Preservation of Historic Winchester – Page 45 – Improving tomorrow by preserving the area's past

Friday Roundup: Clowser House, Drinks from the Past

We have two exciting pieces of news to share on the Clowser House. Earlier this week, the Frederick County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the 99 year lease of the house to the Clowser Foundation. This move will allow the Foundation to move ahead with efforts to stabilize the deteriorating wall. In addition, the Clowser Foundation has also received approval from the IRS for the group to be a tax-exempt non-profit organization.

Of course, this is only the first step – now the Clowser Foundation needs your help. They are just beginning their official fundraising efforts. If you would like to support saving the Clowser House, checks can be mailed to:
The Clowser Foundation
152 Tomahawk Trail
Winchester, VA 22602

Apple Blossom kicks off tonight downtown with the Bloomin’ Wine Fest. In that spirit of celebration, we have a few links to share on drinks of the past. The Library of Virginia opened a new exhibit Teetotalers & Moonshiners: Prohibition in Virginia, Distilled. If you happen to be in Richmond on May 5, you may want to stop by the free event “‘Goodbye Booze’: The Music of Prohibition,” an upbeat look at popular music of the Prohibition era through live and recorded performances. More information can be found on the Virginia Memory website.

If you are looking for something a little less intoxicating for your historic beverage of choice, you could read about the escalation in soda fountain technology and ornamentation in “Victorians Drank Soda Out Of Monstrous Gilded Machines” by Cara Giaimo. The article, full of illustrations and photos of the soda fountains of yore, is a lighthearted look at an arms race which helped shaped how we think of the interiors of pharmacies and soda shops. If you can’t get enough of viewing these elaborate soda machines, the Matthews Catalogue and Price List of Apparatus, Materials and Accessories for Making and Dispensing Carbonated Beverages is available as a free Google e-book so you can read the enticing description of soda fountain machines with evocative names like Snowdrop, Avalanche, and Drinkjoy.

Friday Roundup: Tax Credit Talking Points and Greenway Court

The Historic Tax Credit Coalition has shared their research into some of the challenges they heard about the necessity of a federal level historic tax credit when other incentives may be enacted. If you are interested in being an advocate for the historic tax credit, you can find some questions and answers – both technical and simplified versions – in Answering the Hard Questions from Capitol Hill about the Future of the Historic Tax Credit at the National Trust for Historic Preservation blog.

For Friday Photos this week, we have added 14 images of outbuildings at Greenway Court. Although outside PHW’s geographical mission area, we helped spread the word on fundraising to stabilize the outbuildings. These images were taken by Frank Wright during a group site visit to raise awareness of the project, likely in the fall of 2008. You can see them all in our Greenway Court album on Flickr. Happy viewing!

“A House Without a Porch Is Boring” Lunch and Learn Lecture Coming May 11

Celebrate National Preservation Month this May with a look at a uniquely American staple of architecture, the porch. Sandra Bosley, Executive Director of Preservation of Historic Winchester, will take you through a journey discussing the origins of the porch, how a porch can give clues about the architectural style of a house, and some of the social and cultural movements surrounding porches which made them an integral part of American homes. Bring a lunch and learn with us!

Date: Thursday, May 11, 2017
Time: Noon-1 PM
Place: OakCrest Companies, 126 N. Kent St., Winchester, VA
RSVP: Appreciated but not required
Cost: Free and open to the public
Parking: Parking is limited and on-street parking is metered; we recommend utilizing the George Washington Autopark, across the street from OakCrest.
Questions? Contact PHW at phwinc.org@gmail.com or 540-667-3577.

Friday Photos: Bough and Dough Shop 1997

Happy Friday! Before we get to the photos, mark your calendars for our Preservation Month Lunch and Learn Lecture “A House Without a Porch Is Boring,” coming on May 11, noon, at OakCrest, 126 N. Kent St. We’ll have more details on the presentation available soon.

