SHPUpdate!!

Hey guys!

Sorry we haven't posted in a while; the semester sure did get started quickly!  By now, the first-years have gotten into the thick of things and the second-years are submitting our thesis proposals to Donna.  We're all pretty busy with coursework, but SHPO has made time for some great events.  

Last Thursday we stopped by the Lyndon House, the only remaining home from Athens' Lickskillet neighborhood.  Owned by the city since the late 1930s, it has been used by a rec center and a gallery.  The Arts Center is now housed in a rear addition, and the house itself has been restored and serves as a house museum.  Toni was kind enough to show us around and tell us a little bit about the property's history and the process of restoration.  What a fun trip!

On Saturday SHPO volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and helped with the rehabilitation of two homes in East Athens that the organization will use as rentals.  It was such a fun day!  Fanglan, Vineet, Leeann, Lauren, Scott, and Laura came out and helped lay tile in one house and pressure cleaned the porch and driveways of the other.  Both houses look like they'll be great homes soon!

Getting ready to start the new year!

Summer is almost over and we're ready to hit the ground running with an awesome start to the  Fall Semester!  We hope that everyone can join us for the term's first official SHPO meeting on Tuesday, August 13 at 5pm in the Broad Street Studios.  We'll discuss everyone's schedule and find the best time slot for future meetings then.  We'll also be talking about some really exciting volunteer opportunities we have lined up for the next few months.

Before we even get to the true beginning of the semester, though, our new "First Year" friends will be having a week of orientation beginning tomorrow, August 5th.  Any Second Years who are in town should feel free to come by the Founders' Garden at 9am for a "Meet & Greet."  We'll also be having a SHPO Happy Hour tomorrow at 5pm at the Manhattan Cafe on Hull Street.  Can't wait to see old faces and meet some new!

My Summer: Fanglan Chen

This summer I am working as an intern at the Octagon Museum with the AIA Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the American Institute of Architects. Located at a quiet corner two blocks west of the White House, the Octagon House is a beautiful federal style urban plantation. The Foundation restored the Octagon in the late ‘60s and maintains it as a museum, open to the public free of charge.

Because of financial shortage, the Octagon Museum has been closed from 2005 to 2010. Currently, it was open to the public, but only on Thursdays and Fridays. The AIA Foundation plans to open the museum to the public every day and promote community engagement. The goal of this summer internship is to help with preparing interpretation materials, planning walking tours for visitors and developing a long-term management plan for the museum. Since the Foundation is just taking off, designing the pins and T-shirts for the Foundation is one of our responsibilities as well.

During the recent history of the building, the concern for deterioration due to moisture conditions has been repeatedly expressed in its documentation. At present, several of the below-grade walls exhibit interior plaster failures, which are the signs of damage due to rising dampness. So it is urgent to remove contaminants from interior surfaces and providing appropriate interior finishes, especially at the Coal Vault and Servants Hall of this building. This Octagon Moisture Mitigation project is coming soon and I will work with professionals from the Quinn Evans Architects. My responsibilities include collecting data, documenting the process and preparing reports about the project to share with the general public and other architects. I am so excited about this project and will send another update about how it goes later.

When I am not working at the house museum, I am busy exploring every corner of the city. The sunshine is so strong here and I tan a lot…I have met with two of my middle school classmates and made some good friends. I’ll be sure to share some interesting stories of my life in D.C.

-Fanglan

                                   

My Summer: Elizabeth Elliott

My summer started out at the Poplar Forest Field School in Lynchburg Virgina.  For those of you that do not know Poplar Forest was the personal retreat of Thomas Jefferson, who also designed the structure.  It is a fascinating place to visit and even more interesting to study with Travis McDonald the Director of Architectural Restoration who teaches the field school!  The field school is the perfect mix of lecture, field work, and site visits and in two short weeks participants take away an enormous amount of knowledge.  I was exposed to and able to practice architectural investigation and documentation of a building, restoration carpentry, paint analysis, and mortar analysis.  As a group we visited Monticello, University of Virgina, Montpelier, and several other wonderful places.  At each sight we met with the directors of each site and were given a "behind the scenes" tours focused on the preservation/ restoration/ reconstruction of these sites.  It was  a truly once in a life time opportunity and I will not quickly forget the information I learned. 

www.poplarforest.org/programs/restoration-field-school 

The rest of the summer I will be working with Archway on a preservation plan for the old Mount Airy School in Habersham County.  Archway is "a University of Georgia outreach platform...to deliver a full range of higher education resources to address economic and community development."  (www.archwaypartnership.uga.edu/)  The school was build in 1921 and was in use as a school till 1955.... that is all I have so far, I have a lot of work to do!  I will try to send updates about the plans progress!

