Posts Tagged ‘Architecture’

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Two New Adirondack Historic Architecture Guides Published

A Guide to Architecture in the AdirondacksTwo books published this year have significantly expanded our understanding of Adirondack architecture. People familiar with the Adirondacks know that twig furniture and palatial robber baron wilderness compounds are the exception, not the rule, for the Adirondack built environment. Unfortunately, until this year there have been no real resources that document the diversity of what really exists along the roadsides and in the settlements of the region. Now, at last, two truly amazing new books have arrived to fill the void. Both books belong in the bookcase of anyone who wants to know more about the Adirondacks.

Destined to become the reference book most often used to jog the memory is A Guide to Architecture in the Adirondacks by Prof. Richard Longstreth ($34.95, 427 pages). Published by Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) and produced by Adirondack Life this book covers the most significant buildings and structures throughout the region. Longstreth is a well-known architectural historian who teaches at George Washington University. He has deep first hand knowledge of the subject having been an inquiring seasonal resident of the Adirondacks since 1978. » Continue Reading.


Monday, July 31, 2017

Architecture Of Jeremiah Oosterbaan Outing In Plattsburgh Area

john xxiii college community newman centerAdirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), the historic preservation organization for the Adirondack region, will host an outing in Plattsburgh to focus on twentieth-century buildings designed by local architect Jeremiah Oosterbaan on Monday, July 31st. This outing supplements AARCH’s summer “Modern Architects” theme.

Participants will join AARCH Executive Director Steven Engelhart on a road trip through and around Plattsburgh to see several examples of Oosterbaan’s architecture, including municipal, religious, and residential buildings, including Temple Beth Israel, the Newman Center, the Plattsburgh Public Library, the Press-Republican, the Clinton County Government Center, St. Alexander’s Catholic Church, and Oosterbaan’s former residence in West Chazy on the shores of Lake Champlain.  » Continue Reading.


Monday, July 24, 2017

Raquette Lake Durant Days Schedule Announced

Boat Cruise aboard the W. W. DurantA three-day event celebrating Great Camp architecture will provide a variety of opportunities to get a behind-the-scenes tours of great camps in and around Raquette Lake. A boat cruise aboard the W.W. Durant and community events are scheduled to take place Friday through Sunday, August 4-6, 2017.

Durant Days kicks off on Friday with a tribute to William West Durant aboard the W.W. Durant during a luncheon and tours of great camps along Raquette Lake. The Durant will make a stop at historic Camp Pine Knot. For reservations, call Raquette Lake Navigation at (315) 354-5532. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Poke-O-Moonshine Fire Tower Marking 100 Years

Poke-O-Moonshine Fire TowerThey started put being paid $60 a month for their half-year, all-weather stints in the fire tower. Overall, there were twenty-one Fire Observers on Poke-O-Moonshine from 1912 through 1988. Most came from nearby Keeseville, and the first three worked in the original wooden tower before the current one was built in 1917.

That makes the fire tower 100 years old. It was part of a crop of standardized steel towers that New York State built in response to the catastrophic forest fires of the early 20th Century. Drought, high winds, lightning, heaps of logging slash, and sparks from lumber-hauling trains had combined to burn almost a million acres of New York forest over two decades. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, June 29, 2017

Stillwater Fire Tower’s Weekend Summit Stewards

Stillwater Fire Tower Friends of Stillwater Fire Tower has recruited volunteer Summit Stewards for summer weekends. They’ll be up at the tower from 10 am to 2 pm starting Saturday July 1 through Tuesday July 4th. Summit Stewards will point out Whiteface Mountain and the Adirondack High Peaks to the northeast, the 195 wind turbines overlooking the Black River Valley to the southwest, and the expanse of the Stillwater Reservoir below.

The tower’s authentic 1919 sliding-top map table can be seen, with it’s alidade and vintage Panoramic Map for Stillwater Mountain for locating forest fires. Summit Stewards help tell the story of the 1882 copper survey marker that was stolen over a century ago, found with a metal detector hundreds of miles away in 2013, and was returned to the DEC.

Only later it was discovered that the Station No. 77 marker had come from Stillwater Mountain. It’s empty hole can be seen in the bedrock under the tower, and a brass replacement marker that was reset last September. The recreated stencil of the tower’s shipping information from Chicago can be seen on one of the steel supports. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Arts Festival in Keeseville Showcases Nature, Historic Architecture

Keeseville Plein Art FestivalAdkAction is organizing a new arts festival in Keeseville. The first Keeseville Plein Air Festival is scheduled to take place from Thursday, July 13th to Sunday, July 16th.

The arts festival will showcase Keeseville’s natural landscape and historic architecture. AdkAction hopes to attract a wide range of artists to the festival, which in turn will assist the community’s revitalization.

» Continue Reading.


Wednesday, May 17, 2017

100 Mile House: Local Economies and Sustainability

Left Mace Chasm Road farmhouse, Keeseville. Right WarrensburghIn many aspects of AARCH’s work — lectures, tours, workshops, advocacy, and other educational offerings — we make the case for the preservation of historic buildings.

• Historic buildings have aesthetic appeal.
• Buildings and places connect us to our history as well as shaping our individual and collective identity.
• Historic preservation is rich in new economic opportunities.
• The preservation of historic buildings can be transformational for communities.
• Using existing buildings and concentrating new growth in already settled areas is both good for the vitality of a community and helps to protect wild and open spaces.

