Resources for Historic Restorations

Preserving Pennsylania: A Journey Through the Last 20 Years, Part 5

Preservation Pennsylvania has released their “Pennsylvania At-Risk: Twenty-Year Retrospective of Pennsylvania’s Endangered Historic Properties, Where Are They Now” edition. It’s a fascinating look at preservation in action and we’ll be posting a look at each property in a series of posts over the next several months. INTRODUCTION Preservation Pennsylvania established the annual Pennsylvania At Risk list …

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How Complete Restorations Happen: A Case Study of the John Maddox Denn House

  A number of years ago, we had the very fortunate luck to be given the opportunity to completely restore the Denn House in southern New Jersey.  Below is the story of how that restoration happened, excerpted from Lois Groshong’s book, “2001 Restoration of a Southern New Jersey Colonial”. Be sure to check out the …

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A surprising answer to the question, "What do preservationists do?"

Rhonda Sincavage (Associate Director for Intergovernmental Affairs at the National Trust for Historic Preservation) talks about what historic preservationists do, and what they look like (we’re not the little old, blue-haired women most people think of, she points out).  And most importantly, how historic preservation encourages economic growth, incubates independent and small business growth, promotes …

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Preservation in Progress: Lancaster Press Building

Lancaster County is not normally the place one thinks of when considering social experimentation.  Yet that is exactly what The Drogaris Group and Garden Spot Village are doing with the Lancaster Press Building that sits on the corner of Prince and Lemon Streets. The 100-year-old, massive brick building was originally built as a cigar factory …

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Common Themes in Endangered Historic Buildings

I was reading the July/August 2010 Preservation magazine which features the 2010 list of America’s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places. Some of the places featured on the list include natural landscape preservation. One theme that stuck out to me was the fact that all of the buildings listed as endangered are being demolished by neglect. …

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Seven Ways to Ruin an Older Building

This list was taken from the Directory of Preservation Resources complied by the Historical Architectural Review Board in the Borough of Columbia, PA. Encouraging regular maintenance (true preservation) rather than quick-fixes that will fail in a short amount of time this list highlights seven common “repairs” or “upgrades” that do more harm than good. 1. …

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Webinar – Traditional Durable/ Sustainable Products

Tuesday afternoon I sat in on a webinar focused on what traditional products teach us about durability and sustainability (essentially green building). I am going to pass some the information from the webinar along during this post – next week I will be back to sharing information from the Traditional Building Conference. *In order to …

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Historic American Buildings Survey

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) began in 1933 now contains the written record with drawings and photographs of 35,000 historic structures. This is a digital collection managed by the Library of Congress. Many buildings we have been involved in restoring have been featured within this collection. Searching the HABS for your building or buildings …

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Wood Window Repair Seminar in Bellefonte, PA

Last Saturday, June 7, Chuck, Lois, and Danielle drove to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (right above State College) to conduct a seminar for the Borough of Bellefonte as part of their wood window seminar day in the park. There were various other exhibitors (replacement windows, storm windows, and stained glass window experts with booths) as part of …

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