a cultural landscape. In a cultural landscape, individual features are grouped under broader categories of landscape characteristics. For example, such features as ravines, valleys, wetlands, and cliffs are grouped under the landscape characteristic, “natural systems and features.”

The period of significance, also referred to as the historic period, is the length of time when a property was associated with important events, activities, or person(s), or attained the characteristics that qualify it for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Preservation

Preservation is the act or process of applying measures necessary to sustain the existing form, integrity, and materials of an historic property. Work, including preliminary measures to protect and stabilize the property, generally focuses upon the ongoing maintenance and repair of historic materials and features rather than extensive replacement and new construction. New exterior additions are not within the scope of this treatment; however, the limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other code-required work to make properties functional is appropriate within a preservation project.

Preservation Maintenance

Preservation maintenance is the action taken to mitigate wear and deterioration of a cultural landscape without altering its historic character by protecting its condition, repairing when its condition warrants with the least degree of intervention including limited replacement in kind, replacing an entire feature in kind when the level of deterioration or damage of materials precludes repair, and stabilizing to protect damaged materials or features from additional damage.

Rehabilitation is the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features that convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values.

Restoration

Restoration is the act or process of accurately depicting the form, features, and character of a property as it appeared at a particular period of time by means of the removal of features from other periods in its history and reconstruction of missing features from the restoration period. The limited and sensitive upgrading of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems and other coderequired work to make properties functional is appropriate within a restoration project.

Reconstruction

Reconstruction is the act or process of depicting, by means of new construction, the form, features, and detailing of a non-surviving site, landscape, building, structure, or object for the purpose of replicating its appearance at a specific period of time and in its historic location.

Significance (also referred to as historical significance)

Significance is the meaning or value ascribed to a structure, landscape, object, or site based on the National Register of Historic Places criteria for evaluation. It normally stems from a combination of association and integrity.

Treatment (also referred to as preservation treatment)

Treatment is the preservation strategy and actions for the long-term care and management of a cultural landscape including preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction.