The Green Guild

It's all about the money... Georgetown here I come

Don't worry and don't be put off by the title - let me preface this post by saying that given everything I have learned and seen in preservation, no matter how old, historic, glamorous, well built or beloved a building is, nothing will save it if you don't have the $$. Too bad right? Life isn't fair, but let's face it money talks and I want learn how to make it talk about saving my buildings. After a lot of soul searching and flat out denial about going back to school, that's exactly where I am headed.

Naively, I thought that once I'd completed my doctorate the world would be my oyster - at least that's what I thought. I didn't know what I was going to do or who I was going to do it for, I just knew that I had the answers. I'd written the first doctoral thesis connecting historic preservation and the global environmental predicament. The topic was hot, or so I was told when I presented my thoughts and research to a number of my peers internationally.

Call it what you will - the folly of youth and yes maybe arrogance. The reality was that I didn't have prospective employers lining up at my door to offer me a job. At first it wasn't too alarming, during college I did anything during summer breaks to make a buck: waitress, security guard, housekeeper, house-sitter - you name it as long as it was legal, I wouldn't say no. So that resourcefulness served me well when I first moved to DC. I temped - I signed on with a great agency that placed me with a law firm and then with the Brookings Institution, which then hired me after a couple of months. So finally I'd landed my first real job post-graduate school. I had benefits and paid vacation, what more could a girl want, right?! Well, I was working but not in my field of choice and I'd studied all of this "stuff" but no one but me could see the value. I just knew that I was destined to save the world from itself - saving old buildings the rest of the world paid no mind to - they were walking or driving past the gems oblivious to their past glory. I saw their potential and value, but have come to learn that I was missing something. (Check out this cool shot of the inside of Michigan Central Station)

When I was in graduate school I would drag my friend Hsu-jen along with me to see the grand dames in the city center of Glasgow - well actually we probably went out for Peking Duck and he indulged my fantasies about the glorious sandstones. When I returned to the US it was the same thing in every city I visited and lived in - in New Yorkit was a convent in the Upper Westside; Cincinnati, a plethora of school buildings, one in particular in the hospital district that has since been torn down for parking and if you can believe it or not my best friend's home - torn down by the neighboring private school (Summit Country Day tears down Piatt-Grandin house) for - you guessed it - a parking lot and driveway! So now I am living in Arlington, Virginia and work in Dupont Circle in Washington DC. Unfortunately there isn't much left in Arlington. Don't get me wrong it is very convenient to get to work from here, but other than that it seems to have lost its soul. Dupont Circle on the other hand is glorious and as you can imagine comes with a glorious price tag.

So after suffering heart-break, yes I am heartbroken every time I learn of a loss, I have decided that there is something I can do about this - I need to learn the language of the developers, and economic development officers, in other words I need to be versed in the money. After some soul searching and yes, denial, I will be enrolling in the Masters in Professional Studies Real Estate program in Georgetown in the fall. Classes like Real Estate Accounting, Real Estate Financing, Bankruptcy, and Community Economic Development make my head start to hurt, but I am ready, ready to learn the language that will help me save my beloved buildings.  

The Devil is in the Details

So I ask you what happened to creative whimsical details in design? 

Wrought Iron...

Wood-work, fish-scale shingles, turret...

Stained glass, more fish-scale shingles, another turret, and

Mosaic work.

The list could go on and on. I hope to post more traditional, creative and whimsical design elements that have stood the test of time and hopefully along the way I will find some of these elements in modern construction. In the meantime, let's not dispose of those things that make our neighborhoods and cities unique. I am firmly in the camp of the greens, but I think that we will be far more successful if we work to build on what we already have, instead of razing it to build new and green.

Oh and one more thing - it may appear that I am opposed to modern construction, on the contrary I believe that there are a handful of thoughtful architects and designers out there, unfortunately there aren't enough.

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Looking forward to the New Year and a Green Economy with hope...

I have been almost obsessing about how I was going to proceed with the blog. It is crazy that I can be almost paralyzed by the amount of information available and how I am reacting to the new world before us. It is certainly a time of hope but one of great uncertainty.

In the last few months I have been traveling quite a bit - attending my first GREENBUILD - traveling to promote and conduct preservation training and all the while trying to think of how we make preservation relevant and accessible to every socio-economic group. How do I help make the case for the preservation of our built environment? In some ways it begins with a normalization of the language that preservationists use. It also begins with an evaluation of this disposable society we have become. In the last two weeks I have been in Nashville, TN and BBirmingham, AL - in both cities I did not see evidence of integrated recycling programs. I can't help but think that this is indicative of "the middle of the country". I admit it I am guilty of "living in the beltway bubble" and it is difficult at times to remember that the rest of the country isn't focused on what we have deemed important on the right or left coasts. In the end I think that we will find some measure of success by demonstrating that there is a measurable improvement in quality of life in those traditional communities that have been revitalized.

