DETROIT — A controversial plan to create space for a new Detroit apartment building by possibly demolishing two old houses in the city’s West Village neighborhood received tentative approval on Wednesday night.

Historic District Commission members heard a mix of praise and criticism during a public hearing for the proposed four-story, 47-unit development known as The Coe at West Village Phase II. Following a lengthy discussion, they voted 4-0 to grant the project’s developer a “notice to proceed.”

However, the commissioners attached two conditions to their approval that the developer, Clifford Brown of Woodborn Partners, must fulfill before any work can begin. First, a good faith effort must be made to market the two old and empty houses to anyone willing to save and relocate them. And second, the apartment building must be redesigned to be less monolithic in appearance, and the new drawings submitted to the commission for approval.

The commissioners briefly considered issuing a temporary denial until presentation of the new building design drawings, but changed tack once Brown told them that approval with conditions would allow him to obtain financing for the $16 million project while the design is adjusted.

“Our goal is to have a beautiful building,” he said.

Prior to the vote, about a dozen people voiced their opinions — with slightly more opposition than support — during the public hearing. Some were firmly against razing the two houses on the development site at 1514 and 1532 Van Dyke. They are among the oldest houses in the West Village and are believed to date to at least the 1890s.

Others spoke out against the proposed design for being out of place in a historic district.

Resident Joanne Warwick called the design “boxy, bougie, ugly.”

“There is so much vacant land in this city that this does not need to be done here,” Warwick said. “It is totally out of character for a historic neighborhood.”

And Robert Rhoades noted how The Coe at West Village Phase I, which opened in 2017 with 12 apartments, was also a contemporary architectural design.

“Maybe something can continue to look like a historic neighborhood when one modern building is built,” Rhoades said, “but if you build another and yet another … when does it stop being an historic neighborhood?”

But other speakers praised Brown for holding numerous community outreach meetings about the project and said there are many groups and individuals who do support it.

Resident John Bolt said it would be wrong for the commission to reject the plan and the developer’s significant investment in their neighborhood.

“I just can’t think of a more parochial institution than a historic district blocking real growth for a community for plainly subjective reasons like this,” Bolt said. “No one wants to buy those houses. They’re not nice homes. They’re damaged dramatically — it’s going to be very costly to fix them.”

Brown told the commission that he hopes to essentially give the houses away for $1 to someone who can relocate them. The cost for such a relocation, he said, could be about $400,000.

Although the commission previously issued a “notice to proceed” for the development in 2022, including with potential demolition approval of the houses, the developer recently revised the project’s design for cost reasons, so a new approval became necessary.

Following Wednesday’s meeting, Brown said he believes he can satisfy the new approval conditions and get the development built.

“I appreciate everybody’s patience, even the people who weren’t for it,” he said.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the Detroit Free Press and then was distributed on the USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect.

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MOUNT VERNON, Va. — After two years of renovations, the first and second floors of George and Martha Washington‘s mansion at Mount Vernon have reopened to visitors.

The $40 million preservation project at the first president’s home included designing and installing a new HVAC system, performing major infrastructure repairs, and improving drainage in and around the mansion’s cellar as well as Washington’s newly restored bedroom.

While the work won’t be fully completed until October 2026, visitors will finally get a chance to see rooms that have been closed off on a rotating schedule.

“We have moved steadily to restore the mansion to its glory, restored the exterior, fixed all the windows, repaired the piazza,” Doug Bradburn, president of George Washington‘s Mount Vernon, said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this month.

“We restored the 18th century carpentry and masonry to its original structural integrity, designed the state-of-the-art air and moisture management system to ensure the long-term health improvements of the restoration, and brought the best research techniques in architectural history, preservation, archaeology, history, curatorial techniques to restore the interior of the mansion to the most accurate depiction of the world the Washingtons knew,” Bradburn continued.

Different portions of the founding father’s mansion have been undergoing restoration and maintenance work since 2019, when exterior touch-ups began on the building’s west side.

Launched in 2023, the current preservation project focuses on the mansion’s interior and reinforcement of the original structure. In addition to installing a new HVAC system, crews are restoring the cellar to its appearance at the time of Washington’s death in 1799. The cellar will remain off-limits to visitors through fall 2026.

