Category Archive: Easements
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Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. Keynote Address at the 2006 National Preservation Conference
PHLF News
October 31, 2006“Preservation In Pittsburgh” Keynote address of Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. at the 2006 National Preservation Conference held in Pittsburgh, PA, October 31, 2006
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Down on the Farm
While Landmarks has gained national attention using planned gifts like easements to enable historic buildings to be adapted and reborn, our greatest satisfaction comes from helping people of all demographics support our mission and their families. Consider Clare and Duncan Horner.
Nearly three decades ago, the couple purchased a run-down house in the Mexican War Streets Neighborhood from Landmarks, then gave us a facade easement on the property. They went on to restore the building and acquire four others, now in various stages of restoration.
Thus, it should come as no surprise that when Landmarks recently offered to use Richard Scaife and Laurel Foundation funding to purchase a preservation easement on the Horner’s mid-19th century, 65-acre Greene County farm, the Horners not only agreed, but are using the $25,000 purchase price to restore the farmhouse and are refinancing their mortgage to secure the easement and make a $25,000 gift to endow the costs associated with monitoring it.
The story of the creative way the gift was structured and the Horner’s three-decade relationship with Landmarks will be featured in the next issue of PHLF News. For now, however, Duncan and Clare are just happy knowing that they’ve preserved a home for daughters Anne and Jocelyn.
As for the farm, “it’s a strategically located property on the intersection of two rural roads adjoining Ryerson Station State Park,” says Landmarks President Arthur Ziegler. “The woodframe Victorian farmhouse with carpenter gingerbread posts and wood barn represent the prior use of the property as an active farm.
“The site has both lowland and hilltop, a large pond with earth dam, a wooded area above the pond contiguous to the State Park woodland and there is a wetland with a wide variety of natural growth in the lowland. It’s definitely worth preserving.”
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Pittsburgh foundation controls Bedford Springs Hotel’s future
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Wednesday, March 29, 2006Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is playing a key role in a $90 million renovation and expansion of the historic Bedford Springs Hotel in Bedford County.
The preservationist organization on Pittsburgh’s South Side, which for more than 15 years has been concerned about the fate of the landmark property, has accepted the donation of a conservation easement that ensures preservation of historic elements of the 200-year-old hotel.
“This is an extremely important project as a jobs generator and for economic development in Bedford County,” Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., the foundation’s president, said Tuesday. “In addition, it enables a major historic complex to be restored and go back into service.”
The foundation’s easement allows it to monitor redevelopment of the hotel and “protects the elaborate wooden gingerbread porches on the guest wings and the Greek Revival central building dating from 1829-42.” In addition, it protects an indoor swimming pool wing and a historic golf course.
The Bedford County hotel, whose earliest buildings date to 1806, in former times of elegance served as the summer White House for Pennsylvania’s only native-born president, James Buchanan.
The property, about 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, has been closed since 1990. Since then, several plans to resurrect the hotel failed for varied reasons.
But now the easement and historic tax credits available for the renovation are part of a financing plan that helped Bedford Resort Partners Ltd., a group headed by Texas developer Mark Langdale, to proceed.
The credits and tax deductions available through the easement are expected to cover about $19.5 million of the development costs for the project, which is expected to be completed in 2007. As previously reported, the state is providing $24.9 million in redevelopment grants plus a separate $2 million infrastructure grant.
Minneapolis-based investment banker The Marshall Group has put together a consortium of banks for a $38.7 million first mortgage on the property, with Langdale putting in $4.4 million.
Two other important players are Thistle Financial Group, a Westmoreland County-based company that is providing bridge financing, and The Ferchill Group, a Cleveland-based developer that has expertise in similar historic preservation projects.
Landmarks also cooperated with Ferchill in securing easements and tax credits that helped develop the Heinz Lofts luxury apartment complex on Pittsburgh’s North Shore.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Groups band together to preserve local farmland
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, March 07, 2006Farmer Ron Beinlich, who grows berries, peaches, pumpkins and other fruits and vegetables on his Triple B Farms near Monongahela, has been watching family farms disappear all of his life.
“Every farm in Allegheny County is under some development pressure,” he told a nearly full house in the 183-seat Carnegie Museum of Art Theater Saturday morning. They came to hear an overview of local farm preservation efforts from three groups working to keep the bulldozers at bay: Allegheny County Farm Preservation Board, Allegheny Land Trust and Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. They do it by purchasing the development rights of farm land, which are held as easements against the property.
