But residents and their visitors are no longer the only ones in on Richmond Hill’s secret. “This Old House,” a national publication that serves as the literary arm of the well-known home improvement television show, has just singled out the south Queens neighborhood on its website as one of the nation’s top eight places to own an old home.
   Both the magazine and website praised the community for offering city residents an urban-suburban utopia just a subway ride away from Manhattan and for preserving its unique features, which include enormous wrap-around front porches, inlaid floors and multicolored shingles. It also lauded the efforts of the Richmond Hill Historical Society which has, with the help of other civic organizations and Community Board 9, worked to educate New Yorkers — and the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission — on the area’s unique history and architecture.
   “The mention by ‘This Old House’ was serendipitous,” said Ivan Mrakovcic, a member of the RHHS. “We set up a website and it has had a lot to do with helping people find Richmond Hill.”
   But Mrakovcic and other community advocates say their neighborhood has yet to receive the recognition it deserves from the city, specifically, landmark status.
   For more than 10 years, residents have fought with the LPC to landmark all or sections of Richmond Hill. According to a study done a few years ago, the value of buildings and houses in designated historical districts rise at slightly greater rates, said Lisi de Bourbon, a spokesperson at the LPC. It also provides residents a sense of stability and pride in knowing the city regulates the exterior appearance of their neighborhood.
   De Bourbon said many Richmond Hill proposals have crossed desks at the LPC, but the agency has found the community lacking a special sense of place because a number of its houses have been altered and enlarged, with many of their historic, original details such as siding, porches and dormers removed. The presence of larger apartment buildings in the area also compromise Richmond Hill’s ability to meet the definition of a historic district, as stated in a letter written by Robert Tierney, chairman of the LPC, to the late Nancy Cataldi, former president of the RHHS.
   Perhaps surprisingly, Ditmas Park, a neighborhood in Brooklyn that boasts million-dollar Queen Anne Victorian homes, was granted landmark status last year, despite an admission by Historic Districts Council Executive Director Simeon Bankoff that “many [Ditmas Park houses] have had their original siding replaced by synthetic shingles or aluminum, porches have been enclosed and details removed.”
   Thus is an example of the problem, Mrakovcic said.
   “The LPC keeps changing the rules,” he said. “It’s clear we got a raw deal from the LPC and that needs to be immediately rectified.” He and other leaders proposed “mini-districts” at the LPC’s suggestion, yet were still turned down.
   “We all know if this place was in the middle of Manhattan, it would have been designated in the 1920s,” he added.
   Carl Ballenas, a historian and author of “Richmond Hill,” said the LPC seems to favor Manhattan and Brooklyn’s brick edifices over Queens’ wooden single-family homes, which he called “delicate.”
   “Richmond Hill definitely has a sense of place,” he said.
   Sylvia Hack, a member of C.B. 9’s Land Use Committee, agreed.
   “Richmond Hill is a beautiful community, but the LPC waits until things are so far gone, until everything has been destroyed, and then they tell us it doesn’t have a sense of place,” Hack said. “It’s incredibly frustrating. This is a special, different place and we want to preserve it for the next generation. This city is very bad at polishing the apple when the apple exists outside of Manhattan.”