This week, PHW has added 43 photos of Holiday House Tour decorations taken in the early to mid 1980s. There may be a few duplicates in the mix from past uploads, but you can check out all the new additions at the end of the Holiday House Tours album, or see just the latest images at the top of the Flickr photostream. Happy viewing!
It’s a new year, and with the new year often we make resolutions to be better or more engaged with a cause. It can be hard to find tips on how to be a better preservationist or historian – like many things in life it is something you learn best by doing instead of reading about it – but we have found three guides to help you become an expert and speak more eloquently and authoritatively on issues you care about.
1. On Becoming a Local Go-To Person
Last year, Gracen Johnson shared her experiences about becoming a go-to person for interviews concerning local development issues. She lists five things which propelled her into being a go-to person in her community. There are no real shortcuts but to put in the time and research and networking, plus have a dash of luck on your side, but if you too see a vacuum, face your fears and start by writing that op ed piece or volunteering for a board position or committee. You never know what may come of it.
2. Applying What You Know: Reading the Built Environment
Have you ever wondered how some architectural historians just seem to “know” about when some change might have been made to a building? It can seem like magic the first time you see this in action, but it is really just a skill that comes from reading the environment and knowing the broad context of architectural movements. Kaitlin O’Shea walks you through her thought process in reading the environment in an unfamiliar city in this blog post. See if you can pick up any tips from her for your own built environment expeditions.
3. “Addressing the Threat to the Federal Historic Tax Credit and Setting the Preservation Policy Agenda for the 115th Congress.”
Here is one issue that comes up quite often for preservationists – what is happening on a national level that could affect local preservation issues? The National Trust for Historic Preservation has a free webinar to help you get caught up on the latest challenges facing the federal historic tax credit. On Thursday, January 19, 2:00–3:00 p.m. ET, join preservation partners and National Trust President and CEO, Stephanie Meeks, for a presentation of the most pressing policy issues facing the preservation community in the months ahead. You may also want to check out their archive to review past webinars on preservation issues, heritage tourism, grants, and more.
Happy Friday! This week, we have added 52 new photos of the Kurtz Building to our Flickr album. The images are dated from 1989 and early 1990 as we began the initial work to document the existing conditions and undertake the structural stabilization efforts. You can find all the Kurtz photos scanned to date in the Kurtz Building album, or scroll back through the recent additions at the top of the Flickr photostream. Happy viewing!
For our last PHW blog post of 2016, let’s find out how to send off this year!
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has put together a list of 11 Preservation Wins and Losses in 2016. Locally, you can refresh your memory for the 2016 PHW Preservation Award Winners, reflect on the loss of the Winchester Towers, and recognize the ongoing efforts to save the Clowser House in Frederick County and bring life back to three historic structures after the fire on the south end of the Loudoun Street Mall last February.
To see the year out in a safe and family-friendly atmosphere, head to downtown Winchester on December 31 for the 30th Annual First Night Winchester celebration. Events take place from 10 AM to midnight, culminating in the apple drop and the fireworks display to ring in the new year. Buttons are $10 each, with free admission for children 10 and under. Find the full list of activities, locations, performers, and where and how to purchase your buttons at the First Night Winchester site.
If you are planning the celebrate at home, the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions we looked at for Christmas has a few suggestions to help bring in the good luck for the New Year. A plum tree branch should be placed over the front door to encourage fruitfulness and beauty. If you’d like to try a little fortune-telling, “lay a green ivy leaf in a dish on New Year’s night, cover it with water and set it in a safe place until the fifth day of the year. If the leaf is then still green and fair you will be safe from any sickness all the year; but if you find black spots on it, you may expect sickness.” For more interactive and enjoyable party entertainment than watching a leaf for five days, The Book of Games and Parties for All Occasions offers the game “Old Year’s Follies and New Year’s Resolutions,” which derives from the game Consequences (think of an early type of Mad Libs):
“The hostess provides a number of sheets of paper as confession blanks, one for each guest. At the head of one set of blanks she writes, ‘I [name of guest] hereby confess that in the year that is past I committed these among many follies:’ Upon the second set of blanks she writes, ‘I [name of guest] bitterly repenting my follies of the year that is past do hereby firmly resolve:’ Each paper is folded so that no name is visible and passed around in turn for each guest to write a folly and a resolution. Allow two minutes to each guest for writing follies and two for resolutions after which the papers are opened and read. The highly amusing follies and resolutions ascribed to the different guests will create the greatest merriment.”
