Historian

Architectural Historian

I am an architectural historian by accident. I found I was showing friends and clients the historic environment they lived in but did not see.

Writing a column in the local newspaper, Sunday Drives, gave me my voice. I enjoy sharing what I see; so I give lectures and teach seminars.

Building to the Weather

Our ancestors spent much of their lives outside. They lived without electricity, central heat or air conditioning, so they had to understand their surroundings. They learned how to adapt their buildings to their weather, making their daily lives more comfortable by how they fashioned those buildings. And they did this with no modern technology. Instead, they understood the basic forces: sun, rain, wind - the macro-climate - and their building sites, where topography and geography create specific micro-climates.

Their solutions are wonderful, inventive, brilliant. So what I'm saying, is, "Hey, pay attention! This is great stuff! It's all around us, in its marvelous variety. Maybe you are lucky enough to already live in it!"

I wrote the series which follows about building to the weather using the Park-McCullough House carriage barn as an example because it was then a museum, thus open to visitors. The series, posted in my blog, was adapted for publication in October, 2008, in the Walloomsack Review, the Journal of the Bennington Museum. More

Sunday Drives

Archive of a bi-weekly newspaper column on vernacular architecture, written for the Lawrence, MA Eagle-Tribune, from 1988-1999. In 1994, the column received a Massachusetts Historic Preservation Award.

Each "Sunday Drives" column was limited to 250 words, so when writing them I focused on explaining a few interesting elements from each building, instead of telling its complete history. More