More than 400 subcontractors worked on the project, said Tom Whitmore, vice president of historic preservation at the Christman Co. Its work, including the replacement of much of the timber framing below the mansion, will wrap by July 4, 2026.

“There was intensive termite damage, and like you see in old crawl spaces and basements, things have been added over time to support things that really weren’t structurally sound anymore,” Whitmore said. “All of that, like 200 years of structural intervention, was all taken out and put back so that it cannot only be structurally sound, but so that the cellar can be interpreted, because nobody really goes into the cellar since it was full of ductwork.”

The white oak used for the timber framing was sourced from the grounds at Mount Vernon.

Washington’s bedchamber was restored with a new bed, wall plaster, and 1790s reproduction wallpaper from New York-based Adelphi Paper Hangings.

During the restoration, archaeologists also found 35 18th century glass bottles in five storage pits; nine of the bottles contained perfectly preserved cherries, gooseberries and currants. The team also found an 18th century fork hidden behind a wall in Martha Washington’s closet.

Amy McCauley, the restoration manager at the estate, said there will be a gala in October 2026 for the grand opening of the cellar.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by FFXnow and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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Portland design commissioners gave advice Thursday on an early design for a proposed Portland State University student dormitory.

University officials have opted to take the project through a Type II design review process, which is overseen by Portland Permitting & Development staff. That means the Design Commission will not again consider the project unless the staff’s decision is appealed.

The proposal for 1831 S.W. Park Ave. calls for 216 to 269 rooms in a building that would reach five or six stories.

“We’re still exploring both (configurations),” said Michael Coon, a GBD Architects associate principal.

The project has been somewhat controversial because the new building would replace two dating from the early 20th century: Blackstone Residence Hall, completed in 1931, and Montgomery Court, which was built in 1917 for the Portland Women’s Union. Both are brick structures that preservationists have praised for fine detailing.

Advocates who testified on Thursday urged the university to reconsider the design, or at least incorporate brick and other historic touches.

“We would always prefer the preservation of historic buildings,” said Xavier Stickler, chairman of the Downtown Neighborhood Association‘s land-use committee.

Stickler urged designers to incorporate the Blackstone’s statuary into the new building. He also asked designers to consider using mass timber rather than a five-over-one design.

Hannah Bronfman, a member of the Historic Landmarks Commission, said the building should better reflect its surroundings.

“The building reads very generic — one that could exist almost anywhere,” she said.

PSU officials have said the building is crucial to attract new students. The university, which began life as a post-World War II commuter campus, has never had purpose-built student housing.

“This project brings vibrancy by students living on campus,” said Ashley Wendler, PSU’s executive director of University Housing and Residence Life. “These students really become integral to the downtown community.”

A structural engineer was brought in to evaluate the possibility of renovating the historic structures but found that they would require seismic upgrades and major interior reconfiguration, said Tom Maki, who is serving as owner’s representative for PSU.

“For a number of reasons, it just was not feasible,” Maki told commissioners.

The proposed building would hold approximately 550 beds, mostly in double-occupancy units. Some units would have single or triple occupancy.

Fortis Construction is on board as general contractor. Lango Hansen is the landscape architect.

The building would also have a single classroom and three community rooms per floor. A bike parking hub would be located outside the main building.

PSU officials hope to open the student building in time for the start of the fall term in 2028.

“The timing of that is really important to us,” Wendler said.

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INDIANAPOLIS — In the 1950s and ’60s, the streets of Martindale were lined with fruit trees and berry bushes. If Eunice Trotter forgot to eat breakfast, she could always count on plucking an apple or pear from a tree on her walk to School 26.

It’s one of the things she remembers most about growing up in the predominantly Black eastside neighborhood. She remembers what she calls the entrepreneurship of the neighborhood, too. Martindale was full of local businesses serving the community.

“We had the ice man and the watermelon man and the vegetable man,” Trotter said. “All of these people would be in wagons that they would drive up and down the street to sell their products.”

Trotter is now the director of Indiana Landmarks‘ Black Heritage Preservation Program. She’s leading the effort to add the Martindale neighborhood to the National Register of Historic Places. That designation would give Martindale access to tax incentives, grants and support for preservation.

