historic covenants

     A historic covenant is an agreement written into the deed of sale of a piece of property. It usually stipulates that the building, or perhaps only the exterior (outside) of the building cannot be altered. It may also stipulate that the exterior of a building cannot be decorated, at holidays, say, except in a manner that  historically "matches" the house or building and its surroundings. When someone buys a house that has a historic covenant as part of its deed of sale, he or she is agreeing to the terms of the sale.
     Here in Philadelphia, we have an entire neighborhood that is intact--from the 18th century, or 1700's. The people who live in these houses have agreed to keep the exteriors as they found them. If they repaint them, the color of the paint is a color that a house might have been painted in the 1700's. If they put up Christmas decorations, they use greenery and fruit. The neighborhood's historic value has become a public trust, even though the property is privately owned--people live in these houses.
     Historic covenants are not the same as other restrictive covenants in deeds--some of which are legal--about lawn decorations, say.  A restrictive covenant that attempted to limit the persons who might purchase a property to a certain race or religion would always have been  illegal or unenforceable--although people probably got away with it at times. It would have been an infringement of the contract rights of the seller--the law cannot tell someone to whom he or she may or may not sell a piece of property. A court would have thrown it out. Most restrictive covenants that included race or religion were "gentleman's agreements". That means a handshake to seal a bargain--not a written contract. A handshake bargain of this kind is not necessarily a bad thing. It is how a lot of business is still done--but in the case of restrictive covenants it meant that there was no paper trail to use to investigate the problem. You can watch an old movie that covers the subject very well--it is called "Gentleman's Agreement".