Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, also known as the “Undenied Generation,” finally found true happiness: the good old days and especially those good old houses. Well, almost.

  There is a problem with those little rabbit-warren rooms, and the bathroom needs to be bigger, the kitchen smaller, and that wasted space of a porch should be enclosed, and why can’t I have a tower and some windows in the attic?

  Okay, why not? Music, please: Here it comes to save the day: The Mighty Mousey, or as better known, Historic District Commissions.

  They have sprouted across America like weeds before locusts. They fight like demons for “contributing architecture.” The sum of the parts equal the whole, unless the Mighty Mousey is otherwise convinced. They are now known as the Convincibles.

  In common are their underlying standards for remodeling: (a) “Additions must be of a compatible design in keeping with the original structures [sic] character, roof shape, materials, color, and alignment of window, door, and cornice height, etc.” (b) “Additions must be subordinate to the original structure in scale, design, and placement.”

  Inspiring words. The path to Hell is paved with good intentions. Let’s use our town for two examples (out of way too many) of Demolition By Remodeling.

  1. A Carpenter Gothic Revival cottage. This one was a mostly unadorned, steep-roofed, asymmetrical version with a cross-gable that jutted out, providing a space in the L-shape for a front porch. A pyramidal roof on a small tower rose perfectly above the roofline. Its paned windows provided light like bay windows.

  A rich man bought the house, and, among other things, moved a small, long, rectangular barn against the cross-gable side, connecting it with a second tower that served as a stairway to both floors. He needed the extra space. Although the house is not ugly, it’s no longer any style, and as “contributing architecture,” this pig in lipstick might as well have been demolished.

  2. A Hall and Parlor National Folk house. This 16th-century English style is simple and symmetrical. Two front doors are flanked by windows. The front porch has square porch posts and railings.

  There are only two rooms. One to the Hall, a pretension of Medieval Halls used for social gatherings, and the other to the parlor, an informal loblolly of family life. Later, when affordable, separate shed roofs provided a kitchen and a bathroom that usually extended from the back or side of the house.

  A Tulsa couple owns this house, which is unsaveable. They say it’s “too small.” The solution: salvage the materials and rebuild it as a story-and-a-half house, although there is a two-story version of it. The Convincibles approved the rebuilding, which replaces the Hall and Parlor style with no style.

  Homework: reread (a) and (b), above, again.