Every historic building has a story to tell
Much like the rest areas of today’s modern automobile travel, or the busy interchange laden with fast food options, the roadside tavern beckoned to the weary 18th and 19th travelers. Don’t be misled! It was much more than your friendly neighborhood bar.[1] Taverns provided lodging, food, and a gathering spot for the local community – (read more)
There are certain things all Kentucky schoolchildren learn (at least those of us who went through the public school system). All 120 counties, and the county seats. Daniel Boone, blazing a trail through the wilderness. That Derby Day is a sacred holiday, and that while basketball may be the Bluegrass religion, we revere a 19th-century (read more)
I never intended to be a preservationist – and I certainly never daydreamed about the wild and hedonistic lifestyle of an architectural historian. No, from the age of 11 (after my goal of being a veterinarian was derailed by my father informing me that I needed to take more of an interest in science and (read more)
I’ve been very, very lucky to spend three of the past five summers in England. But while I was away, playing across the pond, morning glories took over my garden, my dogs lost any semblance of obedience, and my pocketbook…well, let’s just say that historic preservation is not a career one pursues for the utmost (read more)
It can be hard to look at something from a time you recall and have it labeled “historic.” Of course, in fashion, a decade is all it takes for styles to be revamped and recycled, which perhaps leads to a more open mindset among the fashion-conscious crowd? Architecture tends to strike a more personal chord (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Historic Preservation, Kentucky architecture, Mid-century Modern
Tags: Architecture, Atomic age, Mid-century modern, recent past
As a child, I made houses of anything and everything (leaves were a challenging, yet ephemerally charming material). I inherited my older siblings’ Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, and a series of dollhouses. The Lincoln Logs, however, were a favorite – made even more intriguing by the fact that we had an actual log house (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Green County, Kentucky architecture, Vernacular, Vernacular architecture
Tags: Bourbon County, Green County, Lincoln Logs, Log houses
Spring oozes poetry. Jonquils and crocus burst from the previously frozen ground, the spring sky (when not gray and rainy) transcends the color blue, and picture-perfect lambs and calves cavort – all these stock metaphors of the season inspired someone, somewhere, to verse. And although I feel winter’s gloom has stretched on for immeasurably too (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Farming, Kentucky architecture
Tags: abandoned, Edwin Arlington Robinson, poetry, Spring
Never has plywood seemed so threatening and ominous then when it appears to sign the death warrant of another (usually historic) building in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been lucky enough to work in many neighborhoods in the Derby City, and one of highest densities of interesting architecture (and plywood) is located in West Louisville. A few (read more)
I cried piteously on the first day of kindergarten, as my mother left me with a room of strange adults and even stranger children. My mother and the comforts of home were promptly forgotten, however, and I threw myself enthusiastically into, if not academics at that tender age, at least into the new experience. By (read more)
Technology may be shrinking our globe, and social media providing connections heretofore not possible, but with the global village (thank you Marshall McLuhan) comes the disappearance of many actual physical places and communities (not to mention language, cultural identity, and sense of place). The contraction of rural places has been happening in Kentucky since World (read more)
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