Three of our projects have been in the news recently: Sabbathday Shaker Village won a $750,000 grant to rehabilitate their Herb House, the Abyssinian Meeting House will complete their restoration with $1.7 million in federal funding, and Broad Bay Church won a Maine Preservation Honor Award. The Sabbathday Shakers are restoring their Herb House; the…
The story of the Abyssinian Meetinghouse and Leonard Cummings, its long-time board president, was on the cover of the Maine/New England section of the Maine Sunday Telegram today. The Abyssinian is the third oldest African American Meetinghouse and is located across the street from the Shipyard Brewery in Portland. Frederick Douglass trod its very floorboards.…
For me, it was not love at first sight. The Dummer House, built in 1786, is the oldest in Hallowell. Tucked onto Dummer Lane, the building had already been moved once and was languishing under a pair of overgrown maples, awash in eau du restaurant dumpster. It’s a plank frame building, which means that the…
An enduring feature of timber frames is that they can be dismantled and re-used. A traditional barn-raising, in which a community comes together to erect a frame in one day is preceded by weeks of joiners’ labor: cutting and fitting the posts, girts and braces, plates and tie beams. With the help of many hands, or…
This Friday, May 5, do yourself a favor and attend the opening of ‘A Distant Holla,’ Daniel Minter’s art exhibition at the Abyssinian Meeting House. The work will showcase Maine artists of color including Daniel Minter, David Driskell, Elizabeth Jabar, Rafael Clariot, Ebeneza Akapko, Titi de Baccarat and Derek Jackson. Michael Wingfield, Samuel James and Ahmad Kalari…
This blog goes dark when it’s sunniest. Seems like every day this summer has been a good day to be working outside. We’re installing the last repairs to the undercarriage at East Derry First Parish Church, installing electricity for the clock at Hampton Town Clock Tower, waiting for the last of the ceiling to…
Maine Preservation held their annual honor awards ceremony last Thursday, to “recognize owners, developers, professionals and leaders responsible for transformative historic preservation efforts throughout the state.” We were proud to be part of the team honored for the restoration of The Mill at Freedom Falls. Read the full list of honorees, here. This project was…
PTF’s own David Ewing will present his paper, “Moving Historic Properties: A Valid Method of Preservation” at the National Trust for Preservation’s 2013 Conference in Indianapolis, IN. Inspired by his experience dismantling the Demeritt-O’Kane house, the paper reviews the history of moving buildings and includes the example of a Boston apartment building which was moved at…
Last week, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced it’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Properties. The Abyssinian Meetinghouse had the dubious distinction of making it on the list. Inclusion on the list indicates the importance of the third-oldest standing African-American meetinghouse in our nation’s history, but also sheds light upon the lack of…
Last week we assembled Marrett House‘s 15 foot frame and panel wall and installed it. The day felt like a mini-crane day, with shoulders instead of cranes, and a mini-rush of adrenaline. When the day was over, and we’d reversed the effects of last April’s drunken car crash, I realized that time machines are not made…