“Erasure of Black history is very much occurring all across the country,” Trotter said. “I hope that Indianapolis will embrace its history, including its African American history, and remember the contributions of these citizens who have helped make Indianapolis what it is today.”

Boundaries for the proposed Martindale Historic District are 30th Street to the north, 25th Street to the south, Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue to the west and Brouse Avenue to the east.

Trotter said within those boundaries lies Frederick Douglass Park, about 100 Flanner homes and several historic churches. But the boundaries are farther north than what she had hoped for. There are strict requirements a neighborhood must meet to be listed on the National Register, including the number of historical buildings that need to remain intact. Trotter said too many buildings south of 25th Street have been lost, so Indiana Landmarks has had to accept the approved boundaries.

“We’re at a point today where if we don’t address the historical significance, the historic integrity will be so lost that we will never be approved for a historic district listing,” Trotter said. “So, we have to act now.”

Martindale was established in the 1870s as a mainly working-class, industrial neighborhood centered around the manufacturing of railroad equipment. The neighborhood would become a vibrant hub for Indianapolis’ Black community during a time when racial segregation shut Black residents out of jobs, determined where they could live and limited their civic participation.

Martindale had its own barbershops, grocery stores and even a cab company. There was the Dunbar Library, which was once managed by the state’s first Black librarian with formal training. And children attended the neighborhood’s segregated Indianapolis Public Schools 26 and 56. Some of the city’s oldest Black churches are in Martindale — Indiana Landmarks identified at least 40 churches in the area, some opening their doors as early as 1875.

A local historian, Anthony Conley, is working with Indiana Landmarks to establish Martindale as a historic district. He said what Martindale residents experienced was cultural self-sufficiency.

“The Black people had in this neighborhood the idea that, ‘I have what I need to sustain me culturally here,’” Conley said. “‘I have a theater right here and I could go there and not face those kind of discriminations. I can go to different stores here and not have to wait until everybody else is served.’”

Conley said a good example of this is Douglass Park. In the 1920s, Black Indianapolis residents could not use public park amenities, including swimming pools. With donated land, the city created Douglass Park for Black residents in 1921. The park opened after a persistent campaign by a reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder, the city’s Black newspaper.

“You can look at Douglass Park as an extension of ongoing racial segregation,” Conley said. “But you can also look at it as an expression of empowerment — people coming together, wanting something and working with the local municipal government to achieve that goal.”

Over the next few years, the park would grow with the addition of a swimming pool and golf course. Today, it remains an important part of Martindale. At 80 acres, the park makes up a significant portion of the proposed historic district. Last year, the park gained a $21 million renovated family center, new basketball courts and an upgraded playground.

Growing up in Martindale, 60-year-old Fred Jackson said he was always at Douglass Park playing basketball or going swimming with his friends. He remembers watching the Dust Bowl basketball tournament, where soon-to-be-great professionals would play.

“I’d ride my bike up here and see them,” Jackson said. “Billy Keller, Freddie Lewis, Freddie Brown — it’s just amazing as a kid growing up and seeing them in your park, in your area. It was so amazing.”

Jackson cast his vote for former President Barack Obama at the park and remembers a line so long, it almost reached Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue, a street that borders the park. Now he goes on walks with friends who also grew up in the area, reminiscing about their childhood.

He’s happy to see neighborhood kids on the playground, playing pool in the community center or lining up for a hot meal served out of the park’s kitchen. He said the upgraded center will benefit the community, especially the kids in the neighborhood. And he hopes a National Register listing will benefit the community, too.

“I do believe that it’s going to help people understand that this is not just 46218, this is not just the Martindale area, this is not just the Douglass Park area,” Jackson said. “This is a community that can build itself up to the way it used to be.”

Jackson’s home is within the historic district boundaries, as is the house where he grew up and where his mother still lives today. He said while some things have stayed the same, a lot has changed in the neighborhood. Jackson said there are abandoned homes and some of the churches have left as well.

Like in many Indianapolis neighborhoods, construction of Interstate 70 destroyed houses and displaced residents. And as residents and businesses moved away, crime and poverty increased. When industrial businesses left, residents would later deal with the long-term effects of environmental concerns of pollution and contaminated soil.