“We have preserved every farm we’ve tried,” Beinlich said of the preservation board, which he helped establish seven years ago. The board, funded by the county and authorized by state law, has preserved nine farms and a total of 1,100 acres in the county. Through the Growing Greener II ballot initiative, which Pennsylvania voters approved last year, $3.6 million in farm preservation money is available to the board this year.
The money will be used to identify farmers interested in preserving agricultural use of their land in perpetuity and to fund the preservation easements. The cost of the easement is equal to the amount of the development value of the property — put another way, it’s the difference between what the farm would sell for as a farm and what it would sell for as land to be developed for housing or non-agricultural commercial use.
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has purchased easements on farm building facades as well as entire farms, said attorney Martha Jordan, a Landmarks trustee. Jack Miller, Landmarks director of gift planning, said that with the help of a $500,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation grant and $600,000 from Landmarks the organization has preserved more than 13,000 acres of farmland in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties with a collective value of almost $6 million. In Washington County, the Allegheny Land Trust, headed by Roy Kraynyk, has preserved the 103-acre Linder horse farm.
While the museum’s program focused mostly on Allegheny County efforts, almost every Pennsylvania county now has an agricultural land preservation board. And through Growing Greener II, the state protected 37 farms on 3,360 acres last year. The goal is to protect another 2,000 farms over the next six years. Pennsylvania leads the nation in farmland preservation, with a total of 2,783 farms and 318,350 acres saved from development, and with 55 of its 67 counties enrolled in the easement purchase program.
Those efforts seem to have come just in the nick of time, as the Brookings Institution’s 2003 study showed Pennsylvania also is a national leader in sprawl, second only to Wyoming.
The museum program, called “Preserving Western Pennsylvania’s Farms,” was held in conjunction with the Heinz Architectural Center exhibit, “Barns of Western Pennsylvania: Vernacular to Spectacular,” which continues through May 28.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Slowing urban sprawl
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Sunday, December 12, 2004Jack Miller remembers well the day in 2000 when he met Lucille Tooke on her family farm in Pine.
Tooke stopped the tractor she was riding and in the subsequent conversation she eventually told Miller, “I think God sent you to me.”“Talk about pressure,” said Miller, director of gift planning for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
His mission — to find some way the nonprofit preservationist organization could help Tooke preserve her farm, and save it from ending up as part of either another new housing development or a commercial project in the fast-growing suburban North Hills.
Starting with Tooke’s farm, the Landmarks Foundation has used novel financing strategies as part of its Historic Farm Preservation Program to save five historic farms in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, encompassing some 1,300 acres of property and 10 different farm structures.
It did so with the help of a $500,000 grant from Richard King Mellon Foundation, which the foundation matched with an additional $600,000.
Using bargain sales and sometimes complicated gift strategies, the Landmarks Foundation has been able to leverage that $1.1 million to protect structures and land with an estimated value of about $6 million, said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., head of the organization since its inception 40 years ago.
“Farms are disappearing at a very rapid clip in Allegheny County and Southwestern Pennsylvania and urban sprawl is gaining even though we have a declining population,” Ziegler said. “Our program has been important both in terms of slowing sprawl and preserving farms and farm buildings and that way of life.”
“Some of these historic farms that can show how people lived 100 or 200 years ago need to be preserved,” Miller said.
That doesn’t mean economic development has be stopped in the process.
“They can be developed around rather than developed on,” Miller said.
One problem is that the program now is out of funds. And the foundation has identified at least 10 more farms it says are “architecturally significant.”
Nine are in Allegheny County and one is in Washington County. In addition, it has had inquiries about other farms in Butler, Fayette and Westmoreland counties.
If the organization had another $1 million, it could save another 2,000 acres and five of those properties, Miller believes.
Landmarks has approached other foundations in hopes of raising more funds, Ziegler said. In addition, Miller said the foundation is hoping to work with others dedicated to preserving farm properties, including the Allegheny County Agricultural Land Preservation Program, in an effort to attract more private support.
The farm preservation program got its start when Tooke donated her 64-acre Hidden Valley Farm on Old State Road. It features a farmhouse built in 1835 that was awarded an historic landmark plaque in 1979.
“She (Tooke) wanted to see if there was a way she should get the funds she needed to retire without having to prostitute the farm,” Miller said.
At his suggestion, Tooke agreed to establish what is known as a charitable remainder unitrust, or CRUT.
