Preservation of Historic Winchester – Page 10 – Improving tomorrow by preserving the area's past

Sneak Peek: Bough & Dough Artists for 2022

PHW is proud to announce the lineup for this year’s Bough & Dough Shop (Nov. 18-Dec. 11) at the Hexagon House. Here’s what you can expect this year:

Ornament by Margie Cullers, the Primitive Peddler

Nina Burke, gourd art

Lorraine Candell, holiday decor and party favor treats

Tracy Carbaugh, The Card Shop Bakers, cookies, notecards, ornaments, and cross stitch

The Clowser Foundation

Margie Cullers, The Primitive Peddler, ornaments made from antique butter and Springerle molds

George Davis, reclaimed wood tables

Melanie Fields, The Merry Beader

Linda Spollen Haile Watercolors notecards

Dave Hickman, turned wood items and ornaments

J&W Farm, birdseed wreaths

Susan Keenan, mosaic ornaments and jewelry

Beth Light, Eye of the Needle Embroidery

Ron Light, Lighthouse Woodworking

Weaving detail by Clara Schulte, CLS Cloth

Karen Miller, Karen’s Kollection

Annamarie Mrazik, Ree’s Treats

Jamie Pein, Fripperies

Libba Pendleton, felted items

Deborah Phillips, Heartsong Hill Designs, sea glass art and jewelry

Preservation of Historic Winchester: Holiday House Tour tickets, fresh greens, books, and bows

Cyndie Rinek, Blooming Hill Lavender Farm

Snowflake ornaments by Hilda Troxel, Capers in Crochet

Mike Robinson, Winchester Tales books

Clara Schulte, CLS Cloth

Donna Sheets, jams

Carol Spalding, Angel’s Roost Quilts

Virginia Stultz and Jean Whetzel, baskets

Hilda Troxel, Capers in Crochet, crocheted ornaments

Doris Vanderpool, shell ornaments

Steve Wilson, Virginia Pottery

Kathy Yereb, Very Merry Mittens

Need to plan your visit this fall? See our listing at Virginia.org or on Facebook for days and times.

Friday Roundup: Labor Day Weekend

It’s been a busy week at PHW as we shift into Holiday House Tour mode for the last part of the year. Many thanks to all the artists, new and returning, who will help us create the Bough & Dough Shop in November. We will be announcing the artists next week – we think you will find your old favorites as well as some fun new items. (Spoiler alert: we have some awesome ornaments in the selection this year!)

Hand in hand with our artist line up, we are now working on our Holiday House Tour sponsorships. As you may know, since 2013 we have produced a program booklet to accompany the house tour. We use these funds to cover most of the event expenses (like printing, postage, and homeowner decorating reimbursements) through the advertising sponsorships, and we hope the business community will continue their support this year. You can find the ad size and price sheet and the form to return to PHW. The deadline to turn in your ad for the program booklet is Friday, October 28.

Looking for something to do this weekend? You may be interested in the Patsy Cline Block Party, which this year will mark what would have been her 90th birthday. The event starts at 10 AM on Saturday, September 3 in front of her childhood home, 608 S. Kent St. Find more information on the event at Facebook. Follow up the block party with the Mandy Barnett Benefit Concert for the Patsy Cline Historic House at 7:30 PM. Celebrating Patsy Cline is collaborating with Patsy Cline Enterprises and Patsy’s Nashville family to present a first-ever tribute concert in the Patsy Cline Theater at John Handley High School to benefit the Patsy Cline Historic House. Find more information on Facebook.

The PHW Office will be closed on Monday, September 5 for Labor Day. We’ll see you again on Tuesday!

Friday Roundup: Shop Reminder and Weekend Reading

Don’t forget, prospective Bough & Dough Shop artists – next Friday, September 2 is our last call for applications for the 2022 Shop! Download a copy of the information sheet and application and return them to PHW – by email to phwinc.org@gmail.com or by snail mail to PHW, 530 Amherst St., Winchester, VA 22601. We are super excited by the artists who have applied so far this year and can’t wait to share the lineup in early September!

