Window Treatment Across Martin Place Historic District, Franklin

Local Window Treatment Experience in Martin Place Historic District

Martin Place housing: 27 contributing buildings across 85 years

Martin Place isn't a subdivision and it doesn't behave like one. The National Register listing records 27 contributing buildings, one contributing structure and one contributing object, all residential, on town lots laid out on the original Franklin grid. No lot dimension and no house size range is published for the district, and the boundary streets aren't stated in the retrievable record either, so we work from the addresses in front of us rather than from a plat. The documented styles are Italianate, Queen Anne, American Foursquare and Craftsman bungalow, predominantly two and two and a half story, with the bungalows in the later blocks.

Eighty five years of incremental building inside one small district produces a real problem for anyone quoting by phone. An 1850s Italianate front room and a 1920s bungalow living room can share a city block and share almost nothing else: different ceiling heights, different casing profiles, different head shapes, different usable depth. Citywide, Franklin's pre-1940 stock is 1,084 units against Greenwood's 517 in a city more than twice the size, so this kind of housing is a Franklin specialty rather than a curiosity. Practically, it means a three point measure and a diagonal check on every opening, and it means we price after the measure rather than before it.

What Martin Place windows do: 20 to 30 openings, none of them standard

Start with the count. An Italianate or Queen Anne house of this period lights its rooms from two sides, carries its own stair hall glass and often has a third floor or attic level, so 20 to 30 openings per house is the working range in Martin Place against 16 to 22 for Franklin's dominant 1990 to 2009 two story stock. The American Foursquare adds a wide triple assembly across the porch front, which is one opening on the elevation and three finished widths on the order. Counting a Martin Place house properly is the first part of the job, not an afterthought.

Then the shapes. Round arch and segmental arch heads on the Italianate elevations, bay and oriel windows with irregular gable glass on the Queen Anne houses, and leaded or stained transoms scattered through both. A hard treatment cut square across an arched head looks wrong and reads as a mistake for the life of the install, so the arch either stays uncovered with the treatment hung above it, or it gets a custom shaped panel that no longer operates. Squareness is the last variable. These houses are 90 to 175 years old on original foundations, and they will measure out of square.

What we specify in Martin Place, and why it isn't what we specify on Mauxferry Road

There's no single Martin Place package, because the district holds four documented styles across 85 years. What the houses share is deep casing, out of square openings and shapes that stock sizes don't cover. That pushes the specification toward treatments carrying their own frame, or hung above the opening, and away from anything that needs a square hole and a shallow flat stop. National pricing runs $175 to $800 per window for shutters, $250 to $2,600 for custom treatments generally, and $300 to $4,000 for drapery. Custom lead time is 2 to 5 weeks. Indiana's Home Improvement Contract Act, IC 24-5-11, requires a written contract with a detailed scope and a total price on residential work over $150, and you should have one.

Martin Place streets, the courthouse square and Franklin schools

Martin Place sits in central Franklin, a short walk from the Johnson County Courthouse Square and immediately adjoining the Franklin Commercial Historic District, with Greenlawn Cemetery close by. The district's boundary streets aren't stated in the retrievable National Register record, so the only street name we'll put in print is Martin Place itself. Everything else gets confirmed at the address. Schooling is Franklin Community School Corporation, a single district for the whole city, which is unusual in this part of the metro: Greenwood is split across three corporations. Elementary assignment is by address, with Franklin Community Middle School and Franklin Community High School above it.

National Register listing in Martin Place, and what it doesn't control

Martin Place has no homeowners association, and no mandatory design review over private houses was identified. National Register listing on its own is honorific and opens the door to tax credits; it doesn't tell an owner what to hang inside their windows. A separate local preservation ordinance could change that, and we didn't locate one for Franklin, so treat the 1987 listing as recognition rather than regulation. That said, absence of evidence isn't proof. If you're inside the district and you want certainty about a change that reads from the street, the city and the Johnson County recorder are the right places to ask before you order anything.

Window Treatment Services in Martin Place Historic District

Every service Franklin Window Treatments offers across Franklin is available to Martin Place Historic District homeowners.

Where Our Installers Work Near Franklin

Martin Place Historic District is one of several Franklin communities we serve. We measure and install across Franklin, Johnson County, and surrounding areas.

Martin Place Historic District Window Treatment FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Martin Place Historic District homeowners.