Bethany resident Dan Costello knows political machinery. He worked on or around Capitol Hill for more than 30 years, and then as an advocate for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, after retiring.
Closer to home, he joined up with Preservation Delaware (the National Trust’s state-level partner), back in the early 1990s. But Costello’s really getting down to the grassroots now, with the newly-formed Historic Sussex.
With his broad background, he brings a few points that might otherwise be lost in discussions about local historic preservation.
First reminder: Sussex County is not unique, either in its history, or in its struggle with growth pressures, Costello pointed out.
“It’s the American identity as it exists in Sussex County,” he explained. “It’s not like Sussex County is really all that different from Talbot County, Md. (for instance) — a rural, agricultural, colonial past, a long period of almost complete dependence on agricultural, an industrial age of sorts.
“It’s not unlike the history of this country,” Costello pointed out — every community had its small farms, which evolved with new ag technologies and improved transport over the roads.
“Wherever there was water in colonial times, of course there was farming,” he said. “I mean, that’s how you got stuff before roads – it was all by water. All those places on the Indian River and the tributaries were either farming or natural resources.”
Now, the agricultural bedrock was shifting again, Costello pointed out — this time because of growth pressures. “But this is true in most growth places in the United States,” he said.
Next important reminder: you have to pick your fights. No historic preservation group could save everything.
Costello noted Delaware’s “excellent” farmland preservation program, and national-level tax programs that encouraged landowners to place real estate under permanent easement.
But all of these decisions came with a price tag, he admitted. “It’s a subsidy — a tax break – and every tax decision is a priority decision,” Costello said.
He noted the “big debate” about what to preserve, how to preserve and how to make it economical. But as far as Costello was concerned, historic preservation was simply good business.
“We know it’s good business,” he said. “People need to understand that it’s good business, and that’s actually going to be one of the issues Historic Sussex has to focus on — the economics of ‘adaptive reuse.’
“The economics of preserving small towns and keeping them alive and vibrant, economically and socially,” he continued. “What you can do, what’s possible, and how do you take what’s possible and integrate it into your prevailing political system.”
Historic preservation wasn’t as easy as it looked, Costello pointed out.
“This is a low-tax, less-government area, both at the town and county level,” he said. “Whatever you do, you have to propose it in the context of what’s possible here.
“When are we doing enough, when is it too much?” he asked. ““Well, that’s politics. We have a great political system in this county that eventually sorts these things out, and I think that’s its beauty.”
Third important reminder: Sussex County is alike most other American communities not only in its basic outline of history, but also in the population’s inability to agree on anything. But no efforts at historic preservation could ever amount to much without consensus support, according to Costello.
Frustrating, perhaps, for people impatient to preserve their favorite farmhouse or Victorian, slated for demolition. But Costello tempered the dose of reality with an optimistic outlook.
“You don’t need total agreement, but a sense among a good majority of the people who think (historic preservation) is a solid public purpose and something we need to do for future generations,” he said. “As one of the great preservationists I used to work with said, ‘People mistake preservation as something about old things — it’s really about the future.’”
Costello recognized the debate currently afoot — smart growth versus unplanned growth — and how it related to county governance. “Whether that’s going to change as suburbanization takes place in the county – who knows?” he asked. “I think that’s part of the great debate.”
But he offered a warning: not everyone would be fighting for a return to the “good old days.”
“One of the things that’s happening – not only in coastal resorts, but also in the cities — is movement back to the city,” Costello said. “People want to bring the suburban model back into the city. They like it. It’s big. It’s roomy, it’s a residential model that they like.”
Whether the suburban model was appropriate for town centers was something the citizens who lived in the towns would have to decide, he pointed out.
“People rail against the suburban model, but it’s not a value thing,” Costello said. “It’s foolish to rail against and criticize people who love the suburban model. The beauty of America is you get all kinds of choices.”
Looking out his own front door at the different houses — some small, cottage-type houses, more like what Costello characterized as “Bethany’s look and feel.”
“Then you have the other ones — bigger and bigger, and some of them are ugly and some are nice,” he noted.
The challenge, he pointed out, was to build consensus toward at least a majority opinion on what kind of “look and feel” people wanted to preserve.
“The towns, really, when they’re under growth pressures, need to define what they want to look like,” he emphasized. “They just can’t let it evolve, particularly if it’s a town that’s attractive to people, not just because it has a beach — but because Bethany is not Ocean City.
“Bethany is not even Rehoboth,” he continued. “It is what it is, and what it is makes it attractive to people.
Just as farming had evolved over time, so too had the beach communities — Costello noted a slow evolution since the turn of the 20th century, the spark of tourism that caught a hearty fire and the subsequently increased importance of the beach towns.
Tying it all together, he referenced Delaware Heritage Commission Chair Richard Carter’s comments (Costello and friends invited Carter to speak at their inaugural Historic Sussex meeting).
“I think (Carter’s) sense — and I think he’s correct — is that it’s the rural agricultural look and feel of Sussex County, combined with what you’ve had with respect to the beaches that define the character of the place,” Costello said. “And defining that character helps you identify the things that are valuable and should be saved, because they’re manifestations of that character.
“And this is where preservation of historic resources comes in,” Costello said. “Are we going to make conscious decisions to save what we can judge to be of great value to future generations?”
From a preservationist’s point of view, he said he mainly focused on physical manifestations of the past — things people could see, or sense. Many times, this meant landmarks, or architecture — but not always.
Costello said he was helping some people at Woodland Ferry, who were fighting the installation of a proposed cell tower.
“People love progress and want a cell tower, they just don’t want it to be intruding on that ‘cultural landscape,’” he said. “That’s a phrase I like to use — it’s more than just the river, it’s more than just the ferry, it’s sort of a manifestation of a way of life that we need to be able to reflect on.
“And if we can reflect on it as it was, that’s better than having to look at pictures, or a plaque saying ‘This was a great ferry in the 1790s,’” Costello pointed out.
Originally from Atlantic City, N.J., Costello lived in Silver Spring, Md. for more than 40 years. He and his wife, Pat, still have a place there, to which they retreat in the dead of winter.
For most of the year, though, they’re in Bethany Beach, where they’ve rented a place since the mid-1980s, and owned outright since 1991. They made it their primary residence last year (2005).