In 1992, residents formed the Martindale-Brightwood Community Development Corporation. Since then, the two neighborhoods have been almost universally linked.

But it will always be just Martindale, not Martindale-Brightwood, to 71-year-old Karen Taylor. She’s proud to be from Martindale and still works in the neighborhood as the seniors program coordinator at Edna Martin Christian Center.

Taylor said her childhood in Martindale was one of the happiest periods of her life. Like Trotter, she remembers the fruit trees in the neighborhood’s front yards. “I raised both of my children in this area because I wanted them to know where I came from, what I grew up with, what we were forced to live with,” Taylor said. “It was important for my children to grow up here, because I wanted people to know there (is) some good in 46218.”

Her house is just a couple streets over from the house she grew up in. Both houses are just shy of fitting within the proposed historical district boundaries.

Walking through the neighborhood on an October morning, Taylor can recall which families lived in which houses. She still calls Dr. Andrew J. Brown Avenue “Martindale Avenue,” its name until the late 1980s. Walking south, she points out where George Marshall’s grocery store was and where Club Savoy, a popular night club, once stood. Farther down was Jacobs Brothers Funeral Home and Dr. Emmet Brown’s dentist office and his church.

The historic district boundaries don’t stretch this far because many of the original buildings are no longer standing. She hopes they can still be recognized in some way.

“Even if the buildings are not there, if just a kind of plaque or something to let people know at least this is what was here,” Taylor said. “Not a whole lot of information on it, but at least let them know that it was here and it existed in the neighborhood.”

Taylor said more people are moving to Martindale. She says she can already feel the effects of gentrification. The homes are getting bigger and pricier. There are new businesses and the city has started several infrastructure projects.

She is trying to keep an open mind. But it’s why she wants at least some of Martindale to become a registered historic district.

“Things are changing and I can understand that,” Taylor said. “But I want them to know the meaning behind Martindale and why it was established. I don’t want us to lose that.”

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Mirror Indy and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

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Plans to redevelop Centennial Mills received the Portland Design Commission‘s unanimous approval on Thursday.

Three mixed-use buildings are designed for the site, at 1362 N.W. Naito Parkway, along the Willamette River. Buildings 1 and 2 will be five stories and Building 2 will be six stories; all will share 174 below-grade parking spaces. The proposal is to include a total of 272 residential units and four retail spaces in the buildings.

SERA Architects designed the project – valued at $80 million, according to Portland Permitting & Development – for Lindquist Development Co.

The project team participated in a pre-application conference in 2023 and then twice met with the Design Commission for advice. The team submitted a land use application this past August. The first land use hearing was held last month, when the commission delayed voting on the proposal.

The Design Commission approved modification requests to reduce the size of parking stalls, allow non-river-dependent exterior lights for ground-floor residential patios, and allow vehicle access along Naito Parkway. The review included allowing buildings and associated development in the River Environmental overlay zone, ramp and stair access to the river, a public trail, and four stormwater outfalls.

The commission added to the summary a note suggesting the project team acknowledge the Indigenous community in some way regarding the river access, possibly with signage, although it is not a requirement for approval.

During the previous hearing, the commission discussed the issue of human access to the river, the apparent absence of HVAC units on the rooftop, and plans for the existing water tower and a new replica.

The condenser units will be underground in the parking garage, the team explained.

The applicant, SERA Architects, added stairs and a ramp for river access. At the intersection of the Tanner Creek woonerf and plaza and the Greenway Trail, there will be an overlook of the river.

“From that overlook, we’re proposing a concrete, very gentle stair that takes you down to what we’re calling the beach area that is just riverward of the sea wall that is existing currently on the site,” SERA Architects principal Kurt Schultz said.

From that overlook area, the design team has added an accessible path, allowing pedestrians to reach the river in a different location. The path will also be made of concrete.

Commissioner Sarah Vaz asked about widening the pathway to accommodate bicyclists. A 15-foot-wide trail exists now, Schultz said. The design team sees this new path as a pedestrian promenade to the river.

