Can you move walls in historic homes?

I would just go down to your local city hall and just ask there.

Step One is to learn the applicable zoning regulations.

Step Two is to consider the architectural integrity of your home. If you live in a historic house, you’re really just its temporary caretaker. Everyone needs to think twice, and then think yet again, before you tearing-down the kitchen wall, with its wood molding, wainscoting, and mahogany swinging door, to create an “open living space.” The open kitchen will become dated, and what’s been destroyed can’t be recovered.

I think it depends on how much of a difference is it to the general structure. Some may allow a wall in the interior if the replacing wall doesn’t change the structure of the outside of the house and often you have to replace everything with something similar to the original material.
But most cases it really depends on the Historical Society and the importance of the house. Some homes may be on the historical Society listing because the whole street is being preserved but maybe only one or two houses are the most important because of who lived in them. Some may have already had so many changes done on the inside of the home prior to it being added to the historical society listing. I knew someone who bought one for 25,000. It had sat vacant for many years. The owners prior was a store and they built rooms inside for storage. The only thing they had to get permission for was for any repairs on the exterior, and they only had to submit plans for the interior to prove they wouldn’t do anything that would cause them to change the exterior. For example. They wanted the fireplaces to be a gas fireplace. The contractors told them they would have to knock things down and relocate the chimneys which would mean changing some other things on the roof. So they were denied the change. So they decided to but electric heaters in every chimney and close off the vents to the chimney above. They also couldn’t add modern central heating or cooling. They could only have indoor fans. Luckily for some reason the design of the house made the house cool in the summer. Maybe because they were surrounded by trees and the ceilings were high and he house was made of wood and brick. I do remember they were able to change a wall on the inside and that was because termites had destroyed a good portion of it and destroyed a supporting beam. This allowed them to change their kitchen and expand it to another room.

I would hope people wouldn’t completely want to change the character of the home, but @Pandora makes a great point that it might have been changed a few times since it’s beginnings before every being on a registry.

Never heard walls been tear down after the house/apartment is already put into use, maybe it’s just what things are like here. And I major in civil(structure) engineering.

It would depend on whether there is a preservation order over the house (and where you are of course). In the UK and Australia, preservation orders limit what work can be carried out and it is quite likely you couldn’t move walls. You might be able to make almost no changes to the house and even how you paint it and the like may be dictated by the order. If the building has historic and/or architectural value, they may want to keep it as close to its original form as possible.

If there’s a preservation order, it might require any work to return the building to its original state. So if someone has used a non-conforming method, that any future work would need to return the home to its original form.

With other orders, you might have more leeway to change things. So it depends on whether there is a preservation order over the property, and the terms of that order. However, in Australia and the UK, a building with a preservation order over it can be a very costly purchase. You may need to employ specialised tradesmen and only be allowed to use very specific building materials. Certainly, moving walls is likely to be an absolute no no in some cases.

Any home historic or not was hopefully built to be sturdy and sound. Interior walls often time can be just partitions but in many instances are actually structural load bearing supports for the upper levels and or roof. NEVER EVER remove a wall unless you are an engineer or had an architectural Engineer sign off on either the removal of the wall or a design of build out that will replace that wall’s load bearing necessity. I have had to get creative more than a couple times that involved installing some serious beams just to remove one wall.

@Cruiser Yup.
Remove a wrong wall, the result can be very interesting.

@wsxwh111—Is it interesting that the roof is in the living room,
on the floor?—

I would hope no one is moving walls without an architect/engineer going over the plan. I’m shocked an adult might not know about load bearing walls, that seems like basic knowledge.

@wsxwh111 It’s shocking to me you have never heard of a wall being changed. Probably the most common is making a kitchen open to the rest of the house if it was first built as a closed kitchen. That type of change might not readily be done to most historic houses, but certainly it is done in other homes.

@Tropical_Willie I’m a little confused, is that a joke?
Well personally I really don’t heard that many people around me would tear down a wall, so I just thought a little heads up would be nice.
@JLeslie I’m sorry for the confusion, I heard of it, of course, but from some American apartments. I guess what I was trying to say is that not many people around me would do it. So when sometimes someone would like to do it, they may not know exactly where the limitations and lines are.

@wsxwh111 Yes, joke. But true.
It has happened where someone working on installing sliding glass door, didn’t support the edge of the roof. Oops that neighbor’s DIY ended up costing a lot more in the end.

Just to clarify, I never was talking about DIY in my original question. I don’t mind the Q went there, but my question was about rules surrounding historic homes and getting permits for changes during renovation.

Yep let’s get back to the question, I’m not so sure but this historical homes we are talking abot here is the kind of buildings that are specially treated or protected because of its architectural or artistic value instead of just buildings that are built a long period of time ago right?

I don’t have the time to do the research @JLeslie but this site looks like a great place to do your search and has a link to State resources as well. Good luck!

Along with all the considerations above, it also depends on the local historical codes. Most historical structures I am aware of are usually restricted as to how or if the exteriors can be changed. If the structure is historical because of its interior, or because of an historical event that occurred in the structure, that would likely be stated in whatever law or code that designated the structure as historical, and therefore would likely restrict the types of alterations one can make to said interior.

@JLeslie “I would hope people wouldn’t completely want to change the character of the home”

I couldn’t agree more. It’s beyond me why people buy pre-Revolutionary houses, only to gut the interiors and make them chi-chi 2015. Fads come and go, but classic beauty is forever.