Ghost signs have gotten a fair amount of attention, so we thought our readers may enjoy a UK-based online archive from the History of Advertising Trust documenting famous and obscure signs across the pond. One that caught our eye was the W. Smithson & Sons. Let us know if you spot a good one!

We also enjoyed reading about Guédelon Castle and how an “experimental archeology” project is likely to aid in the restoration of Notre Dame Cathedral. From the article:

“The roof frame [at Notre Dame] was extremely sophisticated, using techniques that were advanced for the 12th and 13th centuries,” Frédéric Épaud, a medieval wood specialist, tells the Observer. “After the fire, there were a lot of people saying it would take thousands of trees, and we didn’t have enough of the right ones, and the wood would have to be dried for years, and nobody even knew anything about how to produce beams like they did in the Middle Ages. They said it was impossible. But we knew it could be done because Guédelon has been doing it for years.”

Last, as we’ve had rowhouses and demolition on our mind lately, you may likewise enjoy Philadelphia’s ‘Building Ghosts’ Have a Lot to Say at Atlas Obscura. These ghosts, like the ghost signs, are traces not just of former businesses but of entire rowhouses or other buildings that were once attached to their neighbors. When a part of the row is demolished, a tantalizing glimpse of the interior can remain on the neighboring structure. From the article: “Building ghosts show up in many cities that have historically had lots of rowhouses or attached buildings. . . . . Donald Friedman, an architectural preservation consultant who co-founded New York-based Old Structures Engineering, explains that masonry-walled rowhouses were a 19th-century phenomenon and became much less common after around 1910.” Next time you are in the historic district, keep an eye out particularly on the upper stories of structures – we have a few such building ghosts in Winchester, though here they are mostly limited to roof and addition outlines.

Friday Roundup: Bough & Dough Shop Open House Tomorrow!

Preservation of Historic Winchester will host an informational open house for the 46th annual Bough & Dough Shop tomorrow, Saturday, August 20, 10 AM – 1 PM on the first floor of the Hexagon House, 530 Amherst St. PHW is seeking new artists crafting unique handmade items and holiday décor to expand the shop’s offerings for 2022. We invite anyone interested in applying to stop by to see the space in person and find out more about the event, or read our informational handout available at http://www.phwi.org/events/Shopinfo.pdf.

Prospective artists are encouraged to bring portfolios or example pieces for the jury process. Application forms will be available at the event or can be downloaded at the PHW website, http://www.phwi.org/events/2022juryform.pdf.

If you cannot make the open house event, applications can be sent in by mail to PHW, 530 Amherst St., Winchester, VA 22601 or by email to phwinc.org@gmail.com until September 2, 2022. Final artist lineups will be announced after September 14.

Bough and Dough Shop 2019 — A variety of items that were for sale during the 2019 Bough & Dough Shop.

South Loudoun Street Demolitions

PHW has been notified the demolition applications for 411 and 514-520 South Loudoun have both been withdrawn from the August 18 Board of Architectural Review agenda. Thank you to those who showed interest in speaking at the public hearing; we will keep you posted on future developments as they become available.

Friday Roundup: South Loudoun Street Demolitions and African American Genealogy

PHW has reviewed the preliminary structural reports for 411 and 514-520 South Loudoun Street this week. From our reading and conversations, we believe 411 South Loudoun is able to be rehabilitated following some selective (not total) demolition to the rear of the structure. The main block of the house facing Loudoun Street appears to be relatively sound and the issues found are common enough to correct. The rear wing is more deteriorated primarily through water damage, but reconstruction or a new addition to the rear of historic buildings is an acceptable and common way to repurpose historic buildings for new uses and needs.

514 S. Loudoun — 514-520 S. Loudoun, circa 1976

The townhouses at 514-520 South Loudoun are more deteriorated, but we would like more information from the completed structural reports. Again, it sounds like water and lack of maintenance were the primary sources of deterioration. One of the issues we have circled back to many times at PHW during discussions involving these properties is the unique character of the townhouse facades. While there are a few townhouses of a similar style in Winchester, none have quite the same “San Francisco” feeling as these units with their walk-in basements. One idea that may be worth exploring for the townhouses is a facadectomy, wherein the facade (the most architecturally interesting portion of the building) is retained, and an entirely new structure is built behind. This approach may be particularly useful in this case because the interior of the building may be difficult to work with for modern conveniences, as the units are reported to be very narrow, dominated by staircases, and the rooms quite small inside.