The design team also added a landscaping area with trees to create a buffer against the new pathway. To make the pathway wider, the landscaping strip would have to be narrowed but would still include some trees. Commissioners Zari Santner voiced concern about reducing the size of the landscaping strip and Chair Brian McCarter said widening the pathway is not necessary.

For the water tower, the plan is to create a steel replica of the structure holding up the water tank on the roof of parcel 2. The existing water tank is intended to be salvaged and relocated to the prepared armature. If salvage of the original tank is not possible, a replica tank will be built out of metal with the same details and proportions as the original.

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Two adjacent buildings in downtown Portland are on track to receive changes to accommodate the James Beard Public Market, which will hold 40 small businesses.

The Historic Landmarks Commission got its first look Monday at a proposal to make exterior alterations to the Selling Building, at 610 S.W. Alder St., and the building at 622 S.W. Alder St.

The design team includes the San Francisco office of BCV Architecture + Interiors (lead architect and architect of record) and COLAB Architecture + Urban Design (local architect). Other project team members include Grummel Engineering LLC, Humber Design Group, and Hoffman Construction.

The project is valued at $2 million, according to Portland Permitting & Development.

The Selling Building’s storefronts and granite cladding on the bottom two floors would be removed. New storefronts would be constructed with dark granite bases and pilasters, embossed metal cladding, back-painted glass sign bands, and awnings at the ground level. New wood-framed windows and terra-cotta cladding would be installed at the second level.

Similar alterations are proposed across the whole façade of the 622 Alder building. Modifications to sign code standards may be requested, along with a modification to the bird-friendly glazing standard.

An entry at the corner of Alder Street and Sixth Avenue would be maintained but new ones to the market as well as one to a restaurant would be created, said Hans Baldauf, founding principal of BCV Architecture + Interiors.

The ground floor of the 115-year-old Selling Building has been renovated twice – once in 1930 and again in 1937, Baldauf said.

“Our approach on this is to try to restore the Selling Building as having its traditional base, while at the same time acknowledging its history through time,” he said.

The 1930s-era art deco elevation of the storefronts is a more appropriate touchstone for the ground-level commercial space, Baldauf said. City staff support the proposal to restore the glazed terra-cotta cladding and three-part wood windows on the second floor. The team was looking into potentially using fiber-reinforced concrete because it is more affordable. During the meeting, the commissioners voiced support for terra-cotta if possible. The commissioners also asked to see more of a connection between the two buildings.

As proposed, building signage would be larger than typically approved for a retail project; however, since the market is expected to be a major public attraction, city staff believe the signage would be appropriate and consistent with the style and period of significance for the Selling Building, according to a Portland Permitting & Development staff report.

The awnings shown on the drawings would not be deep enough to provide useful cover from rain or sun for pedestrians passing by or visiting the market site, the staff report states. Deeper awnings (at least four feet) should be provided, and awnings or canopies should be provided at the main entrances to the market, according to staff.

The overall proposed concept for the redevelopment of the 622 Alder building is supportable, as it has no existing historic character, according to staff. For the vertical metal bays at either side, rather than extending embossed metal panels from the ground to the parapet, staff suggest incorporating glazing and dividing these bays to be more consistent with the adjacent storefronts in the center of the façade.

A mural is proposed for the Selling Building, adjacent to the roof deck on the 622 Alder building. Staff have recommended that the applicants pursue the public art approval process with the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

The Selling Building will require a type 3 historic resource review from the Historic Landmarks Commission. The 622 Alder building will require a type 2 design review.

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Hennebery Eddy Architects, a Portland-based firm, is known for designing sustainable, people-centered spaces across the Pacific Northwest. The firm’s projects prioritize environmental responsibility, historic preservation, and long-term functionality, establishing it as a standout in the industry.

With a diverse portfolio spanning civic, educational, and commercial architecture, Hennebery Eddy blends innovative design with practicality. The firm’s work often includes revitalizing historic buildings while creating modern, energy-efficient structures that serve today’s needs and prepare for the future. Notable projects include the Oregon Supreme Court Building, which combines seismic retrofitting with historic preservation, and the KEX Hostel, a vibrant, energy-efficient renovation of a 1911 building. Similarly, the Astoria Public Library renovation showcases the firm’s ability to blend modern design with historic character.