This week, we found a few more images from the 1997 Holiday House Tour in the files. Brand new are 25 photos taken of the table setups at the Bough and Dough Shop in the Cannonball Restaurant, 229 South Loudoun Street. The Saturday of the Shop that year coincided with the first limited opening of the restaurant. The Shop was set up in the dining booths, while the bar area served lunch to promote the new restaurant. The Shop featured twenty vendors that year, most of which were documented in the photos. Not pictured were the greens, centerpieces, and wreaths by Cheryl Crowell, Evergreen Tree Farm, James Wood Agriculture Department, and handmade jewelery by Mary Teer. We also found a second photo album from the 1997 Tour with duplicate photographs, which verified some very early uploads in our Flickr account were from the 1997 House Tour at the Red Lion Tavern. Those photos, plus the new Shop photos, have been added to the 1997 Holiday House Tour album. Happy viewing!

Watch the Log Structure Maintenance & Repairs Lecture Now

Did you miss the November Lunch and Learn lecture Log Structure Maintenance & Repairs, or want to revisit the information? We have posted a podcast-style version of the presentation by Moss Rudley on our YouTube channel. The presentation is just a little over one hour in length. While we were not able to use the matching images, we hope you still find the audio portion of the lecture worthwhile and useful.

Friday Roundup: Preservation Resources

Happy Friday! As the weather gets warmer you might have some outdoor preservation projects on your to do list. You may want to consult a few online sources for information before diving in to your next project. Here’s a handy reminder of some of the sources of information you can access for free online!

From the National Park Service:
Preservation Briefs (common preservation issues and how to resolve them, often used as a supplement for tax credit projects)
Preservation Tech Notes (case studies of preservation techniques)
Preservation by Topic (alphabetical list by preservation topic, useful if you have an issue but you are not sure where to look for an answer)

From the Virginia Department of Historic Resources:
Historic Trades Directory
Publications (a mix of both hard copy only and PDF publications on various preservation and archeology topics, including New Dominion Style Guide for help identifying architecture styles of the recent past, and How to Research Your Historic Virginia Property)
Technical Reports (a Virginia-level companion to the NPS Preservation Briefs and Tech Notes)

The Historic Preservation Education Foundation has provided digital versions of some hard to find print publications generated from conference proceedings, including:
Roofing
Windows
Interiors
Preserving the Recent Past

If you are looking for some period materials in catalogs in your research into house parts and appliances, check out:
Building Technology Heritage Library
Winterthur Museum Library

If you are looking for in-person training opportunities, check out:
Traditional Trades Youth Initiative pilot program, looking to provide youth (age range 18-30) with exposure and experience in the fields of Historic Preservation, Cultural Resources and Facility Maintenance
Historic Real Estate Finance Training Program May 8-12 in Fairmont, WV, an intense, interactive workshop in the real estate development process including underwriting, appraisals, cash flow, depreciation, passive income/loss, syndication, tax credits and more

And if you are in need of some actual architectural salvage pieces for a project, the PHW office has a selection of window sashes with historic glass (two, six, and nine light sashes) ready to go back out into the world. Drop us a line at 540-667-3577 or phwinc.org@gmail.com for more information.

Building Community Through Historic Preservation

We took a little break this week from scanning photos, so instead we found a TEDxCLE talk by Rhonda Sincavage from the National Trust for Historic Preservation called “Building Community Through Historic Preservation” to share with you.

To many of you, the points she makes in the first six minutes will be entirely familiar. If you find yourself nodding off, skip ahead to about the 6:40 minute mark to hear some outside confirmation of the intuitive reasons people get involved with historic preservation, and the theory of how a strong emotional attachment to a place positively impacts the community as a whole.

For those interested in exploring the Soul of a Community Study mentioned briefly in this talk in more detail, you can learn more about it on the Knight Foundation website or watch a quick introduction video.

Friday Photos: People, Places, and Things Edition

Happy Friday! This week, we have added 25 photos to the PHW Flickr account of some different subjects:

In the “people” category, we have scanned 13 photos provided by Linda Ross of PHW members at various events. The photos were taken approximately 2001-2007.
In the “places” category, we added five photos taken by Mary Riley during the 2010 Holiday House Tour, plus two images from the interior of E.E. Bayliss, Jr.’s office on East Piccadilly Street (now demolished, and also serving double duty in the “people” category), plus a photograph of the Lee-Jackson Service Station and Tourist Court provided by John G. Lewis.
In the “things” category, we have a few different images from John G. Lewis’ history file, including another look at nail chronology and pit sawing illustrations, and a marker some of you may remember was once installed at the corner of Braddock Street and Fairfax Lane commemorating George Washington’s lot. This marker was replaced with a more durable metal marker on a small grassy strip after the building housing it was demolished.