In either case, for both structures, there is no plan by the applicant to rebuild. Philosophically, PHW is opposed to demolition that leaves holes in the streetscape. Given the slow pace of action of these properties throughout almost the entire existence of PHW as an organization, we have little hope should this demolition be approved that anything will be built on this land within the next fifty years. We urge the applicant to finally relinquish these properties to other entities who are willing and able to proceed in meaningful action instead of continuing a slow and painful demolition by neglect.

If you would like to make a statement on these properties, the public hearing for demolition is scheduled for August 18, 4 PM at Rouss City Hall.

In other news, we also watched this presentation from the Thomas Balch Library on African American Genealogy this week. While this is focused on Loudoun County and some of the search resources are not available for Winchester, it can provide ideas for alternative lateral research avenues. If you are on the hunt for more information, you may wish to check out the Virginia Untold website to start or flesh out your search.

South Loudoun Street Demolition Request

A notice was posted in Thursday’s Winchester Star for the proposed demolition of structures at 411 and 514-520 South Loudoun Street for the August 18 Board of Architectural Review, 4 PM at Rouss City Hall. We are awaiting further clarification at the time of this post, but we will follow up with additional information when/if it becomes available.

Both structures are deemed architecturally contributing to the Historic District, and PHW has received word of several people who would like further investigation into the ability to rehab these structures. 411 S. Loudoun (believed to date to the 1860s through deed research, with likely late 19th century porch embellishments) is a typical Winchester vernacular house, similar to many others that were bought, resold, and restored in the Potato Hill neighborhood. The houses at 514-520 S. Loudoun may be the last intact frame Queen Anne style rowhouses left in the Historic District, possibly due in part to their relatively late construction date of 1903.

PHW’s preference is always to attempt rehabilitation for our contributing Historic District properties, particularly if there are people willing to undertake the work. As we have seen through PHW’s Revolving Fund and other private investments over the years, some truly astounding work can be accomplished by motivated and dedicated individuals. We hope that whatever entity undertakes the necessary work on these properties will do so in a manner sensitive to this special neighborhood and its plethora of early historic homes.

Friday Photos: Identification Issue

Photo help time! Do you recognize the locations below in PHW’s “Vanished Winchester” holdings? These photos were not labelled and were discovered in limbo this week during filing. If you recognize either image or building, please contact the office through social media or phwinc.org@gmail.com.

This unmarked image is of a five bay, two story unpainted brick house with chimneys and stepped parapets on both sides. The windows all appear 2/2 with shutters on the front. A porch with jigsawn brackets spans the central three bays. There is a wrought iron fence and gate, a hitching post, and a carriage block along the street. Although hard to see, there may be dentil detailing along the cornice and a rectangular transom above the door. PHW’s copy is a photograph taken of another photograph and may have been stuck in the file for planning the “Vanished Winchester” exhibit at the Kurtz.

We have ruled out the Betty Dandridge House (116 N. Braddock), the Miller House (125 N. Washington) and the Overacre House (141 N. Washington). Other guesses or provenance on the mystery photo are welcome!

This unmarked image of a demolition in progress is another head-scratcher. Our two unverified guesses are the former Solenberger warehouse site at 119 North Cameron Street (beside the BB&T/Truist bank building, now a parking lot) or the greenspace area of the current Our Health campus in the 300 block of North Cameron Street. The building appears to be primarily painted concrete block with at least one brick pier.

If you’d like a different trip down memory lane, this week we also enjoyed reading and seeing images of Canada’s $50 million 1980s ghost town by Justin McElroy. We’ve come across other stories of ghost towns or buildings abandoned to harsh environments or frozen in time when the owners left, but most are left to their own devices to decay on their own terms. This may be the first ghost town outside of a National Park that we’ve heard of with caretakers keeping the lights on and the buildings secured and maintained.