As a JUST-certified organization, Hennebery Eddy emphasizes equity, transparency, and social responsibility. The firm is also committed to mentorship, pro bono projects, and supporting the next generation of architects. This community-driven approach has shaped spaces that foster creativity, connection, and long-term impact.

Hennebery Eddy continues to demonstrate that thoughtful design can create spaces that inspire and serve the needs of both today and the future.

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A proposal to convert a three-story, 114-year-old former church into a private club and construct a detached, five-story hotel nearby received land use approval from the Portland Historic Landmarks Commission on Monday.

The ex-First Church of Christ, Scientist is located at 1819 N.W. Everett St., in Portland’s Northwest District. The building, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, occupies the southern portion of the 30,000-square-foot, L-shaped site. More recently, the building had been home to the Northwest Neighborhood Cultural Center (NNCC), and then the Northwest Children’s Theater. The NNCC owns the property, which is for sale and developer Founders Developments plans to purchase.

Plans call for transforming the historic landmark into a private club with restaurants, a coffee shop, a spa, an event space, and a rooftop deck.

The new five-story building will be located at 1880 N.W. Flanders St. It will include an 80-room hotel, a restaurant and retail spaces. One loading space was proposed for the hotel. No parking was proposed.

Founders Developments of Las Vegas is developing the project for owner Gaia Ventures II LLC of Las Vegas. The team also includes Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture (HPA), structural and civil engineer KPFF, and landscape architect Lango Hansen. The project is valued at $30 million.

The project team previously received design advice from the Historic Landmarks Commission in October 2022.

The proposal calls for the addition of a third floor underneath the historic structure’s dome for event space, HPA principal Andrew Becker stated during Monday’s meeting. The team proposes to remove the partial east and west chimneys to install stairs. A guardrail will be installed along the roof’s edge for safety. Two new doors will be added to the upper story to provide access to the roof.

All the historic building’s street-facing windows will be restored. Other windows will either be restored or replaced.

Multiple modifications requested by the project team were granted by the commission. Those included: increasing the maximum height from 60 feet to 70 feet to allow the addition of a penthouse, decreasing the standard A loading space, allowing the loading space to be accessed and exited in a rearward motion, and increasing the maximum distance that short-term bike parking may be located from a main entrance, from 50 feet to 65 feet.

The commission added two conditions to its approval. First, on the historic building’s third floor, existing center window bays should be carefully removed and retained on-site in preparation for installation of the new doors to the rooftop. Second, for each ground-floor storefront bay in the hotel, the transom bar should extend across the entire opening with a consistent set of transom windows above the storefront windows and ground-level doors.

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By Ben Finley

The Associated Press

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A building believed to be the oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children in the U.S. was hoisted onto a flatbed truck and moved half of a mile Friday to Colonial Williamsburg – a Virginia museum that continues to expand its emphasis on African American history.

Built 25 years before the American Revolution, the original structure stood near the college campus of William & Mary. The pinewood building held as many as 30 students at a time, some of them free Black children studying alongside the enslaved.

Hundreds of people lined the streets to celebrate the building’s slow-speed trip into the heart of the living history museum, which tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings.

For historians and descendants alike, the Bray School contradicts the belief that all enslaved Americans were uneducated. But the school’s faith-based curriculum – created by an English charity – also justified slavery and encouraged students to accept their fate as God’s plan.

“Religion was at the heart of the school, and it was not a gospel of abolition,” said Maureen Elgersman Lee, director of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab.

“There was this need to proselytize and to bring salvation while still not doing anything to destabilize the institution of slavery,” Lee said. “Save the soul, but continue to enslave the body. It was the here versus the hereafter.”

It was a brand of duplicity that fit easily into the larger contradictions of the country’s founding, when the democracy being forged explicitly denied rights and freedoms to many of its people.

Williamsburg is less than 10 miles from Jamestown, which England established in 1607. The colony was supplied with enslaved Africans for labor just a dozen years later. A century and a half after that, Black people, most of them still enslaved, represented slightly more than half of Williamsburg’s 2,000 people.

