Every historic building has a story to tell
Candy hearts, Valentine’s, chocolate, flowers…I’ve supervised Valentine card making this weekend, gotten treats for two parties for the tiny people, and consumed way too much sugar. But what I really want for Valentine’s Day? Some preservation success stories! The bleak winter landscape doesn’t help, but I feel inundated with stories of pending demolitions and losses (read more)
Category: Historic Preservation
Tag: Valentine's Day
The porch may be my favorite feature on a historic house. I fell in love with the porch on our 1901 farmhouse long before I committed myself to the rest of the structure. At 11 feet deep and 32 feet long, there is plenty of space about which to be passionate. Alas, my ardor does (read more)
Categories: Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture
Tags: Farmhouse, porch light
Sometimes, work gets in the way of life – and definitely intrudes upon my blog writing time. Given my lack of mental acuity at this time, I thought I would share some details about three historic properties I recently nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. These nominations were approved on Monday, December 17, (read more)
This not a post about Miley Cyrus and her 2013 hit – although there are some similarities between the breaking of a relationship and the fracturing of a neighborhood. Demolitions, neglect, absentee landlords – each element chips away at the structure and fabric of a community, and as buildings fall, a piece of that community (read more)
I detoured off of the bypass around Versailles yesterday afternoon to drive through town – bypasses aren’t known for their pleasing aesthetics. After dilly-dallying a bit, I set off for Lexington, and caught in a dense row of cars heading east, I couldn’t stop when I saw the bulldozers chomping through the brick building that (read more)
I’ve enjoyed a lifelong love affair with mail-order catalogs. The arrival of the mail meant a 1/4 mile hike down the gravel driveway to the big metal mailbox (an enticing target for mailbox baseball players), and back up the hill again holding the treasure (secured by at least two large rubber bands) of three daily (read more)
Architecture is more than just shelter – and to those of us who love historic buildings – architecture is more than just ornament. Architecture is imbued with symbolism by the people that create and shape it, and historic buildings serve as artifacts of the time in which they were built. In that way, historic buildings represent (read more)
As any regular reader of this blog will know, I grew up with a love of history and of old buildings. I believe strongly that our communities are stronger when historic buildings are preserved and utilized. But one of the few tools we have to save historic buildings in this country is under attack. It’s (read more)
Category: Historic Preservation
Years before a farm on the northern side of Lexington, Kentucky, was billed as the University of Kentucky’s “premier business location in the heart of the world-famous Kentucky Bluegrass Region,” it was a storied horse farm “where thoroughbred Derby winners were raised for many years.” In between these two seemingly disparate roles, Coldstream Farm served the (read more)
Whenever I am asked to talk about historic architecture, I always stress the meaning of the facade of a building. It doesn’t matter whether it is a house or a store, the facade is the face of the structure, and it is there that the most care, attention, and money is typically spent. The facade (read more)
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