Friday Roundup: Living History, Grant Webinars, and the Winchester Regional Airport

Are you heading downtown tomorrow, July 23? You may want to stop by the Old Frederick County Courthouse at 5 PM, reenactors will have a living history program to recreate the July 24, 1758 election of George Washington to Virginia’s House of Burgesses. All four candidates plus other top figures involved in the 1758 election will be on hand. The reenactment is sponsored by Jim Moyer, the French and Indian War Foundation, the Capt. George Mercer Company of Col. George Washington’s Virginia Regiment and the Virginia Beer Museum in Front Royal.

Preservation Virginia is offering two upcoming webinars cover state and federal grant opportunities as well as ways to cultivate individuals and private foundations. The webinars are paid events, but scholarship opportunities are available. Contact Sonja Ingram at singram@preservationvirginia.org for more information.

Webinar 1: State Grant Opportunities (July 26, 6-7:30 PM)

Do you have questions about applying for statewide grant programs or private foundations? Panelist from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the Virginia Museum of History & Culture will provide an overview of state grants currently available for physical “bricks and mortar” preservation projects, including the new Virginia Black, Indigenous and People of Color Historic Preservation Fund and the Commonwealth History Fund. The program will also discuss other avenues for fundraising, such as approaching private foundations and cultivating support from individuals. Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan, Community Outreach Manager at Preservation Virginia, will moderate the discussion.

Webinar 2: Federal Grant Opportunities (July 28, 6-8 PM)

Dig deeper into the application process to understand how to prepare and what you need to apply for federal programs. Megan Brown from the National Park Service and Lawana Holland-Moore from the National Trust for Historic Preservation will discuss grants administered by their organizations, including National Park Service African American Civil Rights Grants and Underrepresented Communities Grants and the National Trust for Historic Preservation African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Preservation architect Joseph (Jody) Dye Lahendro will discuss the details of application requirements, like establishing historic significance and identifying the project scope, phasing and costs to support and justify grant requests.

You might have heard about the upcoming expansion at the Winchester Regional Airport. By happenstance while filing other newspaper clippings in PHW’s daunting backlog of uncatalogued items, we came across some articles on the 1988 expansion plans. From the August 13, 1988 editorial column by Tim Thornton, a few select quotes on the history of the airport and the vision for the new terminal:

“A patchwork of hangars and offices constructed in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s, the present [1988] terminal is small — about 1,900 square feet by Mr. Wiegand’s reckoning — and it’s showing its age. . . . . Plans for a new terminal — a two-story building with a restaurant — were drawn up in 1983. In 1987 the plan called for a $335,000, 4,000 square foot terminal.”

“The Authority envisions a W-shaped terminal with a waiting area to accommodate 39 people, a pilot lounge, a concessions area, a flight planning room, administrative offices, and a reception area. . . . . The design also includes a 400-foot observation tower that would be required for passenger flights.”

According to the Frederick County Tax Map, the existing terminal was built in 1989 and is 9,248 square feet.

Airport Terminal Faces Razing or Renovation — The previous “patchwork” terminal, as seen accompanying a May 10, 1988 article that ran in the Winchester Star.

Friday Roundup: Bough & Dough Shop Call for Artists

We hope you enjoyed the offerings of last week while the PHW office was on vacation. We spent our week off doing proper preservation things, like scraping and painting wood porch elements. We are now ready to start the second half of the year here at PHW, which will culminate with the Bough & Dough Shop and Holiday House Tour.

To get prepared for the Shop, we are bringing back our Bough & Dough Shop Open House and Call for Artists on Saturday, August 20, 10 AM – 1 PM. The informational open house for the 46^th annual Bough & Dough Shop will be held on the first floor of the Hexagon House, 530 Amherst St.

The boutique holiday pop-up shop will be held Nov. 18-Dec. 11, 2022 to support the organization’s fundraising for local preservation projects. PHW is seeking new artists crafting unique handmade items and holiday décor to expand the shop’s offerings for 2022. We invite anyone interested in applying to stop by to see the space in person and find out more about the event. Prospective artists are encouraged to bring portfolios or example pieces for the jury process. Application forms will be available at the event. You can also find the informational sheet and application on our website in advance.