Every historic building has a story to tell
There are three things about historic buildings that can reduce me to tears: demolition, bad window replacements, and vinyl siding. As I tout myself as a “practical preservationist,” I know that changes in exterior siding on buildings has a long history. Aluminum and vinyl siding make it possible for many people to remain in (read more)
Category: 1901 Farmhouse
Tags: #stinkbugs, #vinylsiding, Farmhouse
I’ve been in my share of abandoned buildings. Some are so far gone, piled with debris and trash, that it is hard even for me to see a glimmer of the past, before the sliding, sad decline. Yet other vacant buildings are merely fixed in time, and their individual elements speak to speak so clearly (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Casey County
I’ve been scanning old photo albums lately, tumbling back into time as I turn each brittle page. Laughing faces, twirling girls, dogs that I almost recognize although they’ve been gone for over 100 years – and buildings that no longer stand. I’m lucky – the cousin that lent me this album to copy as part (read more)
Around 1880, Patrick G. Rice hired a local builder by the name of Henry Conley to build a house off of the Middle Fork of Jenny’s Creek in Johnson County, Kentucky. Rice’s new home took a form that had become popular in Kentucky prior to the Civil War – a two-story, central passage house, one (read more)
Categories: Johnson County, Kentucky architecture
Tags: #johnsoncountyky, #kentuckyarchitecture, Farmhouse, Salyer
When I was in elementary school, I sometimes rode the school bus home, a long and circuitous route that took me across the county line, and past a landscape of farms and old houses. The images of those buildings and the feelings they engendered linger with me still. When I posted a photograph of this (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, Bath County
Tags: #abandonedhouse, #abandonedkentucky, #bethelky, #kentuckyfarmhouse, Farmhouse
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
When I am asked to talk about Kentucky architecture, I always stress the importance of recognizing style versus type or plan. Stylistic architectural details can be applied much later than the date of construction of a house – a “keeping up with the Jones” in architecture. But the type or plan of a house is (read more)
Categories: Abandoned houses, West Virginia
Tags: #westvirginia, Farmhouse
I’ve never kept track of how many abandoned and moldering rural houses I’ve encountered over the years. But though I might not know the number, if you show me a photograph, I can almost always tell you exactly where the house was located. This dwelling, built sometime after the Civil War – probably the 1870s – was (read more)
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