All posts tagged: Historic Preservation

My Turn on Music Row

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I’ve often said I have one of the best jobs on earth.  I work with amazing people to save some of the best places in the country. I get to see some amazing sites. I have the chance to explain why these places matter. Last Monday was one of those days. The National Trust designated Nashville’s Music Row as a National Treasure. Nashville is undergoing an amazing transformation, where growth is putting pressure on some of the most important places in the history of country music. When a threat arose last summer, Musician Ben Folds and several other Nashville insiders worked hard to save historic Studio A from demolition. We joined them in this fight and – in the process – expanded our reach to all of Music Row. Knowing of my Tennessee roots and my love for roots and country music, our team asked if I would help launch our campaign.  It took me about 3 seconds to say yes. As you can see above, we had a great turnout from the media and …

Exploring Savannah’s Gem of a Cathedral

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A week would generally be enough time to explore large sections of a city the size of Savannah, Georgia. Time to linger among the live oaks and Spanish moss in the historic squares, eat at the growing list of restaurants, visit the museums, and share stories with friends and strangers in the coffee shops and bars scattered throughout the downtown. Plenty of time…unless one has a conference to run. Well, run is actually much too strong a word.  While technically responsible for ensuring that last week’s PastForward 2014 – the National Preservation Conference went off without a hitch, there are many staff members who carry a far heavier load as we worked to reach that goal.  Much of my oversight actually took place over the past 18 months.  Once the week of the conference comes, I just “enjoy the field trip” as Candice – the former elementary school teacher – says at times like these.  At the conference, I often have my day structured by others: be here to welcome this group, then go there …

Kansas City Stars

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Kansas City is one of America’s hidden gems. I had the good fortune to work last weekend in this heartland city that is thriving in the midst of an amazing renaissance. Over the course of three days, we saw the rich arts district, built on the foundation of a beautiful Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts  surrounded by artists living and working in older and historic buildings. Incredible historic homes – like the one at the top of the post – were opened to us so we could visit the treasures along the city’s famous boulevards. In this particular home, the retractable roof over the courtyard was opened for songs (by the Kansas City Chorale) and dinner. There is a great deal to highlight, but because my time is limited I’m going to post a few pictures to give you a flavor of the weekend.  Do yourself a favor – find a long weekend to visit this thriving, alive city. We began our visit focusing on J.C. Nichols’ landmark Country Club Plaza, the nation’s first …

Efficiency Isn’t the Point

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One could look at today’s itinerary for the Not All Who Wander Are Lost tour and think that our main goal was to go from Point A (Seattle) to Point B (Portland) as quickly and efficiently as possible.  But those who think that way miss the point of our cross-country trip. We avoided most of Interstate 5 – the main line between Seattle and Portland – and struck out from Gig Harbor, Washington, to get to Astoria, Oregon on the coast via the crooked road. And think of what we would have missed had we taken the straight and narrow way. Why, we wouldn’t have known that Montesano, Washington is the home of the Tree Farm.  (It says so right on the sign.) We would have missed the fact that South Bend, Washington is the Oyster Capital of the World. Given the amount of “working forests” one sees in this section of the state, I suspect this is where America’s supply of paper is produced. And who knew that McCleary, Washington will be celebrating the …

Glacier panorama at Logan Pass

Going to the sun

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Wow! On a picture perfect August day, Claire and I visited Glacier National Park, The Crown of the Continent. It was an experience we’ll never forget. We had always envisioned this day – at the midpoint in our cross-country road trip – to be one of the highlights.  But as first time visitors to this park, we just couldn’t have imagined how wonderful it would be. Knowing that we wanted to beat the crowds, we left our hotel early and drove into St. Mary, the eastern gateway to the park.  On the advice of several friends, we planned to focus our visit along the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road – a National Historic Landmark and a National Engineering Landmark. According to the National Park Service website: The road officially received its name, “The Going-to-the-Sun Road,” during the 1933 dedication at Logan Pass. The road borrowed its name from nearby Going-to-the-Sun Mountain. Local legend, and a 1933 press release issued by the Department of the Interior, told the story of the deity, Sour Spirit, who came down from …