And all of this helps to make our communities better places to live, work, and visit. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Steven Engelhart: Every Community Needs a Beating Heart

Old Forge Hardware CompanyThere is overwhelming evidence that the most successful communities — with thriving economies, healthy schools and social and cultural institutions — are those that embrace their own history and preserve their historic buildings. Good jobs, protection of natural resources, and good leadership are perhaps even more important. Historic preservation is a critical element in the revitalization of struggling communities and it is a visible expression of a community investing in itself and improving its own quality of life.

Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) has always been a strong advocate for the connection between historic preservation and community vitality. We work to preserve individual buildings, yes, but we also advocate for preservation because historic places can become affordable housing, attractive spaces for businesses, innovative cultural centers, new farms, restaurants and other attractions. Preservation is about finding new uses for historic structures, not just saving buildings. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, April 23, 2017

Adirondack Historic Preservation Award Nominations Sought

Old Warren County Courthouse_ Lake GeorgeAdirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), the historic preservation organization for the region, has opened nominations for its 2017 Preservation Awards. For over 20 years, these annual awards have recognized sensitive restoration, rehabilitation, and adaptive reuse of historic structures, as well as individuals who have promoted historic preservation and community revitalization consistent with AARCH’s mission.

Projects of all sizes and scopes are eligible for consideration. The deadline for nominations is July 1, 2017. A celebration of the 2017 award winners will be on September 18, 2017, at a farm-to-table luncheon at the Nettle Meadow Farm, a 2016 AARCH Presevation Award recipient in the town of Thurman near Warrensburg. » Continue Reading.


Monday, April 17, 2017

Steven Engelhart: What Makes Historic Preservation Irresistible

The Church of the Transfiguration Our Vermont friends behind “Preservation in Pink” define historic preservation as “an eternally optimistic, inspiring field intent on improving present and future quality of life through the appreciation of our built and cultural heritage.” Although we are still a long way from being a nation or a region of true historic preservationists, we are increasingly becoming more preservation-minded as the intersections between preservation and common sense, community health, good stewardship, and sustainability becomes better understood.

So what makes historic preservation so attractive, even irresistible? » Continue Reading.


Saturday, April 1, 2017

Tim Rowland’s Project Farmhouse

tim rowlands project farmhouseThe preachers have never had much luck getting their tenterhooks into me because I’m not all that enamored with the idea of everlasting life. Everlasting life is like Moose Tracks ice cream: After the first bite you never want it to end, but by the time you pack away a quart and a half you start to see a down side.

And everlasting life is about the only arrow the preachers have in their quiver. They never say, “If you lead a wholesome, righteous existence you will have everlasting life — plus you get to date Emma Stone.”

Still, it has to be acknowledged that Ponce de Leon wasn’t the only fan of perpetual youth, and when I was younger I confess to feeling the same way, largely due to a curiosity of what will happen next—tomorrow, and 2,000 years from tomorrow. I have, however, discovered that it is a simple task to live well beyond the average, 78.2-year lifespan. It is no great effort to live for a hundred, five hundred or even a thousand years. » Continue Reading.


Friday, March 17, 2017

Animal Tracking Event at Final Santanoni Ski Weekend

Tracking with SUNY ESFMarch 18th and 19th is the last Great Camp Santanoni Winter Weekend. Visitors can ski or snowshoe to Camp Santanoni, the restored 19th-century “Great Camp” in Newcomb and walk through the Main Lodge, boathouse and other buildings.

Volunteers from Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) will lead tours and talk about the history, design, and family life at this unique, state-owned historic site. Visitors may warm up by the wood stove in the Artist’s Studio on the shores of Newcomb Lake, and enjoy complimentary hot beverages (bring your own cup). » Continue Reading.


Sunday, March 5, 2017

The Architecture of French Ticonderoga 1755-1759

french vernacular architecture at fort tiFort Ticonderoga’s “Fort Fever Series” continues on Sunday, March 12th, at 2 pm with “Basse Ville: Vernacular Architecture of the Lower Town at Carillon,” presented by Assistant Director of Interpretation, Nicholas Spadone.

This Fort Fever presentation will examine the vernacular architecture of Ticonderoga’s temporary structures and shed light on how the peninsula appeared from 1755-1759. “Today, the impressive stone fort protrudes on the peninsula prominently,” said Nicholas Spadone, Assistant Director of Interpretation.

» Continue Reading.


Sunday, February 12, 2017

Tim Rowland: An Old AuSable Valley Farmhouse

Heading south to Utica on Route 28 there’s a highway sign advising travelers that they are “Leaving Adirondack Park.” No three words have caused anyone as much pain and suffering as those three words have cause me over the past five decades.

Everyone has a home, but it’s not always where one lives. My family’s roots to the Adirondacks or “The Woods,” as we called it, predated the Great Depression. It’s where my grandparents honeymooned, and where with my great-grandpa purchased a sprawling lakeside camp, fully furnished, for $3,000. So this is my existential excuse for feeling more at home in the Adirondacks than in whatever community I was more permanently hanging my hat. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, December 21, 2016

AARCH Publishing Adirondack Architecture Guide

aarch-bookAdirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH), the nonprofit historic preservation organization for the region, is expected to publish A Guide to Architecture in the Adirondacks this spring.

Architectural historian Richard Longstreth’s project to research, visit, document and photograph hundreds of historic structures in over 100 towns and hamlets in the Adirondacks took five years and nearly 10,000 miles of driving throughout the region.

This is the first book to document the architecture of the twelve counties in the Adirondack region, including a significant portion of the Lake Champlain watershed. » Continue Reading.



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