#historic-preservation

#historic-preservation

When the couple reached out to Penneman last March and invited her in, she was struck by the beauty of the property and the potential that previous professionals wasted. The existing Art Deco front door was made of steel and hammered glass, and it opened to a terrazzo floor bordered by a hand-laid mosaic. Further inside, dark and disjointed rooms were confused by additions and closed off from the sun by neighbors on either side.

A new entry in the National Register of Historic Places may be a spot you regularly pick up dog poop! That's right, Balch Gulch Bridge-spanning the gulch between NW 29th and NW 31st, where many pick up Forest Park's Lower Macleay Trail-was officially designated by the National Park Service in September. Bridge heads likely already know that the steel structure makes use of a load-bearing framework of triangles fastened with flexible pin connections.

The Valley Plaza was among the first and largest open-air shopping malls on the West Coast and a major center of commerce when it opened in 1951. Now, swathes of the historic mall are being demolished, after years of complaints from nearby homeowners that the collection of vacant buildings and parking lots had fallen into disrepair. David Udoff fondly remembers how his mother would drive him and his brother to Valley Plaza in her avocado Dodge Dart.

These house museums and foundations, all open to the public, invite visitors into preserved spaces that shaped some of the most influential artistic visions of the 20th century. The Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens is a famous example, winning the National Medal for museums in 2024. And Hamptons visitors often stop by the Pollock-Krasner House and studio in the hamlet of Springs, in East Hampton.

If there's a controversial statue commemorating a dead white supremacist out there, there's a good chance the president has gone to bat for it. Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, Trump tweeted in 2017, in response to a push to remove Confederate monuments. You can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Trump added.

This feels a bit like Disneyland. That's not what we want. These are historic buildings,

UC Berkeley professor and architect William C. Hays had a vision for this oceanfront land, building the large, Spanish-style Casa Del Rey apartment complex and hotel in 1926. In 1964, it was renamed La Bahia Apartments, the ornate bell tower, Juliet balconies, and interior courtyards remaining notable elements even after it was abandoned and left to deteriorate. La Bahia has gorgeous views of the ocean from its rooftop and many balconies.(Courtesy of La Bahia Hotel & Spa)

Kyle and Katina Connaughton, co-owners of SingleThread, a three- Michelin-starred restaurant and inn in Healdsburg, are expanding their hospitality enterprise. The couple is underway with a complete renovation of the former River Belle Inn, a 10-guestroom property that will become a bed-and-breakfast, according to a recent announcement. The Selvedge, A SingleThread Inn, is set to open late next year. The Selvedge is the latest hospitality concept for SingleThread and Vertice Hospitality Management, led by co-owner and CEO Tony Greenberg, and the Connaughtons.

Frankfurt is often recognised for its distinctive skyline, a rare feature in European cities. Towering glass skyscrapers mark its role as a global financial hub, yet beneath this vertical image lies a city layered with centuries of history, destruction, and reconstruction. From medieval timber-framed houses to post-war modernism and contemporary high-rises, Frankfurt has consistently reinvented itself through architecture, producing a built environment where different periods coexist in dialogue.

You can see that we're getting there.

By now you've probably heard about the Passive House movement. Essentially, it's a design standard focused on maximizing the energy-saving capacity of your home through a series of interventions. Some of these strategies aren't overly expensive, but others, such as adding thick insulation to your building's walls, require a deep retrofit-which gets pricey. And there can be drawbacks, especially if your older home has details like decorative molding that you want to preserve. But you can benefit from green technology without going full Passive House.

We may think of the San Francisco Victorian as pure Americanathe city's postcard-perfect Painted Ladies stand as the embodiment of the spirit of Californian optimism. (For a certain generation, that colorful row meant a new Full House was about to begin. Also purely American.) But we sometimes forget that these buildings have decidedly English DNA. That worked in designer Hana Mattingly's favor when asked to make over a Lower Pacific Heights town house for a family of British transplants.

No Gut Reno for Iconic Brooklyn Heights Mid Century Modern Townhouse A sharp-eyed tipster noticed what appeared to be rooftop mockups for the Landmarks Preservation Commission happening at 48 Willow Place, the iconic modern townhouse designed by architects Mary and Joe Merz for their own residence. Also visible through a third-story window was what looked to be a gut renovation in progress.

The Center at West Park, a theater and arts organization evicted from the church on July 7, is doing a temporary residency at the St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church, a few blocks away. To demolish the more-than-a-century-old structure, the church must show the New York City Landmarks Commission, which rarely approves such demolitions, that it meets hardship requirements.

It is the nephew who bought the estate and had the current manor house rebuilt (or, rather, paid others to do the work) on the site of an older manor house. In 1869, the estate was purchased by the local government and is now owned by Havering Council, which has since redeveloped it as a recreation centre, known as the Bretons Outdoor Recreation Centre.

The site is currently occupied by a 23,000-square-foot religious facility that is no longer in use and has significantly deteriorated, the Unity Council states on its website. First Christian Church was built around 1929 using a design by architect W.H. Weeks, according to the Oakland Wiki website. The project will preserve and restore key architectural elements of the church sanctuary while demolishing portions of the structure to accommodate new residential construction, the Unity Council states in a project description.

In 2004, the city adopted a historic preservation ordinance with the intent of preserving historically and culturally significant buildings, as well as maintaining the look and feel of certain neighborhoods. The ordinance stipulates particular procedures that owners must follow when they want to make modifications or improvements to historically designated buildings. It also provides access to incentives, like property tax reductions, to encourage owners to maintain their properties.

When Barry Bordelon and Jordan Slocum, the Brooklyn-based design duo known as the Brownstone Boys, take on a historic renovation, they unearth stories. For the past six years, the couple has built their reputation on meticulous brownstone restorations that honor the past while making space for modern life-thus far, they've completed over 25 projects across Brooklyn. But when they stepped into a four-story brownstone on a quiet Bedford-Stuyvesant block, they discovered something that made this project different.