Ethical Dilemma of Historic Preservation...

What, this sounds strange to you? What possible dilemma could I have with preserving old buildings? Blame it on my world travels, or my guilt ridden Catholic upbringing, or my sensitive nature...I'm not sure what to blame, but I definitely struggle with the idea of preservation in America.

The key here, is preservation in America, I don't struggle as much with say, preservation in Europe, though I still question it. I've always been a very sympathetic and worldly-conscious person. I've always related to the struggles of others, the poor, discriminated, neglected, persecuted, even if they were half a world away. I've often felt that their problems were my problems too. And I do believe this, if there is persecution and suffering anywhere in the world, it brings down the spirits of all humans, there's only one energy in the world, and we all share it. Ok, but let me not get too off track. The point is, I'm sensitive to human life, and this is where my dilemma comes in.

When you consider Historic Preservation in the U.S., we're talking about relatively young time periods, 100, 200, maybe even 300 year old buildings. Child's play to the thousand+ year old homes in a lot of the world. With our history so young, it's not hard to relate to only 100 years ago. I mean, our grandparents were likely living in these 'historic' times. So when I think of American history, inevitably, I think of Native Americans.

The history of the Native Americans since say, oh maybe 1492, sucks. Any person living in America can tell you that the white European man came to these lands 500 years ago and destroyed the way of life that Native Americans were living. I'm not saying that they lived in Utopia, I'm not saying that their way of life was idealistic. Certainly the land was fraught with war, violence, drought, starvation, disease etc. But it also saw thousands of tribes that flourished, and lived reciprocally off the land, and had harmonious relations with their neighbors. They lived their lives as they saw fit. After Columbus' 'discovery' however, the 'savage' way of life was changed forever. Native Americans were killed with astonishing speeds, they were driven out of their homes and their lands, they were forced to learn English and the 'civilized' way of life, they were forced into Christianity and boarding schools, they were placed on reservations and introduced to alcohol, they were exposed to diseases and terrible white man food...etc. etc. No one can argue that they have suffered a terrible fate at the hands of the 'pioneers'.

So lets switch gears for a second, think of some of the cute little towns historic towns in America like Williamsburg, Savannah, Jonesborough...etc. Oh their so cute and so quaint. They just scream America! They're so fun to walk around and look at the old buildings, and window shop in the cute little antique stores. I am guilty as charged. But what do these towns really represent? Is this America? Is this the true pioneer spirit of our forefathers? What is missing here....

What is missing, is the true history. What was here in Williamsburg before these cute little colonial homes? Hmmm, how about locals such as the Pamunkey and Mattaponi. Where are they now? What, you've never even heard of the Pamunkey and Mattaponi? Most Americans haven't, and that I think, is a big problem. This is the foundation of my dilemma, do I, as a historic preservationist, want to be involved in preserving a building that (in my mind) directly represents the persecution of thousands of peoples? The wigwams, longhouses, tepees and lodges are gone. We can now walk the streets of the perfect little neighborhoods with white picket fences and nice Christian families. I might seem bitter here, well, I am! What has happened to the first peoples of this land is horrendous. And the bigger problem still, is that their situation is still grim today. Native Americans have very unproportional rates of debilitating illnesses like diabetes, alcoholism, HIV, heart disease etc. Their unemployment rate is far beyond the average for non-natives. The struggles from the past are as present today as ever.

By now it should be easy to see my problem. I'm not saying that I am completely against preserving Americas built environment, obviously I'm not or I wouldn't be in this program. I believe it's important to promote community solidarity, preserve the past for education purposes, and to preserve the environment as much as possible (preservation is very green). But I am very conflicted by what should or should not be preserved and glorified.

I've talked to a few good friends about this, and I keep getting the same answer. It's our history, like it or not. It should still be preserved. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I was in Germany this past summer, and while there are a few concentration camps preserved for educational and memorial purposes, most of the Nazi error propaganda has been destroyed, rightly so in my opinion. Ok maybe that's not the best analogy, but you get my point. There's also the idea of life being circular, not lineal like we live it today. This also happens to be a strong theme in Native American life, coincidentally. There's a big part of me that respects this way of thinking. Like we are born, live through adolescence, the teen years, adulthood, old age, and then die. So does all of the world. We wouldn't want to preserve our dead relatives, so what's the difference in preserving our old buildings. Why not let them live their lives and be recycled back into the earth. What's the point in holding on so long....what are we trying to prove?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I didn't expect to be faced with such problems when I chose this career path. But there they are. And to be honest, I tend to have such dilemmas no matter what I'm doing (again with the Catholic guilt). It doesn't mean I'm going to abandon this field. Like my brother told me, 'you have to follow your true passion, and don't forget to keep asking questions along the way'. So for now that is what I'm doing. I continue to ponder these ideas, and question what is best (I don't think there is a right or a wrong here). I think it's important to ask ourselves such questions no matter what we do with our lives. That's just being human I guess.