I will also be working with FindIt!  It is a state wide historic resources survey that documents historic resources throughout the state to aid in their preservation.  More on the this when details are ironed out!

findit.uga.edu

-Elizabeth

My Summer: Kit Candler

This summer I am doing lots of little things :) For 2 weeks in June I have been on Cumberland Island staying at my family's house on the north end of the island. I plan to write my thesis on this area, High Point, and its preservation, where it's headed, etc. As a life estate the property is leased from the park service. At one point, my family owned the land and houses there, but now the park service owns the land and leases it back to us. The lease runs out when those who were alive for the sale of the land to the park service have passed away. I'm planning to explore life estates as part of my thesis as well, examining how the park service handles the property, land and structures, once control and management reverts back to them. This means taking lots and lots of pictures on the island, documenting what is currently located within the property. My dog, Gracie, keeps me company while I'm down here!! I will return in July after my field school, which I'll get to in a minute, for another two weeks. 

I'm also volunteering with the Park Service this summer at Plum Orchard, a beautiful Georgian Revival Mansion that's located on the island toward the south end. Plum Orchard was built in 1898 by Lucy Carnegie as a wedding gift to her son George and his new wife Margaret - talk about a great wedding present!! The Carnegies built many homes on the island, and their descendants still retain property rights in deals similar to the one like my family has at High Point. Right now I'm learning all the information about the house and I may start giving tours there this week, but will definitely do so when I come back in July.

My Summer also includes some travel! I'm headed to Italy on June 26 to take part in Willowbank's Canova Field School in Domodosolla, Italy near the Swiss border. I'm so excited about this opportunity to learn about preservation in other countries, as well as get some hands on experience learning about masonry and medieval construction. I'll be sure to send another update once I'm there with more details about what I'm doing!

-Kit

My Summer: Adam Martin

My summer plans consist of work, travel, and maybe thesis. I am continuing to work for the Construction Division of the Georgia State Financing & Investment Commission. I am still reviewing certified payroll reports for several projects (paperwork and red-tap), but I am also working on two construction projects around Athens. One is a dam project (pun intended) near Colbert, and another here in Athens at the UGA Veterinary Medical Center project at the end of College Station Rd. I am assisting the Contract Compliance Specialist who reviews the work of the contractor to ensure it is constructed per the plans and specifications. So thankfully I am getting out of the office and interacting with real construction. 

Since I am not working in preservation I am settling for travel to see many of the places we have learned about in the last year. I have been to the Georgia Coast and to New Orleans, Dallas/Fort Worth area, and Vicksburg. I got to see some cool architecture and eat really good food. Next, I hope to get to Williamsburg, Charlottesville, Monticello, Shenandoah, and parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. 

Other than that I am anticipating fresh vegetables from the garden in a few weeks. 

-Adam

My Summer: Jonathan Cassiday

I have been picking strawberries, tending blueberries, repairing the irrigation system,incurring major expenses on my car (can not drive in GA without an AC you know) housesitting for friends and family, working on our family's shop and buying things to resell, and repairing small electrics for friends and myself. I have been spending a lot of time repairing desk and table fans, but I did also get an opportunity to repair a slave clock for a friend as well as rewire some lamps for her. 

You may or may not know what a slave clock is, so a simple explanation is that it is simply a indicator of time and has no clock movement itself, it receives a impulse from a master clock. This system was widely used in schools and government buildings so that all the clocks were in harmony with each other. These systems are not used as much anymore, and this particular clock may have been used in a classroom or train station at the turn of the century. While working on this clock I found that the proprietor of the local clock shop had just received a master clock that would have worked with the slave clock from a  school in Virginia, also appearing to have been form the turn of the century. I am hoping to see how her repair of that timepiece progresses. 

I have started some research on thesis, but nothing major yet. I talked to some folks at the Walton county historic society and they are indeed interested in my services, so I may be re-writing/organizing a brochure of their historic homes and some other things, I will meet with them sometime next week. So things are looking up right now.

-Jonathan