Every historic building has a story to tell
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)
On a rainy, rather foggy March day a few years back, I was in the field, scoping out Casey County for a possible survey of historic buildings. It was not a day to wander about and take photographs – the typical two-lane Kentucky roads that hugged the creeks dipped perilously close to the rain-swollen waterways, (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Casey County, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Log Houses, Vernacular
Tags: Casey County, log, timber-frame, William Clark Quantrill
Place is very important to most Kentuckians. We identify ourselves not by where we live, but where we are from – or where “our people” are from. I may live and work in Lexington, but I am from Mt. Sterling, and I cheer on efforts in my hometown that make it a more interesting, inclusive, (read more)
I imagine the phrase “revolutionary architecture” conjures up a myriad of differing images for people – or maybe just a blank stare. Architects willing to experiment with materials, form, and site have transformed both our cities and domestic spaces, but a progressive design is not always so palatable to its neighbors, or indeed, the occupants (read more)
There’s few things more dangerous to an old house (or any structure) than water. As the heavens opened again a few minutes ago, and water plunged merrily from my overflowing gutters, I thought of how I used to watch the rain anxiously in my old house, as it tended to come through the porch roof. (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky, Kentucky architecture, Vernacular
Tags: abandoned, old houses, poetry
I learned this morning that a family friend passed away after a long illness. Terry White was a historian, a storyteller, and a wonderful man. A fixture of trips to Harrodsburg, my mother’s hometown, since I was a little girl, I relished our conversations then (he never talked to me like I was a child) (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky, Kentucky architecture, Mercer County, Vernacular
Tags: Harrodsburg, James Harrod, Mercer County
Memories have a funny way of not staying put. Earlier this week, there were some sly bumper stickers waiting for me on my front porch, poking fun at the yawning hole in downtown Lexington that is Centre Pointe. My life philosophy typically follows the “laugh rather than cry” method, and laugh I did. But rumination (read more)
The press in the past few days about the Lorillard Lofts building made me stop and think about tobacco. Not the tobacco barns or the fields I know well as the daughter of a farmer, but the impact that the burley tobacco industry had on Lexington in the 20th century. A few years ago I (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Farming, Fayette County
Tags: #burleytobacco, #kentuckyagriculture, #lexingtonky, #liggettandmyers
Although I would never willingly repeat high school again, there are some wrinkled, furtive wisps of memory I wish I could chase down. You look at the world differently as a teenager (beyond the hormones and the belief in one’s immortality) and I passed by so many enchanting landscapes and fascinating buildings with nary a (read more)
Politics in today’s world can be a disagreeable affair, to put it nicely. Historically the same is true, I think, but the difference was that occasionally the candidates had to work, either before holding elected office, or after. (I realize Jessie Ventura made quite a mark for himself as a wrestler, but he is a (read more)
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