In the meantime, I'd love some thoughts, feelings, suggestions about these ideas...

Sheet Metal Class

When most of us think about historic buildings, likely we think of wood. Old log cabins, timber framed homes, or simple balloon framed houses that are so common. Where here's a question for you, what do the following pictures all have in common:




All of the these elements, the cornices, the posts and the cupola tower, are all made of metal. That's right, these are not wood structures, like I initially thought, but they're made of metal.
The abundance of metal work in historic American buildings was a total surprise to me before I started my Sheet Metal class this semester. Though the use of metal has been around for thousands of years, the new found land in 1492 was filled coast to coast with trees (minus the Southwest). Of course wood was the most common building structure among the new European inhabitants, though there were certainly other materials used, like brick and stone etc., depending on the precedent of the settlers.
Nonetheless, metal made its way to American buildings. Its use became popular in the 1800's, especially among tinplate, tern-plate, cast iron, lead, copper etc. The benefits of using metal were that it is inexpensive, decorative, lightweight, and resists the elements well. Decorative you say?? Check out this metal wall from a restaurant right here in Leadville:
Pretty cool huh? There's a lot of these impressive metal workings in Leadville. The next time you're in a building you think might be around 100 years or so, look up. The ceiling very well could be made of metal, in a similar kind of fashioning as this wall. Again, they're lightweight to use, sanitary (much more so than wood), and can be quite decorative as you can see. Metal may even be used as a faux finish in many ways, look at this stone wall:
Got ya, that's metal alright! Looks pretty convincing though don't you think? And it will last for quite some time, at least longer than wood does.
Metal can be used for so many things, its really quite impressive. Most of us walk by metal structures everyday with no idea that they're actually metal. I've definitely been fooled. The closer and closer I look, the more I see metal, all over the place! Don't be fooled, check out some of the buildings around you, and see where you can pick up on a piece of metal here and there, I guarantee you'll be surprised!

Stanley Hotel.....ooooooohhhhhhh, spooky!

Last semester I took an Architecture class that focused on American History. I found this class incredibly interesting. I always wanted to know what people meant when they threw around terms like 'Victorian, Gothic and Greek Revival.' I'll write more about all of these house styles in another blog. First, I want to talk about the super cool field trip we took one blustery and snowy November day.

My professor had always wanted to check out the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Many of his previous students had done projects on this building. Being a big fan of the dark side (ghosts, halloween, and spooky things in general) I was excited!

Can't quite place the name Stanley Hotel?? Think "The Shining." That's right, that spooky movie with Jack Nicholas, REEEEEDRRRUUUUMMMMM. The story goes like this, in 1974 Stephen King and his wife took a small vacation from their Colorado home and went to stay in the Stanley Hotel. As the hotel was closing down for the season, they were the only two in the hotel for the weekend. They stayed in room 217, which was reportedly haunted. They dined in the large dining room completely alone, with recorded orchestral music playing in the background. King explored the hotel on his own in the late hours, and gained inspiration for his novel.
Remember the little boy riding down the hallway with on his bigwheel?

Our class received a tour from one of the hotel workers. It mainly consisted of the rumors of hauntings, and the ghostly experiences that so many guests have experienced. I was kind of hoping to see something in the distance, or feel a kick in the shin while going up the main stairway (as many guests have reported). Unfortunately I didn't see or feel anything, well, expect for this:
If you look closely, this stairwell going up to the roof says Redrum on the door!! Spooky!

The hotel has quite an interesting history. It's a 138-room Georgian building located within sight of the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was built by Freelan O. Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame and opened on July 4, 1909, catering to the rich and famous. The hotel was built entirely with hand tools. This is very impressive considering all of the impressive wood work and detailing throughout the building.


The hotel was also of the first equipped with running water, electricity, and telephones. Unfortunately it did not have heat as the hotel was designed as a summer resort. Besides that, it was quite the posh establishment for the rich and famous, and in a stunning location of the Rocky Mountains. A very impressive building to say the least. I definitely recommend a stay at this lovely Colorado resort, if you're not afraid of ghosts! Just beware of hanging out in the lobby or bar area all by yourself...

