Every historic building has a story to tell
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
Winter seemed very, very long this year. So as the last (I hope) of the snow melted, I bounded into the garden, (mud slushing underneath my feet) anxious to observe the awakening of the frozen earth. And then I groaned. Have you ever fallen in love with a plant? It is a mad crush, rendering (read more)
My college art history classes invariably began at 8 am or right after lunch- neither being a good time to sit in a darkened room and look at slides. Despite this, I relished (through occasional yawns) this exposure to artwork far removed from my rural background, and I fell madly in love with the old (read more)
Categories: Art, Country house, England, National Trust
Tags: J.M.W. Turner, Petworth, West Sussex
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)
I am a big believer in the seasons. Winter is cold, snowy, and necessary to kill pests and allow my garden some dormancy. It is also a wonderful time to concoct ambitious and wholly unrealistic plans for the garden, so I accept winter, as I do the other oft-capricious Kentucky seasons. The villainous attitude of (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)
The Victorians Remake the Elizabethan Age at Charlecote Park (this post originally appeared on the Smitten by Britain website) I am a list maker. I am also a loser of lists I have made, which means I frequently bite my lip in frustration and fumble to recreate said list, but that’s another story. Although I (read more)
Category: England
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