Every historic building has a story to tell
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
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players… Architecture has long served as a platform for status and self-expression – even seemingly humble dwellings (vernacular architecture) reveal layers of information about where the builders and inhabitants came from, how they used the rooms in their house, and even how trendy (read more)
Categories: Historic Preservation, Ohio architecture, Other Places, Theaters
Tags: #CincinnatiOH, #cincinnnati, #historiccinema, #overtherhine, #theater
The allure of a snow day, especially in the Bluegrass where snowfall is fickle and fleeting, doesn’t subside with adulthood. Granted, my childhood experience of substantial snowfall was tempered by the impact the winter wonderland would have on the cattle, and if a late winter snow, the newborn calves. Feeding the cattle became even more (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Farming
Tags: #comfortfood, #kentuckyhotbrown, #snowdays
Americans love a holiday. The penchant for celebrating the mundane results in a calendar peppered with “National Cow Day,” “Be Late for Something Day,” or “National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day.” But I was wholly unprepared for “National Handwriting Day,” although the act of grasping writing utensil in hand shaped my formative years and has (read more)
Categories: Uncategorized, Writing
Tags: handwriting, letters
I am easily seduced by sense of place. I’m a Kentuckian (sixth generation of a family with chronically long generations ), so part of that may be genetic. Plus, I’m a nerd for history, and the tantalizing mixture of building, feature, landscape and memory with which so many of our historic places seethe. My first (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Kentucky architecture, Shakers, Tourism
Tags: Historic architecture, Kentucky tourism, Mercer County, Shakers, Shakertown, Thomas Merton
I first visited the Handy House in Cynthiana, Kentucky, on a sunny and mild day in February 2005. It wasn’t, at first glance, a straightforward building. Like a frothy wedding cake, the house presented multiple layers of stories, people, and varying ideas of style and taste. My first rule of historic preservation? No historic building (read more)
Categories: Bluegrass, Harrison County, Historic Preservation
Tags: Cynthiana, Handy House, Harrison County KY, Preservation
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