Historic Log Workshop...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this past August was the International Preservation Trades Symposium here in Leadville. As this semester draws to a close, and I am gearing up for my summer of restoring wooden cabins, I am fondly reminded of an excellent workshop we had at the IPTS this past summer.

There are several old ranches in these parts of the mountains, and lots of neglected and deteriorating buildings. In the log workshop during the symposium, we had the opportunity to work on an old log building from a nearby ranch. We actually disassembled this small living structure and moved it to another location where we reassembled it. Please note, this is almost NEVER allowed in the preservation world. It is considered very bad practice to ever move a historical building from its original site. You would be altering its history after all. Typically the only exceptions are if the building is in some kind of danger of abolition, from modern development or from an unsafe environment. In this circumstance, we used it solely as a learning experience, and have no intentions of documenting this building for preservation purposes.

With that in mind, we chose a small log building that was likely the home of workers on this ranch. We first removed the floor boards, and the roof. Then we labeled each log and removed each one, very gingerly, one by one. (Imagine a lincoln log home that you built as a kid).

All of the parts of the home were loaded onto a big truck and moved to the Hayden Ranch (our schools outdoor laboratory). Here we started with the labeled logs, and put them back together, one by one.




This was great work. Some of the wood had rotted, mostly from being in the soft earth, so we treated it with some epoxy. Supposedly this will keep the wood from further rotting for quite some time. Then as we put the puzzle back together, it was amazing how it fell into place. There were some challenges however, like fitting the doors back in properly. It's amazing how the wood shifted and changed so much! We eventually figured it out though, with a little muscle. Unfortunately we did not have scaffolding to complete the roof, but rest assured that we'll be tackling that in a class very soon.
This session was very informative, and great learning opportunity. One of the highlights of the day, was to see our friend from the cemetery the day before. I can't remember exactly the story he told us about this very cabin, but if I'm not mistaken, I believe he said he was born there, in this very cabin that we just moved across town. Talk about a coincidence! He was more than happy to help us out with reconstructing the cabin. It was a joy to have him there. It really helped put some meaning into the wood we were touching, a face to the place so to speak.

Human Rights, Phrenology, Sexual Liberation and Octagon Houses...

Uh, what do these things have to do with Historic Preservation you ask? I know it sounds strange, but they have a lot in common....Orson Squire Fowler! Never heard the name before? Well be prepared to be wowed, this man was something else.
Picture taken from http://www.steubencony.org

I'm currently doing a paper for my Research and Documentation class on an Octagonal home in Loveland, Colorado. So naturally I had to do a bit of research on Octagonal homes in general. I have to say they're pretty fascinating, well at least Fowler is. He was the name most credited with the promotion of the eight-sided homes. He didn't exactly create it, there are plenty of examples of octagons dating back several hundreds of years, but it was responsible for making it popular in the general housing market.

Fowler lived from 1809-1887. He began his varied careers as a phrenologist. You know, the study of the shape of the skull as an indication of mental abilities and character traits.
Image taken from Amazon.com

Fowler would lecture around the country on phrenology and felt your head for assessment at a measly 25 cents a pop! Me next! I really like this chart...

Ok, so on to human rights and sexual liberation. Yes, Fowler was a proponent for these too, and in the Victorian days nonetheless! As a proponent of various forms of self-culture, he published his book in 1843 "Perfection of Character." He was also the author of one of the more notorious sex manuals in Victorian times, "Sexuality Restored And Warning And Advice To Youth Against Perverted Amativeness: Including Its Prevention And Remedies As Taught By Phrenology And Physiology."
As taken from the website http://www.crookedlakereview.com "Orson Fowler held forth for the equality for women at a time when women had virtually no legal rights in the United States, and he stood for children's rights when child labor was quite acceptable in the burgeoning industrial factories of his country. He proposed ideas on how to discover the ideal mate, on marriage counseling, sex education, hydropathy (the curing of diseases by internal and external use of water), mesmerism, the improvement in farming as well as in the enhancement of health and daily life. Moreover, he condemned the use of tobacco by men and tight corsets for women. Orson Fowler was obviously a universal reformer whose ideas were much ahead of his time, but above all he was a nineteenth century individualist in what many have seen as an age of orthodoxy, piety, and conformity."
And he was doing this in the 1800's!!