With this form of gift, a donor transfers cash, securities or other properties to the trust, and in the process avoids capital gains tax, receives a federal income tax deduction, and a percentage of the trust’s value in income annually over a set period.
Because federal tax laws required the trustee to entertain bids to assure the highest price for the assets, Tooke could not just give the farm to the foundation outright. But she was legally permitted to specify that any organization willing to preserve the property would have the right to match the highest offer.
Thus, Landmarks ended up as the highest bidder, paying about $580,000 to purchase the property. The foundation then placed preservation easement on the farmhouse and the land to prevent any nonagricultural development.
Tooke was able to retire in Chambersburg, Franklin County, with a revenue stream that will last a total of 20 years. Her three daughters will receive the payouts if she dies before that period expires.
Landmarks Foundation’s objective was not to own the property, only to preserve it, Miller said. “So we had to find someone to buy it who would honor the terms of the easement.”
That turned out to be William Versaw, of Fox Chapel, who is also interested in preservation.
“I have five children and wanted to find a place we could use and enjoy close to home,” said Versaw, who has restored the historic farmhouse and enjoys gathering apples on the property for apple pies.
“It also had an appeal to it because it can never be developed, so it can be passed on to future generations,” he said. “I’m not opposed to development, but if we can save some green space in this area, it makes for a good balance.”
Versaw purchased the property for about $400,000, and he gave the foundation an additional $10,000 to endow the preservation easement. The funds cover Landmarks’ expense in monitoring the property annually.
“We lost about $200,000 on the deal, but we should get that back from the funds that remain in the trust at the end of the 20-year period,” Miller said. That is because Tooke made the foundation the irrevocable beneficiary of her trust.
The foundation found other methods to preserve other farm properties.
One example is the O-Shea-Hausen farm in Donegal, Westmoreland County, a property owned by two priests, Jeremiah O’Shea and C. William Hausen, which traces its roots back to the early 1800s.
Landmarks helped the owners pay off a mortgage (about $50,000) on the 62-acre site, generate some additional income for their retirement through a charitable gift annuity and provide $10,000 to endow the monitoring costs for a preservation easement.
The foundation will get back the gift portion of the annuity when the donors die.
O’Shea said he and Hausen purchased the Geary farm in 1992. It contained a barn that dated back to the 1890s, which was built by the Geary family, and a log cabin, which dates to the mid-1800s.
O’Shea said he contacted Landmarks after getting information about its program from American Farmland Trust.
In another case, Landmarks assumed a mortgage on a farmhouse owned by James and Dorothy Wycoff, descendants of the original owners of the Van Kirk Farm in Elizabeth in order to obtain a preservation easement. Horses used in the Lewis & Clark Expedition once were boarded on the 71-acre farm property.
It also saved two other properties in Elizabeth, one a 214-acre farm off Park Avenue owned by the estate of Helen R. Wycoff by negotiating a preservation easement.
The other property was an adjoining 54-acre parcel off Rothey Drive. The organization purchased the property at fair market value and conveyed it to owner of the Wycoff farm, who accepted the land as payment for an easement.
“Every situation is different,” said Miller. “It depends on the owner’s life situation, their family situation. But I think it’s important for people’s personal advisers to help them recognize that sometimes they can help them achieve their goals by showing them how they can give away their assets rather than keeping them.”
In the case of preserving an historic farm property, “You don’t have to give it away and lose it; you can give it away and keep it,” he said.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
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Merging Preservation and Planned Giving
Preservation Easement Program
Land Trust Alliance, Exchange Article – Volume 23, No. 1, Winter 2004The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (“Landmarks”) in Pennsylvania merged preservation and planned giving in one innovative transaction that began in 2001 with the creation of a charitable remainder unitrust (CRUT) that named Landmarks as its sole, irrevocable beneficiary.
Lucille Tooke, a longtime Landmarks member, owned the historic property that was given to the CRUT. Hidden Valley Farm in Pine Township, Pennsylvania, was built in 1835 by Lewis Ross and his wife, Temperance. Now most of the land surrounding the farm has been developed. Tooke told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the thought of her farm one day becoming part of the suburbs “made me shudder.”
Tooke and her husband, Jack, had bought the 64 acre farm in 1954. After her three daughters moved away and her husband died, it became increasingly difficult for Tooke to care for the farm, so she approached Landmarks to see if they knew of anyone interested in buying and preserving the property. Landmarks helped Tooke work out a plan wherein she gave the farm to a CRUT, received a charitable deduction for a portion of the property’s value, and now receives a percentage of the trust’s value each year until 2021.
