Field Notes

Downtown – Danville, Kentucky

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Masonic Building, 317 Main Street This three-story, seven-bay building was built around 1870 to serve as a Masonic Hall with first floor retail. The building has housed a bank, a boot and shoe store, a haberdashery (men’s clothes), a jeweler, a pharmacy, and a business college. The Masonic Hall is exceptional in its Italianate detail. … Read more

Better Block Middlesboro 2013 – Middlesboro, Kentucky

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Better Block Middlesboro was a community planning event that mobilized over 100 volunteers and attracted more than $25,000 including an award from the Successful Communities Contest which Middlesboro won, that helped to fund this project. In a two month period ideas were rapidly iterated, proposed, refined, and fully implemented to demonstrate to the community that … Read more

30 Ideas in 30 Days – Better Block Middlesborough

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This series of articles was first written to coincide with Better Block Middlesborough in October 2013. It has since been published here in full to show 30 different ideas to help make places better. Managing the Event #1: Think Incrementally #2: Build a Better Block #3: Encourage Public Participation #4: Temporary to Permanent #5: Pre-vitalization … Read more

Pridemore House – Student Lamps in Living Room Restored – Middlesborough, Kentucky

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While we were in a mad rush to get the house ready to move in we suffered a significant setback. All five of our student lamps were being stored inside a large footlocker shaped piece of furniture. When that piece of furniture was being moved, two of the lamps shattered into hundreds of little fragments. All appeared to be a total loss. That is until we heard of and met the wizards with Calloway’s Lamps and Shades in Knoxville.

We managed to reassemble one of the shades using painters tape to hold the fragments together in place. The other shade was too far gone to ever brought back. We sent both off to Knoxville in June to be worked on. The process as we understood it involved using UV light and a special adhesive to bond the pieces of glass together. Knowing how difficult and painstaking the work was, we gave ample time for the restoration work to be done. That appeared to be the key. Three months later we happily welcomed the lamps home and they are hanging in our living room once again.

The whole episode proved to us that anything is possible with enough time, persistence, and glue.

Detail of our beautiful “student” lamp.
A view we thought we’d never see again.

Pridemore House – Stripping and Refinishing Built-in – Middlesborough, Kentucky

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Chrissy starting to stain the built-in in October 2013. There is a beautiful built-in between our living room and hallway. This creates a sense of flow and progression as one goes throughout the house. Like everything else we found it was painted over not once but several times. After taking away those layers of paint … Read more

Downtown – Maysville, Kentucky

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Maysville owes its success to a location at the confluence of the Ohio River and Limestone Creek. As the city grew this provided a valuable transportation route for products to come in and for farm and later for manufactured goods to go out. It is an important center for burley tobacco, manufacture of power transmission … Read more

Storefront – County Club, Louisville, Kentucky

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The “County Club” restaurant at 555 Jefferson St in Louisville, Kentucky, has a well-appointed plaza where previously there was a parking lot. Furnishings include pallet tables with umbrellas, a sun canopy, and planter boxes. The replacement of pavement and use of permeable surfaces brings in a natural element. This is all the more impressive given … Read more

National Historic Preservation Act at 50: The Great Push for Historic Preservation

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Lady Bird Johnson and staff answering mail. LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton.   With historic preservation now firmly ensconced as a priority in Johnson’s broader Great Society program, and Lady Bird Johnson’s efforts to beautify the nation’s capital well underway, the task of formulating and securing passage of the National Historic Preservation Act commenced. The … Read more

Detroit Zoo – Royal Oak, Michigan

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The Penguinarium was built by the City of Detroit and dedicated in 1968. Cornelius L.T. Gabler and Associates were the Architect. The Detroit Zoological Society redesigned and reconstructed the Penguinarium in 1985. The Arctic Ring of Life provides an outdoor habitat area for the polar bear. Inside elaborate tiles celebrate the polar bear and other … Read more