During a lecture at GREENBUILD moderated by Stephen Kellert- I had an ah ha(!) moment. Kellert spoke about low impact design being devoid of design. His remarks struck a chord, as I listened to the other speakers present their research about biophilic design, thoughts of our disposable society, the potential for the green economy, Van Jones' tome on green collar jobs, Bill McKibben's economy of more versus the economy of better... and on and on.... Low impact design does not have to be devoid of design. Design is not something that is exclusive to the elite. I am determined to demonstrate that good design, utilizing the existing built environment can provide an appropriate solution to building liveable sustainable communities.

The struggle is keeping up with the information and continuing to demonstrate how preservation - or as I will be calling it from now on - the existing built environment - can and will play an integral part in this brave new world.

Housing Developer Blues

Not too long ago I was perusing the newsstand at my local book store. I will admit it, I have an addiction to books, magazines and newspapers. Odd in this day and age of technology I know, but I can't help it - I love the crack of a fresh book spine as I really get into a chapter or an article in a magazine. I love that my hands are smudged after reading the paper daily and if I am not careful I will end up with inky smudges on my face.

Ok, enough about my addiction, this fine day the Conde Nast Portfolio caught my attention. The feature article for October was about Toll Brothers. Auspiciously titled, Mr. McMansion: Megabuilder Bob Toll helped get us into this mess. Can he get us out? with a toothy grin of Bob Toll, CEO of Toll Brothers on the cover. Immediately I was angry and nauseous I had to figure out A) what makes these developers types tick and B) why Toll looked so smug. (Toll is also quoted on the front cover, "It was not just our greed, but the greed of our buyers.")

Toll Brothers was founded 40 years ago by brothers, Bruce and Bob Toll. Originally poised to build for the growing middle class market, Toll Brothers has since become a mainstay in the luxury home market, think McMansion and in my estimation all that is wrong with the housing industry. These are the developments that have taken over family farmland - who could compete with what these guys where offering to buy up tracts of land in what is now suburbia? Family farms didn't stand a chance. 

I don't know that I need to delve into what these new single-family developments have meant for commuters, families and communities. I will be happy to address this later. What frustrates me is Toll's own admission although not direct, that there is something seedy about how they have done business and what they (meaning these developers) have created. (Note: Toll lives in a 19th century farmhouse in Bucks County, PA.) 

Take a look at any of these developed and planned neighborhoods, many of them now showing up on the evening news, riddled with foreclosure signs. As the camera pans down one of these suburban streets it is hard to miss the brick facades, which wraps about 12 inches around the sides of the home, to be met with vinyl siding. Yes, folks vinyl siding on these "luxury" homes! Homes that make no sense with regard to style and scale. Interior foyers that span two and maybe three floors. Rooms so vast that one could roller skate through them or even better find their way to their own bowling alley or movie theater. Granted I understand that desire for space and bigger is better and if its bigger than my neighbor's well, that will show them. But when did it become the norm to compromise quality for size? Shoddy over the creative and comfortable? How do folks heat these homes? I can't imagine what kinds of indoor air quality issues they face with the off-gassing of the interior finishes and above all what is that vinyl siding hiding?

The article goes through the brothers building their business and Bob Toll's particular knack for spotting a deal and outperforming industry trends with his business model. There is no arguing the he's a savvy business man. The article references that building an expensive home does not cost more than building a cheap one. Hard to figure, but I imagine that when you have the template in place for construction and deals in materials, labor and land, this really does ring true. It is an amazing phenomenon, Rice (the article's author) refers to the demand as the willingness to "drive until they qualified" trading long commutes for grander and bigger, with blessings from the bank. So in the end Toll Brothers were feeding a demand in the market, nothing wrong with that right? Well, somehow I just feel that there is a better more thoughtful way to do business and build homes. In my estimation, Toll Brothers is in the same league as D.R Horton and Hovnanian - there are others, but not worth mentioning because by now I am sure that you get the drift.

On the flip side there are developers who are creating exceptional homes, particularly in urban areas with infrastructure already in place - Abdo and Empire Properties, are just a couple. In the coming weeks I will be listing more of these "Notable Developers".

In the meantime, I encourage you to read the article or investigate some of these developers. They are not all cut from the same cloth - as evidenced by Abdo, Empire, and a handful of others. These developers have been successful reusing and renovating existing and historic buildings in our towns and cities. Some of the most successful projects have been adaptive reuse developments. The existing and historic building stock in our towns and cities remains an untapped resource when it comes to creating vibrant, livable communities. Unfortunately the majority are in it to make a fast buck, regardless of community or quality. Oddly enough I went to school with the son of a rather successful Midwestern developer. When it came time for this "gentleman" to renovate his own home A) it wasn't one that his development company had designed or built and B) he was clear in his instructions to the architect that he didn't want anyone from his crew/company to work on his home. Now if that doesn't tell you something about the character of a man, I don't know what will.

I encourage you to educate yourself about not only what you want in a home but what you don't want - this can be a time consuming task, but given that your home will be the greatest financial investment of your lifetime, don't you think you are worth it?