Find all the photos at the top of the Flickr photostream, or at the end of their respective albums. Happy viewing!

Friday Roundup: PHW Newsletter, File Indexes, Clowser House Update, and Photos

The first PHW Newsletter of 2017 is available online now, with a recap of the 2016 Holiday House Tour and a fairly lengthy update on PHW’s ongoing archiving process. If you think you should be on the PHW mailing list of current members and you don’t receive your hard copy, please let us know at 540-667-3577 or phwinc.org@gmail.com. (If you spot a typo or need to update or confirm your current mailing address, please let us know that too!)

As part of the archiving process mentioned in the newsletter, we have made a working index of the dead PHW office files available online. At present time the list consists only of the file name and box number, but more information on the contents may be added in the future. This index only covers the files moved to storage, so most of the Revolving Fund, newer Holiday House Tours, and historic building files are not indexed (yet!).

We are also very excited to share the indexing of the Winchester Star’s “Out of the Past” articles completed to date. This indexing project was started by summer intern Marlena Spencer as we were beginning to sort and file the newspaper clipping boxes in 2013. Hopefully this will help you locate some stories you may have read in the Out of the Past section. Expect more additions to this index as time goes on.

The Clowser House has cleared its next hurdle in the ongoing preservation efforts. On Wednesday, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to move the Clowser House proposal to a public hearing to be held on April 26th. If all goes well, the April 26th hearing will be the final step needed before the Clowser House Committee can lease the property for 99 years and start the preservation process.

Last but not least, we added 22 photos to Flickr this week, all of one location: 219 South Loudoun Street. The brick house was likely built by Abraham Lauck around 1823 for his daughter Sarah at the time of her marriage to Charles Finn. In addition to a selection of shots from the 1997 Holiday House Tour, we were also able to identify the rear garden springtime photos, which had long been in the unknown photo file at PHW. We also did a bit of housekeeping at Flickr and created a dedicated album for those Holiday House Tour 1997 images we have been sharing recently. Enjoy both the festive photos and a taste of spring at the top of the photostream.

Friday Photos and Preservation News

Happy Friday! We have some preservation news to pass along before we get to the photos.

The Clowser House Committee has invited anyone interested to stop by the Purple Room at the Frederick County Administrative building in Winchester from 6 to 7 PM on Wednesday, March 8 to meet before the Board of Supervisors meeting. Enter from the North Kent Street side and go down the hall next to the elevator and enter the room to the right at the end. They will have the Clowser House matted prints for sale at $30, as well as information and photos for viewing. The committee is also interested in any old photos you may have relating to the Clowser House and Clowser family for their archives. Please extend this invitation to others, and then stick around for the Board of Supervisors meeting at 7 to show your support for the Clowser House!

For Friday Photos this week, we have added 40 photos to Flickr, including images from Tim Youmans’ tour of City Hall for Rouss Day 2017, two contact prints from the Kurtz Cultural Center exhibit and gift shop areas, and the check presentation of the 2016 Bough and Dough Shop proceeds to Winchester Little Theatre.

We hope you like seeing Christmas decorations year-round, as almost all the photos we have left to scan are from Holiday House Tours. This week we added more images from the 1997 tour of two houses on South Loudoun Street. One is 217 South Loudoun, the Rutherford House, which was built circa 1775 by one of Winchester’s early prominent citizens. Likewise, 522 South Loudoun, the Dr. Cornelius Baldwin House, was open for the 1997 tour. The frame house was built circa 1795. In addition to its famous owner, the house is also recognized for its family connection to Mary Julia Baldwin, Dr. Baldwin’s granddaughter, who founded Mary Baldwin College. Catch all the new photos at the top of the photostream, and keep an eye out for a new album just for the 1997 House Tour images soon!