While you are partying, whoever has the last glass of wine or other spirits from the bottle has had the “lucky glass” and will be successful throughout the next year. It is of course a tradition to sing a rendition of Auld Lang Syne just before midnight. To finish off your New Year’s Eve party, try opening your windows and doors at midnight to let the bad luck out and the good luck in, and make lots of loud noises to scare out those pesky evil spirits. Your neighbors will undoubtedly be thrilled with your shenanigans.
Stay safe, celebrate responsibly, and we will see you in 2017!
Missing your Friday Photos fix? Shorpy Historic Picture Archive has a whole category devoted to vintage Christmas photos between the 1850s-1950s. Although not local to Winchester, the Church of the Nativity image was particularly striking.
Perhaps you need a small artistic project to take a breather from the hectic holiday crunch? Here are two sheets from the School Art Magazine of December 1920 which are ready for you to adapt to your decorating needs, color, and cut out. Click on the images to download them at full size.
Holiday music has become an intrinsic part of the Christmas observances. To quench your need for vintage carols in an authentic format, the Library of Virginia has shared a set of sheet music from Hotel Richmond on their blog this week. However, if you find belting out a tune a little on the tame side, the Atlas Obscura writers have turned up some genuinely dangerous Victorian parlor games to amaze and astound you. While they may be authentic, we would not suggest recreating Snapdragon or full contact Blind Man’s Bluff today!
If folklore is more enticing than roughhousing or games of truth or dare, the Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World for 1903 has a few choice tidbits for anyone hunting down forgotten Christmas traditions. To forecast the weather, “on Christmas day take twelve onions . . . and put salt on each one.” Each onion is designated as one of the twelve months of the year. Check the onions again on Epiphany (January 6); if any salt remains piled on an onion that month is said to be dry, while if all the salt has melted that will be a wet month. To boost your health, tradition says “to bathe on Christmas day will secure freedom from fevers and toothaches.” To increase your financial success for next year, “if you put all the silver you possess on the table set for the Christmas-day feast, the light shining on it from the Yule-fire will bring good luck and cause the silver to increase.” Doubling up on this luck, it is also said to be particularly fortunate when Christmas falls on a Sunday, as it does this year. Find these and many more Christmas-themed superstitions starting on page 324 of the PDF of the encyclopedia!
Above all, warmest wishes for a wonderful holiday season, from the PHW family to yours!
PHW will be taking a winter vacation from midday on Wednesday, December 21 through the New Year, opening as usual on Monday, January 2.
Still looking for a present for an architecture-aficionado in your your life? The Clowser House Committee is selling matted, signed and numbered prints of the Shawneeland Clowser House with the water wheel house in the foreground. These were done by artist Michael Martin (www.michaelmartinart.com) and sell for $30 each. A limited number are framed, as well, for $40. Buy one now in the Handley Regional Library Archives. Proceeds from the sale of the prints is going back to the ongoing efforts to save the Clowser House. The print and more information about the fundraising efforts can be found on their Facebook page.
Have you ever wondered what a country store around 1840 might have had for sale? JF Ptak Science Books found a pocket sized guide published in 1836 that lists all the staples you were likely find, from tea and coffee, pork and beef, fabrics, shoes, pails and kettles, and even a few books. Find the full post, with the full list of items, at the JF Ptak Science Books blog “What Things Cost in the U.S. in 1836.”
As we alluded to in some of our 2016 Holiday House Tour stops this year, Midcentury Modern is gaining traction in historic preservation circles. Relax after Christmas with a new PBS documentary on Eero Saarinen, architect of St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch, Dulles International Airport, and the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. The documentary will premier on Dec. 27, 8 PM on WETA and is 1 hour in length.