The Bray School was established in 1760 at the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, chairman of a London-based Anglican charity named after philanthropist Reverend Thomas Bray. The charity also set up schools in other cities, including New York and Philadelphia.

The curriculum ranged from spellers to the Book of Common Prayer. But even within the schools’ paternalistic framework, the education could still be empowering, perhaps even subversive.

“I was going through a facsimile of one of the books, and there are words like ‘liberty,’” Lee said. “What did learning those words do to expand these children’s sense of themselves? Their sense of the world?”

Isaac Bee, a Bray School student, would run away as an adult from a slave owner named Lewis Burwell. An ad that Burwell placed in The Virginia Gazette in 1774 offered a cash bounty for his return and warned that Bee could read.

The white teacher, a widow named Ann Wager, lived upstairs at the school, and taught an estimated 300 to 400 students, whose ages ranged from 3 to 10, according to surviving records.

The Williamsburg Bray School operated until 1774. The structure became a private home for many years before it was incorporated into William & Mary’s campus.

The former schoolhouse eventually was moved from its original spot to make way for a dormitory. The original structure had 1.5 stories, with a small upstairs. It was expanded over the years to include two full stories, and was last used as an office for ROTC, the college program that prepares military officers.

Historians believed they had identified the original Bray School building, but that wasn’t confirmed until 2021 through the use of dendrochronology – a scientific method that examines tree rings in lumber to determine the wood’s harvest date.

“This is a remarkable story of survival,” said Matthew Webster, Colonial Williamsburg’s executive director of architectural preservation and research. “And for us, it’s so important to put it back (to its original state) and tell the full and true story.”

The Bray School was exceptional: Although Virginia waited until the 1800s to impose anti-literacy laws, white leaders across much of Colonial America forbid educating enslaved people, fearing literacy would encourage their liberty. South Carolina criminalized teaching slaves to write English in 1740.

Inside the schoolhouse, the original post at the bottom of the walnut staircase still stands, its square top rounded and nicked from centuries of use, Webster said.

It’s a “very powerful piece for a lot of people,” he added.

For Tonia Merideth, the Bray School Lab’s oral historian, the building stirred up many emotions upon her first visit. It was material proof against the narrative that her ancestors were illiterate and dumb.

“Everything that I learned about my ancestors was wrong,” she said. “They could learn. They did learn. They were able.

“Regardless of the intentions of the school,” she added, “the children were still taking that education and possibly serving it for their own good and aiding in their community.”

Merideth can trace her roots to the Armistead family, which enslaved people in the Williamsburg area and is known to have sent at least one child, named Locust, to the Bray School. But only three years of student lists have survived.

The relocation of the Bray School is part of Colonial Williamsburg’s ongoing reckoning over its past storytelling of Black history and the nation’s origin story. The museum was founded in 1926 but did not tell Black stories until 1979.

In 2021, the brick foundation of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches was uncovered. Last year, archaeologists began to excavate graves at the site.

The Bray School’s new location is next door.

“We’re going back and we’re getting that school and we’re getting that legacy,” Merideth said. “And we’re bringing it back to the historic area.”

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By Ben Finley

The Associated Press

SUFFOLK, Va. — Whenever historic homes get flooded, building contractors often feel compelled by government regulations to rip out the waterlogged wood flooring, tear down the old plaster walls and install new, flood-resistant materials. It’s a hurried approach that’s likely to occur across southwest Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian.

But restorers Paige Pollard and Kerry Shackelford say they know something not yet proved by science: historic building materials can often withstand repeated soakings. There’s often no need, they say, to install modern products such as box-store lumber that are both dilute a house’s historic character and cost homeowners significantly.

“Our forefathers chose materials that were naturally rot-resistant, like black locust and red cedar and cypress,” said Shackelford, who owns a historic property restoration business. “And they actually survive better than many of the products we use today.”

Pollard and Shackelford are part of an emerging movement in the U.S. that aims to prove the resilience of older homes as more fall under the threat of rising seas and intensifying storms due to climate change. They hope their research near Virginia’s coast can convince more government officials and building contractors that historic building materials often need be cleaned – not replaced – after a flood.