When the trust put the farm up for sale, Landmarks was able to match the highest bid and buy the farm, creating the cash needed to generate Tooke’s income payments. Landmarks added deed restrictions that require future owners to get prior approval from the organization before altering the house’s exterior. They also stipulated that the land cannot be subdivided or used for non-agricultural commercial purposes. They then sold it with the security of knowing it will be protected in perpetuity.
The arrangement provided Tooke with needed retirement income and when her payments end in 2021, Landmarks receives the trust balance as a gift to its endowment program.
Jack Miller, director of planned giving at Landmarks, said that during the process, Landmarks had to figure out how to keep all of its roles straight, being both beneficiary and buyer. “In the end we accomplished what both we and Mrs. Tooke wanted: to preserve this beautiful farm in the midst of rapid development.”
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Heinz factory conversion creates lofty living on North Side
By Alison Conte
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 9, 2004The transformation of the old H.J. Heinz factory on the North Side into luxury apartments could be called the new Industrial Revolution.
Heinz Lofts includes the Bean, Meat, Cereal and Reservoir buildings, which were named for the commodities that were produced or stored inside them. More than 150 of the planned 267 apartments will be available this month.Boasting great views of the Allegheny River, the Strip District and Downtown, the complex — which formerly housed manufacturing rooms, shipping docks and test kitchens — also will have a cafe, convenience store, community room and fitness center. The varied amenities will make Heinz Lofts “a town within a town,” says Debbie Roberts, property manager for Amore Management Co. of Monroeville, which handles leasing.
“This is precedent-setting in terms of the magnitude of the project,” says Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “It is one of the most historically significant industrial complexes in Pittsburgh.”
Renovating challenges
This kind of industrial renovation and historic reuse is the specialty of the Ferchill Group of Cleveland, which is undertaking the $70 million project. Chief executive officer John Ferchill developed the Bridgeside Point Building at the Pittsburgh Technology Center and also is remodeling the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee, Wis., into a residential and entertainment complex.
“We do a lot of renovations of old warehouses,” says Michael Wellman, project manager. His firm, Sandvick Architects of Cleveland, is familiar with the building codes that can be applied to older buildings and the challenges in historic preservation.
“The factory doesn’t naturally lend itself to a layout for housing,” says Jonathan Sandvick, principal of the firm. “We need to accommodate long, deep spaces and high ceilings.”
The challenge led to unusual floor plans. Because of the width of the building, each apartment has a long hallway leading in from the central corridor. In some units, the bedrooms, laundry and baths are off these hallways. Others feature a galley kitchen along the hall. Think of an ocean liner without interior cabins, where every stateroom has a porthole.
At the end of the halls, the living areas are saturated with natural light from the large square or semi-round arch windows that fill the exterior walls.
“We use borrowed light from these spaces, and interior windows to bring light to the bedrooms,” Wellman says.
This design leaves plenty of room for large living/dining areas with high ceilings, some of which include a fireplace, den or roof deck. For easy entertaining, many models have a kitchen and breakfast bar as part of the living rooms.
The architects faced a hefty challenge of working with the factory’s original equipment and structural elements such as pipes and columns, exposed brick, ductwork and steel beams.
“We celebrated these features, used them as sculpture in the spaces throughout,” Sandvick says. The 15-foot-high ceilings offered height to spare, so multiple levels with steps up or down to bedrooms have been incorporated.
Keeping the past intact
Because the Heinz factory is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the developer is eligible for a 20 percent tax credit if it follows certain conditions regarding reconstruction, Wellman says. This includes preserving the original exterior and one-third of the window frames.
Along with extensive cleaning of the masonry work, Roberts says, 2,000 new windows had to match the look and feel of the existing ones.
Two of the towers that the factory used will be brought back to serve as a gateway to the site. “We are also saving or reconstructing six of the bridges that connect all the buildings on the third, fourth or fifth floor,” Wellman says.
In the fifth-floor penthouse apartment of the Cereal Building, builders are using a window for a door. To get to their private roof deck, residents will mount a short staircase and duck through 4-foot-tall windows that have been converted to 4-foot-tall doors. The quirky arrangement is part of the charm.
Other remnants of the buildings’ past will be found in reconditioned stairwells, where the wood railings, terrazzo tile and ironwork are being cleaned and painted. To preserve the Heinz legacy, Sandvick says, some of the common areas will be decorated with Heinz 57 memorabilia and artifacts found during the construction.
