Every historic building has a story to tell
In 1970, Lucy Coleman Johnston Graves confronted a bulldozer about to tear down a house on West High Street in Lexington, Kentucky. The photograph made The New York Times, and further cemented Graves’ reputation as a determined preservationist. Forty-five years later, the organization she helped found bestowed its 2015 Lucy Graves Advocacy Award to another (read more)
The familiar landscape is the one that often receives the least notice. But when that landscape changes, the disorientation strikes with ferocity, and a palpable sense of loss. For all my love of crossroad communities – places not quite a town, grown organically at the intersection of two roads – the one closest to me (read more)
Categories: Clark County, Country Store, Crossroad communities, Kentucky architecture, Vernacular
Tags: Clark County, Crump, Dykes, Sewell Shop
The vestiges of our past are scattered all around the Kentucky landscape – even if you must sometimes you must venture off of the paved road to find them. Rural Hart County presented such a detour – and the additional dubious joys of rampant poison ivy and snakes. But it was worth it to document (read more)
This post was originally written for the Smitten by Britain website I loved Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Secret Garden when I was growing up – and I still haven’t lost the dream of one day having my own walled garden. (A garden ideally free from the rampages of dogs, and graced with perfect soil and (read more)
Architecture is much more than just shelter – it teems with symbolism. One of the first principles I learned in graduate school was the power of a building, and what messages the style, form, and materials convey about the owner or user. During the heady years after World War II, the United States boomed, and (read more)
I am the youngest of four children, and a big gap in years exists between my siblings and me. It worked well for my mother, as my two sisters helped watch me (and dress me up, and cut my hair, and put makeup on me…) but as their activities took up more and more time, (read more)
Categories: Bath County, Bluegrass, Farming, Historic Preservation, Kentucky, Kentucky architecture
Tags: Bath County, Owingsville, Stories
It’s the last day of May, and the last day of Preservation Month. My challenge to myself, to write a daily blog post, is nearing its end. While I didn’t quite make 31 posts (I believe 29 is my total, and I blame that on the lovely weather that wouldn’t allow me to sit in (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture
Growing up on a farm influenced me and my interests in many ways, most of which are difficult to explain to anyone who grew up “in town.” The cycle of life and death never recedes into the background on a farm, and while that doesn’t make personal loss any easier, it does shape the way (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Farming, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Louisville
Tags: Bourbon Stockyards, Butchertown, Cattle, Louisville
Roads are curious thing – and in Kentucky, they are big business. A new road delivers up promises of jobs and economic development; sometimes the premise for a project seems to be nothing more than “if you build it, they will come.” A road also takes away – a new road bypasses a community (this (read more)
When I talk to people about vernacular architecture, I catch myself comparing it to messy but delicious experiments in the kitchen, or unexpected adventures, or exploring a brand new place. Sometimes, you might cook up some comfort food. Or you could create something brand new. Local builders took familiar ways of buildings, house plans they (read more)
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