Observations from the road: The “prairie” edition

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Having been warned that we will lose cell and online coverage as we enter the mountains portion of our trip over the next couple of days, I’m writing my next set of “Observations from the road: The prairie edition” from my outpost here on the front porch of the historic Fort Peck Hotel in Fort Peck, Montana.  (The beautiful and flat part of Montana, as their website describes it.) You can catch earlier parts of the “Observations” series here (the Central Time edition) and here (essentially the Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana edition). Fort Peck dam was built in the 1930s as a WPA project, and this building was originally constructed to house the workers.  It was converted into a hotel in the 1930s, and has served sportsmen, patrons of the Fort Peck Summer Theatre Playhouse, and wayward travelers like Claire and me ever since.  The rooms are small and simple but the lobby (where I wrote last evening’s post) is down home and friendly with a well-stocked bar.  The only disappointment was that the dining …

Cloister Walk

A jewel on the prairie

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Some of the most amazing finds on the road occur in the most unlikely places. When my colleague Jenny Buddenborg learned I was traveling cross-country with Claire – and taking in North Dakota in the process – she directed me to one of America’s hidden gems:  a college campus in Bismarck, North Dakota designed by Marcel Breuer, one of the masters of Modernism. The University of Mary is a small, Catholic school located on rolling hills about 7 miles outside of Bismarck. The university’s website picks up the story from here: In the 1950’s, when the Benedictine Sisters of the Annunciation founded their original priory and later planned for the first campus buildings for Mary College, they asked Breuer if he would create the architectural designs. To their delight he accepted and conceived expansive structures of native prairie stone and exquisite concrete shapes, notable for their interplay of light and shadow. Breuer called it his “jewel on the prairie.”  After an hour touring the campus this morning, I wouldn’t disagree. Thanks to Jenny and the …

Observations From the Road (The “Central Time” Edition)

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Claire and I were driving through the heart of Central Minnesota today when the Pokey LaFarge paean to Middle America – Central Time – popped up on the iPhone playlist. Yet another omen! The Missouri is my right arm, the Ohio is my left But I’m livin’ on the Mississippi River where I like life the best I don’t mind the west coast, and I don’t mind the east coast Oh, baby, but I ain’t gonna live on no coast. I’m just a plain ole Midwestern boy, Getting by on Central time So thanks to Pokey’s reminder, here are a few (more) observations from the road – in the Central Time edition. Some oddities really are worth seeing – We went an hour out of our way today to see the largest ball of twine rolled by one person, and it was SO worth it.   As the great post on the Roadside America blog puts it, “One runs across more than a few balls on the obsession landscape…But special tribute must be paid to the Mother of the moss gathering …

With Liz and Dave at the Twins game 08 05 14

Main Street, baseball, and rhubarb crisp (?)

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Main Streets and baseball. What could be more American? More  importantly, can you have a bad day when these two things converge?  Not in my book. But how did the rhubarb crisp replace apple pie?  Well, you’ll just have to read on to find out. We began our first Tuesday – Day 5 on the Not All Who Wander Are Lost cross-country tour – in tiny Spring Green, Wisconsin. For a town of 1400 (I love town signs that post the population), Spring Green had much to offer.  The downtown has a variety of interesting shops and services, and my friend Oakley Pearson – who drives through this area each year on his way home to Minnesota – recommended the Spring Green General Store for breakfast.  Claire and I took him up on that recommendation, and after a great bowl of oatmeal (see, we can eat healthy food), we’re glad we did. Business was hopping with a great mix of patrons. I stopped by one table to tell the guy wearing the 1952 Vincent Black …

Hillside detail at Taliesin

A remarkable afternoon at Taliesin

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Some days on the road are magical. Yesterday — spent at Frank Lloyd Wright‘s Taliesin — was one such afternoon. Our cross-country road trip includes a couple of places that are clearly what one could tag as a busman’s holiday. Thanks to the generous offer of my good friend Jeff Grip of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Claire and I were met at Taliesin – Wright’s Spring Green, Wisconsin, home – by Effi Casey, a member of the Taliesin Fellowship; a graduate of the architecture school at Taliesin; the widow of the long-time dean of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, Tom Casey; and an accomplished violinist who serves as the Director of Music at the school. We were also joined for the afternoon by Floyd Hamblen, a member of the Taliesin Fellowship who serves on the faculty of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, is a practicing architect, and lives year-round with his family at Taliesin. I’m pictured with the two of them inside Effi’s home on the grounds, known locally as …