Last, if you have not done so yet, there may be enough time to check a few more winter maintenance issues off your to-do list. Take a look at the Northern Virginia Magazine’s To-Do List to see if you are ready for winter.
As is usual after Holiday House Tour, a few lost items have been turned in to the PHW Office and have not yet been claimed. If you are missing a hat or a car alarm key fob, we may have them! Let us know at 540-667-3577 or phwinc.org@gmail.com and we can reunite you.
We were remiss in not thanking some of the volunteers who stepped up over the fall and collected shopping bags and newspapers for PHW to use at the Bough and Dough Shop. As best we can determine, we used the equivalent of a 39 gallon trash bag’s worth of donated plastic grocery bags, and probably close to that amount of paper bags and newspaper bits to pack items. The unused newspapers were recycled, and the leftover bags have been saved for next year. Thank you so much for your donations – we will do it again next fall!
Also, if you have not done so already, we are still seeking your anonymous feedback from the 2016 Holiday House Tour to be discussed at our January 9 meeting. Take the survey now! All feedback, good and bad, is helpful for us to see where we can improve the Tour and Shop.
Did you attend the Holiday House Tour and/or Bough & Dough Shop this year? We’d like your feedback for future planning! Please take a few moments to answer a ten question survey at Survey Monkey. It should take you about fifteen minutes maximum and the anonymous responses will be discussed as part of our event wrap up meeting in early January.
Take the survey now! Thank you all for your time and interest in improving the Holiday House Tour!
As we near the last hours before the 40th annual Holiday House Tour kicks off, here are a couple things to keep in mind:
Tickets are still available at the advance ticket sale locations:
Kimberly’s, 135 North Braddock Street
Wilkins’ Shoe Center, 7 South Loudoun Street
Winchester Book Gallery, 185 North Loudoun Street
Winchester-Frederick County Visitors Center, 1400 South Pleasant Valley Road
Tickets will also be available at the Bough & Dough Shop on December 3 and 4.
Admission to a single site on Sunday is $5. Pay at the door of the house you wish to visit.
If you have questions, the best place to find someone well-versed on the House Tour Saturday and Sunday is the Bough & Dough Shop at the Winchester Little Theatre, 315 W. Boscawen St. The Shop is open Saturday 9 AM-5 PM and on Sunday 11 AM-5 PM.
The normal PHW phone number (540-667-3577) and email (phwinc.org@gmail.com) will not be staffed from Friday-Sunday. Should the weather or some other disaster impact the tour, we will try to push notification on Facebook, the PHW blog, and the PHW voicemail message ASAP.
Watch for any changes about to the Saturday handbell concert and Sunday Lessons and Carols taking place at Braddock Street United Methodist Church at braddockstreetumc.org
The hours for the house tours are Saturday (Preview Party and Candlelight Tour) 6-9 PM, and Sunday (Daylight Tour) from 1-5 PM.
Note that George Washington’s Office Museum, 32 W. Cork St., will be open on Saturday only, 3-9 PM. Washington’s Office will not be stocked with House Tour tickets or booklets.
The Bell House, 106 N. Cameron St., will be open Sunday only, 1-5 PM. The Bell House will be stocked with House Tour tickets and booklets.
There will be complimentary warm drinks at the Bough & Dough Shop for all visitors as in previous years.
Costumed carolers from Winchester Little Theatre, organized by Nancy Ticknor, will once again stroll the streets and serenade tour-goers at the open houses between 2-4 PM on Sunday with festive holiday music. Carolers sing 4 or 5 holiday standards at each stop. They will start and end at the Winchester Little Theatre, and travel to the houses open on the tour.
The weather forecast is partly cloudy on Saturday, to rainy on Sunday. Precipitation is not expected to start until after 5 PM. Temperatures are expected to be in the mid-40s, falling to the low 30s overnight.
Have a safe and happy Holiday House Tour, everyone!