The Evolution of PHW’s Mission

I had been asked when education became PHW’s primary mission a few weeks ago. You might remember from the 50th Anniversary blog series post Education Becomes PHW’s Mission pegged this date as September 1970, following the loss of the Conrad House and prior to the creation of the Jennings Revolving Fund. But has the wording of the mission changed significantly over the years?

The short answer is no. The longer answer is as follows:

The earliest extant draft of the by-laws in 1967 includes a purpose statement to encourage “the preservation of ancient buildings and structures, and of places which hold historic interest in Winchester, Virginia and its environs and to collect and disseminate information and factual data. . .”

By 1973, the statement of purpose will sound quite familiar (punctuation and grammar as written in 1973):

Preservation of Historic Winchester, Inc., organized by concerned members of the community and incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, exist for the purpose of safeguarding the heritage of the City and assuring a quality of life for tomorrow represented by the best of the area’s past.

To the end that this goal may be encouraged among the people and the charm of their community maintained and improved, this organization shall through a program of education enlist support for and participate in the preservation, restoration, and ownership of sites, buildings, structures and objects significant to the (cultural, social, political, economic and architectural) history of the Winchester, Virginia area.

In the pursuit if these objectives, the fostering of civic pride, the uses of beauty, the welfare and pleasure of the residents, and the strengthening of the local economy shall be viewed as important by-products of the purpose defined.

The Jennings Revolving Fund was added in 1976, but the statement that education is the main vehicle by which PHW promotes preservation has remained largely unchanged since 1973. A grammatically incomprehensible revision in 1999, likely due to missing a line during retyping, was corrected in the 2003 by-laws revision.

(All known PHW by-law revisions on file from 1967, 1973, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1999, 2003, and 2010 were consulted to write this post.)

PHW Website Goes Mobile Friendly

If you’ve grown tired of trying to read the main PHW site on your phone since we announced a responsive layout would be coming to PHW this summer, the wait is over. The new mobile-friendly layout will adjust in width for computers, tablets, and smartphones.

Most links and information have stayed the same, though several outdated and unused pages and files have been removed. Some of the new or altered pages in this version:

* A contact page has been added.
* The Shop page has been overhauled, though more work is planned for the future.
* The 50th Anniversary page has been renamed to history.php
* The front page blog feed has changed slightly to display excerpts without images to prevent side-scrolling issues for small screens.
* The Tours and Activities page has been updated to include a link to the Winchester iTour mobile tour apps, among other things.
* Most Revolving Fund properties have a pdf copy of the architectural description linked now for easy reference, to go along with the images and the deeds with covenants.
* And many other small things, like link checking, proofreading, information updating, and other such details.

Please let us know if you spot any broken links and enjoy the site!

PHW’s 2015 Preservation Award Winners

Congratulations are due to the following people and projects recognized with a 2015 PHW preservation award:

Certificates of Appreciation to the 2014 Holiday House Tour Homeowners
Tommy and Sarah Beavers, John Chesson, Joe and Sharon Collette, Martha Shickle, Eugene and Sarah Smith, David and Margery Wingenbach

Awards of Merit
Thomas and Jaruvan Frerotte, Chop Stick Café, 207 North Kent Street
Jack Schutte and Terri Morgoglione, Handley Crossing, 1000 Valley Avenue
Winchester Hiram Lodge No. 21 fresco restoration
Tim and Barbara Bandyke, 205 West Pall Mall Street

Katherine G. Rockwood Award
Tom and Deanna Stouffer, 125 East Clifford Street

Lucille Lozier Award
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Rose Hill Manor House

Ben Belchic Award
Judy Humbert & June Gaskins-Davis, History of Douglas School Winchester, Virginia: A Tribute to Endurance, Belief, Perseverance, and Success

Elsie Rosenberger Award
John Chesson

Carroll Henkel Award
Linda Quynn Ross for leadership of the French and Indian War Foundation

Lifetime Achievement Award
Eloise Strader for decades of commitment to preserving Winchester’s history

Congratulations and a round of applause are due to all the award winners for their efforts to preserve Winchester’s history, and many thanks to our hosts at the Winchester Little Theatre for allowing us to use their building for the Annual Meeting in the midst of their own busy summer schedule. Special thanks as well to David Logan and Tim Machado for bringing us up to speed on the building progress and allowing us to get up close to the restoration work at the Little Theatre. Sunday was a perfect way to finish up our 50th year and start on our 51st!

Annual Meeting and PHW’s Preservation Awards

PHW will kick off our 51st year with the Annual Meeting on Sunday, June 28 at the Winchester Little Theatre. A large part of what we look forward to celebrating at Annual Meeting, aside from the food and friends, is seeing the preservation projects that have happened around Winchester over the past year.

The awards were started by PHW in 1980 as preservation instead of demolition started to become the norm. The awards were intended to encourage the often lonely and unrecognized efforts of local preservationists. Initially, all projects, whether building restorations, leadership, or scholarly research, were awarded a certificate of merit.

In 1986, the Lucille Lozier Award, Ben Belchic Award, and Carroll H. Henkel Award were added to the merit awards to recognize specific preservation projects. As longtime PHW members or readers of the 50th Anniversary blog series may know, these three awards were named in honor of founding members of PHW who had passed away by this point in time. The Henkel award, named for PHW’s first president, honors individuals who demonstrate outstanding leadership for historic preservation in the Winchester-Frederick County area. The Lozier award, named for PHW’s president during the final year of the struggle to save the Conrad House, is awarded to a renovation of a significant structure retaining 75% of the historic architectural fabric. The Belchic award, named for PHW’s first resident historian, recognizes a significant contribution to understanding Winchester’s history through written texts, such as books, maps, National Register nominations, and guided tours.