Bridges that connect the buildings will allow residents to walk from one of the 500 garage parking spaces in Shipping, pick up mail and dry cleaning in Cereal, and stroll to their home in Reservoir, unencumbered by weather. Indoor parking is just one of the features drawing potential tenants to the site.
“People at all stages of life like the location, the amenities and the variety of floor plans,” Roberts says. “They can get public transportation to the city or walk over the bridge to the Strip.”
The Cereal building will be the “town square” for Heinz Lofts, where residents can gather in a community room with a kitchen, TV and fireplace. There also will be an indoor/outdoor cafe, mailboxes, convenience store, dry cleaning pickup and coin-operated laundry.
A business services center offers a conference room, fax, wireless Internet and conference call capabilities. Exercise equipment, a sauna, individual lap pool and hot tub are features of the fitness center.
For the ultimate Heinz Lofts living experience, one of the newly reconstructed towers will be part of a two-bedroom apartment. Another apartment will be incorporated into the rebuilt bridge and suspended three stories off the ground.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which has been involved in the factory restoration, further protected the buildings by accepting a facade and development rights easement from the Ferchill Group. Nothing can be built over or above them — the exterior must continue to look like the historical buildings of the factory. Landmarks has permanent control over any changes to the exterior, foundation President Ziegler says.
Because the easement restrictions diminished the value of the property, Ziegler says, John Ferchill was able to take a charitable contribution, obtaining substantial dollars in federal tax deductions that helped his funding needs.
“The factory will look the same — the fine arched windows and red brick,” Ziegler says. “But it is better because people will be living in it. It brings housing close to town, to the river and the North Side, helping development in all these areas.”
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Homeowner wants to make sure Heathside Cottage will outlive her
By Gretchen McKay,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Saturday, July 12, 2003Anyone who’s ever fixed up a neglected old house knows it takes more than time and money. It takes some of your soul.
Judith Harvey in the “urban garden” at her Fineview home. She restored the dilapidated Gothic Revival cottage then bought the abandoned house next door, had it torn down and created the garden. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)
Just ask Judith Harvey. She spent close to five years restoring Heathside Cottage, a six-room Gothic Revival cottage in the North Side’s Fineview neighborhood. Snow White herself would feel at home within its rounded walls and fanciful gingerbread trim.
“Some houses talk to you,” says Harvey with a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “I knew the moment I saw its chimney from the street up above that I had to have it.”
What one person loves, however, another might surrender to the wrecking ball. So soon after the meticulous restoration was complete, the former librarian began worrying about her tiny house’s future. What would happen when she was gone?
“It really troubled me,” she recalls. “It was important that I find a way to protect it.”
A member of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Harvey said her first thought was to simply leave it in her will to the historic preservation group. It didn’t matter if it used it as an art gallery or a study; all she wanted was peace of mind that her 165-year-old house — which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and bears a Landmarks plaque — would survive intact for years to come.
But while gifts of property provide Landmarks with much-needed cash to support its mission, “we’re not in the real estate business,” says Jack Miller, director of gift planning. Besides, even though Landmarks would get the proceeds from the eventual sale of the house, buyers would be able to do anything they wanted with the property. So he suggested protecting it first, then making a “retained life estate” gift.
Here’s how it works: Harvey granted a facade easement to Landmarks that guarantees no one could ever change the exterior of the house. She then deeded the house to the foundation but retained the right to live in or rent it for the rest of her life. She would also be responsible for property taxes and maintenance.
Heathside Cottage sits on Caroma Street in Fineview. Owner Judith Harvey is making sure that the house and all the work she put into restoring it will outlive her by making a “retained life estate gift” of the property to Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)
“Nothing changes until the day she dies,” Miller says.
But what about taxes? Harvey is entitled to a charitable income tax deduction. Also, the property is no longer part of an estate that could be attached — by a nursing home, for instance — if Harvey could no longer care for herself. The best part, however, is that Harvey’s home and handiwork will be preserved for future generations.
Built around 1855 by bridge engineer James Andrews, the brick cottage is so unusual that it was featured in Rick Sebak’s 1997 documentary “North Side Story.” It is a model of Early Victorian design, with lacy bargeboard, a steeply pitched roof and diamond-paned sash windows. And its location on a hilly outcrop gives it a mighty fine view of Downtown, hence the neighborhood’s name.
