Carol Burnett's girlhood home's fate aired

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SAN ANTONIO, March 7 (UPI) -- San Antonio officials are weighing whether comedian Carol Burnett's childhood home should be declared historically significant or possibly be bulldozed.

A restaurant chain wants to buy the house and, if efforts to relocate it are unsuccessful, demolish it. The city's historic preservation officer seeks a "finding of historic significance" that would protect the house, the San Antonio Express-News said Wednesday.

Listening to the arguments is the Historic and Design Review Commission.

Burnett, in memoirs and public appearances, spoke about the house where she lived with her grandmother until she was 7 and moved to California.

Preservation officer Ann McGlone told the Express-News the house is an "excellent example" of folk Victorian architecture and "is associated with a famous person."

The Bill Miller Bar-B-Q chain is separated from the house by a vacant lot and wants the land cleared for parking, said Karen Kirk-Polan, a local real estate agent. A group tried to work with the chain to relocate the house but couldn't secure funding.

Kirk-Polan, who listed the home's selling price last May as $225,000, told the newspaper she doesn't know whether the restaurant will want the property if it can't raze the house.