Window Treatment in Fort Benjamin Harrison Historic District and Lawton Loop and Nearby Lawrence Streets

Local Window Treatment Experience in Fort Benjamin Harrison Historic District and Lawton Loop

The 1908 housing stock at Fort Ben and Lawton Loop

The residential core of the district is Colonial Revival brick, one and two story, put up by the United States Army in 1908 and rehabilitated much later by private developers working under the Fort Harrison Reuse Authority. The fort operated as a post from 1906 to 1991 and was annexed into Lawrence in 1970 over the Army's objections. What makes the housing unusual is the sizing rule. The eighteen officers' homes on Lawton Loop West Drive vary in size and detail according to whether they were built for a lieutenant, a captain or a major, so the phrase 'the same house down the street' does not describe anything on this loop.

Ownership is condominium, and it arrived in three separate regimes: Lawton Loop Condominium recorded in 2005, Lawton Loop Davis Condominiums in 2012 and Lawton Loop - Merici Village in 2020. The Marion County parcel layer returns 80 address records on Lawton Loop East Drive and Lawton Loop West Drive carrying a city value of LAWRENCE and ZIP 46216, a count that includes the condominium sub units. Beyond the houses sit the Band Barracks, the Stockade and Bachelor Officers' Quarters, the Regimental Commander's House and the 1929 Fort Theatre. Nobody publishes a parcel level size table for these buildings, so floor area and opening counts get established with a tape rather than assumed.

What 1908 masonry reveals do to a mount at Lawton Loop

Start with depth, because it's the one thing working in your favor. Deep masonry reveals in 1908 brick will clear an inside mount headrail, a shutter L-frame or a roller cassette without argument, which is the opposite of the drywall return openings across most of Lawrence. Two cautions. Where an exterior storm panel is fitted on the outside of the opening, part of that depth is already spoken for and the flat mounting surface you were counting on sits further in than it looks. And a fanlight over a principal entrance is not a mounting surface at all: it's curved, and covering it usually costs more than leaving it as the Army detailed it.

Now squareness, which is where jobs go wrong. Standard factory deduction on a custom shade is 1/16 inch per side, and Lutron publishes an inside mount light gap of 3/4 inch per side on its Roller 20/64. Both numbers assume a square opening. In an 1908 masonry opening that measures wider at the sill than at the head, that even gap becomes a wedge, and it's visible from the far side of the room whenever the parade field is bright. Three point measure is not optional at Lawton Loop. We take a width and a height at the top, the middle and the bottom of every opening, and we do it on each opening separately because nothing in these houses repeats.

What we specify inside the historic district

Two constraints drive the picks here. The buildings are 1908 brick with deep reveals and no square openings, and the binding rules are private condominium declarations recorded in 2005, 2012 and 2020 rather than any public design ordinance. Lawrence has no historic preservation commission, and the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission holds no district anywhere in the city. So the product has to be right for the wall, and the street facing appearance gets cleared with the association before anything is cut. National pricing runs $175 to $800 per window for shutters and $250 to $2,600 per window for custom shades, and a 25-opening officers' quarters is a real number at either end of that.

Streets, landmarks and schools around Lawton Loop

The district sits off North Post Road between 56th and 59th Streets in northwest Lawrence, inside Fort Harrison State Park and the surrounding reuse area, and ZIP 46216 is effectively the fort's own postcode. Lawton Loop East Drive and Lawton Loop West Drive ring the parade field, while Otis Avenue, Glenn Road, Birtz Road and Kent Avenue carry the rest of the district. The state park covers 1,700 acres, opened in 1996 and draws close to a million visitors a year, which is worth knowing when you're picking a time for a measure on a summer Saturday at Fort Ben.

Condominium declarations, not a design ordinance

Here's the honest version. National Register listing since 1995 imposes nothing on a private owner spending private money: it's recognition and tax credit eligibility, not a design rule. The City of Lawrence publishes no historic preservation commission and no architectural review board among its boards and commissions, and the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, which does hold binding certificate of appropriateness authority elsewhere in Marion County, has no district in Lawrence at all. What binds you is private: the three Lawton Loop condominium declarations from 2005, 2012 and 2020, plus any rehabilitation tax credit covenant on a building that took the credit. Those documents weren't retrievable. Treat a street facing rule as unknown rather than absent, and ask the association first.

Window Treatment Services in Fort Benjamin Harrison Historic District and Lawton Loop

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