In Florida, historic preservationists already fear older homes damaged by Ian may be stripped of original materials because so few available craftsmen can properly perform repairs.

“There are some companies that just roll through, and their job is just to come in and gut the place and move on,” said Jenny Wolfe, board president of the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation.

Pollard and Shackelford started a joint venture in Virginia: retrofit design firm Building Resilient Solutions. This year they opened a lab in which planks of old-growth pine, oak and cedar are submerged into a tank mimicking flood conditions. The tests are designed to demonstrate historic materials’ durability and were devised with help from Virginia Tech researchers.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service has been working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on similar research at the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois. Researchers there have read through construction manuals from the mid-19th and early 20th centuries to assemble everything from tongue-and-groove flooring to brick walls coated with plaster. The materials were lowered into water containing bacteria and mold to simulate tainted floodwater.

The research may seem glaringly redundant considering all the older homes that stand intact along the nation’s coasts and rivers: many have withstood multiple floods and still boast their original floors and walls.

Pollard and Shackelford say lumber in older homes is resilient because it came from trees that grew slowly over decades, if not centuries. That means the trees’ growth rings were small and dense, thereby making it harder for water to seep in. Also, the timber was cut from the innermost part of the trunk, which produces the hardest wood.

Plaster can also be water resistant, while common plaster coatings were made from lime, a substance with antiseptic qualities.

But here’s the problem: U.S. flood insurance regulations often require structures in flood-prone areas to be repaired with products classified as flood-resistant. And many historic building materials haven’t been classified because they haven’t been tested.

U.S. regulations allow exceptions for homes on the National Register of Historic Places as well as some state and local registries. But not everyone fully understands or is aware of the exceptions, which can be limited.

The far bigger challenge is a lack of expertise among contractors and local officials, Pollard said. Interpretations of the regulations can vary, particularly in the chaos after a major flood.

“You’ve got a property owner who’s in distress,” said Pollard, who co-owns a historic preservation firm. “They’re dealing with a contractor who’s being pulled in a million directions. And the contractors are trained to get all of that (wet) material into a dumpster as quickly as possible.”

In Norfolk, Virginia, homeowner Karen Speights said that after her home flooded, a contractor replaced her original first floor – made from old-growth pine – with laminate flooring. Built in the 1920s, Speights’ two-story craftsman is in Chesterfield Heights, a predominantly Black neighborhood on the National Register of Historic Places. It sits along a Chesapeake Bay estuary in one of the most vulnerable cities to sea-level rise.

“I still believe I had a good contractor, but flooding was not his expertise,” Speights said. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Along Florida’s Gulf Coast, there are thousands of historic structures, Wolfe said. Many are wood-framed houses on piers with plaster-and-lath walls. Most of those likely just need to dry out after Ian, she said. But not all local contractors know what to do “in terms of drying them slowly and opening up the baseboards to get circular airflow.”

Andy Apter, president-elect of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, agreed that many contractors aren’t well-versed in older building materials.

“There’s no course that I know of that teaches you directly how to work on historical homes,” said Apter, a Maryland contractor. “It’s like an antique car. You’re going to be limited on where you can find parts and where you can find someone who’s qualified to work on it.”

Hurricane Katrina deluged hundreds of thousands of historic structures along the Gulf Coast in 2005, and interest in older homes’ resilience has grown since, according to Jenifer Eggleston, the National Park Service’s chief of staff for cultural resources, partnerships and science. The agency recognized the growing need to protect older structures and last year issued new guidelines for rehabilitating historic buildings in flood-prone areas, she said.

The guidelines recommend keeping historic materials in place when possible. But they don’t list specific materials due to the lack of research on their flood resistance.

That’s where the studies come in.

A recent study by the National Park Service and Army Corps found that some historic materials, such as old-growth heart pine and cypress flooring, performed considerably better than certain varieties of modern lumber, Eggleston said.

Those assemblies could be dried for reuse after so-called “clean water” damage, Eggleston said. But they would likely require refinishing to remove “biological activity,” such as mold and bacteria.

Pollard and Shackelford said they’re hoping for an eventual shift in practices that will save money for homeowners as well as taxpayers, who often foot the bill after a major disaster.

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