In 1988, the Elsie Rosenberger Award was added to the roster to recognize volunteerism with PHW. This award also is the only one to date which is recognized with an engraving of the volunteers’ names on a silver octagonal platter which remains on display year-round at the PHW office.

Two more awards were added in the 1990s. The first, the Katherine G. Rockwood Revolving Fund Award, was initiated in 1996. Named for the mastermind behind many of PHW’s projects of the 1970s and early 1980s, including the 1976 Historic District survey and the Limestone, Sycamores, & Architecture book, this award is only eligible to the approximately 80 properties PHW has purchased through the Revolving Fund. Until this time, it had been standard not to recognize the work put into the Revolving Fund properties as a quality restoration was part of the agreement to purchase the property. Added the next year was the Patron Award, recognizing outstanding supporters of the goals and programs of PHW. As it usually encompasses a financial component, it is likely to recognize sponsors or large donors to the organization.

The newest award is the Lifetime Achievement, which came to be in 2009. E. E Bayliss, Jr., who had long been PHW’s go-to realtor for the Revolving Fund, had passed away shortly before the Annual Meeting and no particular award seemed to fit the work he had done for PHW. After brainstorming, we decided the best recognition would be a Lifetime Achievement to recognize a person who has worked for the goals and programs of PHW over many years. Whereas a Henkel Award may recognize a short term, high-impact project, Lifetime Achievements are a recognition of “slow and steady” work over the long-term. The award is often presented posthumously to recognize a PHW supporter who may otherwise be unrecognized despite long years of preservation work.

Ten more names will join the list of PHW Preservation Award winners this Sunday, and a new recognition category will be presented as well. The winners won’t be publicly released until following the meeting, but you can review the past winners from 1980-2014 at PHW’s site.

We hope to see you Sunday as these names become inscribed in PHW’s history!

Friday Photos: A Hodgepodge of Historic Winchester

This week, we bring you an assortment of views around Winchester, with a special emphasis on late Victorian era architectural details. If you like looking at cornices, you will love the Italianate style details and buildings album.

New additions have also been made to the following albums:

Holiday House Tour 2009: Aglow on Clifford Street

Clifford Street

Amherst Street

Cecil Street

Floral details and spindlework

Mark your calendars: PHW’s 51st Annual Meeting on June 28th

51st Annual Meeting

Join PHW as we celebrate another year of historic preservation in Winchester. The business portion of the meeting features an overview of the past year, election of board members, and presentation of the 2015 Preservation Awards. The Winchester Little Theatre team will then bring you up to date on the work and progress at the Little Theatre. Afterwards, stay for an afternoon of socializing, refreshments, and building tours. WLT will have slates for sale, which can be purchased for $10 each and signed. Much like other projects which used engraved bricks for sidewalks to raise funds, your signed slates will be used on the actual roof at the Pennsylvania Freight Station.

Date: Sunday, June 28
Time: 2:00 PM
Location: The Winchester Little Theatre, 315 W. Boscawen St.
Cost: The event is free for current PHW members and invited guests. Need to join or renew your membership? Visit our membership page for more information.

We Need Your Feedback: PHW Products

PHW would like to launch a line of products to raise awareness of Winchester, Virginia’s rich architectural heritage. Please take a few moments to complete this survey and help PHW determine whether this idea has popular demand and, if so, give a direction for the most desired items and subjects. The survey is seven questions in length and should only take a few moments of your time.

Click here to start the survey.

A printed version of this survey will also be included with the mailed PHW Annual Meeting invitations. Please feel free to share this survey with your friends who may be interested in PHW products, too.

Thank you for your help!

The Barber Houses of Winchester, Virginia

The Gables

Following the presentation on Saturday, May 16, Sandra Bosley received a question about the exuberant Queen Anne style house on the corner of Washington and Boscawen Streets. It, along with the other late Victorian homes on that block, was owned by the Baker family, of Baker & Co. wholesale grocery fame. The so-called “palatial” residence was built by William H. Baker, the chocolate magnate of the family.

The house on the corner, known as The Gables, is not only one of Winchester’s most visibly ostentatious dwellings, but one of the designs produced by Knoxville, Tennessee-based architect George F. Barber.

Chimney Detail Barber was a self-taught architect, learning from books like George Palliser’s American Cottage Homes and technical books published by A.J. Bicknell and Company. Barber published his first catalog consisting of fourteen designs in 1887 or 1888. The second edition featuring 59 designs was published in 1890, and his mail order architecture business boomed. Most of his plans were late Victorian confections with distinctive tower, porch, and chimney flourishes, but toward the end of his career, he produced a handful of Colonial Revival and transitional Queen Anne/Colonial Revival style designs as well.(1)

Although Barber phased out his catalog business in 1908, his work had become so widespread as to have representative buildings in all 50 states. Winchester can boast of at least five extant Barber designed houses and two known demolished designs. The Gables is the most famous example, but the known Winchester Barber designed houses are:

As noted by Michael Alcorn during his research trip to Winchester in 1998, it seems likely one person would order a George F. Barber catalog and then pass it on to a friend, so that multiple Barber houses appear in a “cluster.” As Queen Anne houses are not typically thought of when considering potential mail order houses, Barber designs are easily overlooked by enthusiasts of other mail order homes, like Sears, Aladdin, Montgomery Ward, and many more. Peruse more Barber designs at the Knox County Public Library. You just might recognize the design of another local Barber house!