Harvey bought the dilapidated house in 1992 as a weekend “playhouse,” then moved in permanently after her husband died in 1996. She also purchased the abandoned house next door and then had it torn down to create an urban garden (the stone foundation serves as a wall).
The largest rooms in the two-story cottage measure just 14 feet square, though the 11 1/2-foot ceilings on the first floor –many with beautiful wallpaper — lend an airy feel. Antiques and collectibles reflect Harvey’s love for anything old.
But there are some modern touches, as well. A large mirror above the mantel in the “futon” room is an inspired background for several smaller mirrors; Harvey herself designed the dining room’s enormous rosewood sideboard, which was handmade in Pakistan.
A narrow staircase leads to the light-filled second floor. Here, slanted walls and a whimsical diamond-shaped window in the bedroom (it’s held up by a chain attached to a hook) add to the cottage’s storybook feel. A slender, pointed “lancet” window in the bedroom-turned-closet room reminds visitors of the home’s Gothic roots. Harvey couldn’t bear to think of it in ruins.
“It’s protected as much as it can be,” she says. “It’s where people can see history and be a part of it.”
“Judith obviously cared very much about the property, so it worked out well,” says Miller.
Many people are not aware that they can give their house or farm — or in the case of one donor, a pizza manufacturing plant — to a charitable organization.
Miller says such “planned gifts” work best for people who want to do something for the community and, in some cases, receive income from an asset that is not normally an income-producing property. With a planned gift, donors find that they are able to contribute more than they thought possible while still providing for their family. Miller is quick to note that no one should enter into one of these agreements without the advice of a lawyer and/or financial consultant or accountant.
Harvey’s retained life estate gift of Heathside Cottage, the first gift of its kind to Landmarks, is only one way to go, Miller says. A charitable gift annuity, for instance, allows someone to give a gift of property in exchange for fixed income payments for life that are based on the age and number of beneficiaries. An added benefit is an upfront tax deduction.
A charitable remainder trust, by way of contrast, permits someone to transfer a property to a trust, avoid capital-gains tax and receive a fixed or variable payment each year for up to 20 years or the lifetime of the income beneficiary. Like the annuity, the gift also carries a federal income tax deduction for the donor.
Lucille Tooke chose the charitable remainder trust option when she donated her historic property, Hidden Valley Farm in Pine, to Landmarks in 2001.
Tooke and her husband, Jack, bought the farm in 1954 and spent the next 40 years raising their three daughters on its 64 acres. After Jack died in 1993, it became increasingly difficult for Tooke to take care of it on her own.
“It got to be more than I could handle,” says Tooke, a longtime Landmarks member who now lives in Chambersburg, Franklin County.
So in 2000, she asked Landmarks officials if they knew anyone who might be interested in buying and preserving the property. Most of the land surrounding the farm, which was built in 1835 by Lewis Ross and his wife, Temperance, had already been developed. The thought that it, too, might one day become part of the ‘burbs “made me shudder,” says Tooke.
Unlike Harvey, Tooke was ready to sell the house so she could move closer to her daughters. However, she also needed an income to meet living expenses. Landmarks helped her work out a plan.
She avoided capital-gains tax by turning the farm over to the trust and received a charitable deduction for a portion of the property’s value and a percentage of the trust’s value each year.
When the trust put the farm up for sale, Landmarks had the right to match the highest bid and ended up buying it.
Before reselling it, Landmarks added deed restrictions that required owners to get prior approval from Landmarks before altering the house’s exterior. They also stipulated that the land could not be subdivided or used for non-agricultural commercial purposes.
Even though the restrictions lowered the selling price and made it more difficult to find a buyer, it helped preserve a historic landmark.
“The land and building will be there forever,” says Miller. “And one day, when urban sprawl takes over, the public will be able to see what an early 19th-century farm looked like.”
OK, you’re thinking, a property has to be of historical or architectural significance for Landmarks to be interested in it. Not so. Mary Ann and Tony Kopczynski recently donated the buildings that housed their pizza manufacturing business in McKees Rocks in the form of a charitable gift annuity. In exchange for the 5,000-square-foot warehouse and adjoining office building, the couple receive fixed annual payments for as long as they live.
They also got a sizable federal charitable income tax deduction for the gift portion of the property transfer.
“It gave them an opportunity to retire without having to worry about selling the property,” says Miller.
For more information on the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s Planned Giving Program, visit http://plannedgifts.phlf.org/or call Jack Miller at 412-471-5808, ext. 538.