So again you ask me, what does this have to do with Historic Preservation. Well, these philosophies led Fowler to his octagon homes. For an octagonal house was much healthier for its inhabitants. The open space with a cupola allowed for much better ventilation throughout the home, and more sunlight. It was heated more efficiently in the winter as the heat could reach the top floors easily. And, it was much cheaper to build. Sounds pretty good to me!

Here we see the floorplan for a Fowler designed home (taken from Wikipedia) and a picture of the Hyde Octagon House from Mumford, New York. (image taken from http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/allegany/.
So if these houses were so great, then why weren't they more popular? There were only a few thousand built, and only about 500 remaining today. Well, if you look closely at the floor plan above, you'll see that though Fowler promoted this shape for ventilation, sunlight, and eliminating useless corners, the inside rooms were actually square. And this further caused some triangular shaped rooms as well. This didn't exactly follow his line of thinking. We still have some useless corners, and even more so awkwardly shaped rooms. Now these smaller rooms like closets and pantries receive the ventilation, not the living rooms, and they only have one exposure to light. Hmmmm, maybe this is why they didn't exactly take off in popularity. Furthermore, the argument that these homes were cheaper to build wasn't because of the shape of the house, but because Fowler was promoting this new "gravel-wall construction" aka, poured concrete. In fact, most of the octagon homes were built of wood or brick, actually making them more expensive because the materials then had to conform to the 135 degree angles.
Well, it was certainly a good try. I think they look pretty cool. I'm not sure I could live in one everyday though. Here's a picture of the McCreery House which I am currently researching for my paper.

It was built between 1888-1901 by W.H. McCreery, a Presbyterian Minister from the east coast. Today it is a Bed and Breakfast and is the sight of many beautiful weddings and other fun events in Loveland. This house was officially registered on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001. Rightly so, this a fine example of the few remaining octagonal homes. All thanks to Orson Squire Fowler!

Building Structure Analysis Class...

Ok, so if you know me at all, you know that the word MATH will bring forth sighs, groans and eye rolls (and possibly a little twitching) from me. For whatever reason I have always struggled with math. Give me a paper to write anyday, and I can fly through that, but computing x=y/nq or whatever that means just gets me riled up. So when I found out I had to take Technical Math last semester, I about fell out of my chair. I had always prided myself on getting through High School and two Bachelor's degrees without taking any physics, chemistry or college math.

Well hello humility, there I found myself one warm August day last year in a classroom with 20 other students, all boys, all under 20, and all Ski Area Operations students. That was one long semester. But me being the determined person that I am, I studied my rear off. With some sweat, tears, and banging of my head on my desk, I triumphed through the course with an A. Ya I know, I was shocked as well!

Man was I happy when I turned in the final on our last day of class. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy learning, and I found the brain exercise very good for my vitality, but man it was hard work, and I was ready to relax and not have to think about equations for a long long time. I was really looking forward to the second semester. I was scheduled for Sheetmetal, Carpentry, Research and Documentation and Building Structure Analysis. I was so excited to have the book classes behind me and start getting my hands dirty (other than the Research and Documentation class, but as I said before, I can knock out a paper in no time).

My first week of classes back in January went well. Until that fateful Thursday evening when I showed up to Building Structure Analysis class and was handed a geometry and algebra test...um, excuse me. Is this a joke? I took Math last semester. Please tell me this is a nightmare, please!

Oh no, no joke indeed. This was the real deal. Not only are we doing math, but we're doing engineering, that's right, straight up math processes I didn't even know existed.

What in the...what is this?? A little engineering, a little physics, a little calculus. Lord help me this is going to be rough. Rough indeed.
Yes, this is quite the struggle for me, but let me tell you the other side. Throughout this semester we've been learning things like how to assess a building for its live load capacity, and its dead load capacity. Do you know that trusses are very strong structures and that's why you see them so much on bridges. Do you know how to figure out how much each member of that stress can hold and whether its in compression or tension.
How about that column on your front porch. Any idea how much its actually holding. Ever wonder how something that skinny can hold up your house? I must say that learning about these processes is pretty dang fascinating. Really I never gave it any thought before, but bless those crazy geometry gods, there's some amazing things you can do with a few little equations!

Yes I know, I probably should have realized that getting into this field was going to require some math usage. But really I just want to hammer and drill stuff together, so I didn't think about it. But after going through the pain and suffering (and a little throwing of my calculator) I guess I can say I'm better off for it. I bet you don't know how to design a house to meet the Earthquake code for a house built in Missouri made of wood. (Seriously, the EQ code for Missouri is higher than that of the Pacific coast. Weird huh!)