Preservation of Historic Winchester, Inc. (PHW) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history and architecture of Winchester, Virginia. Our office is located in the unique and historic Hexagon House (c. 1874) on Amherst Street.
In addition to providing preservation guidance, PHW monitors approximately 80 properties bought and resold by the Jennings Revolving Fund, sponsors educational lectures, and hosts special membership events throughout the year. Our signature fundraising activity is the Holiday House Tour, held the first weekend of December. For more information on any of PHW's activities, you may call (540) 667-3577 or e-mail phwi@verizon.net.
"At the Old Town Events Center Wednesday, city residents and members of the PHW who had gathered for 'Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation: Tree Forum' quizzed officials about trees that have been removed for the project and plans to replace old sidewalks along the two streets." Plans discussed during the forum about the future of sidewalks and their impact on trees and existing old brick sidewalks and limestone curbing as part of the City's infrastructure project will appear before City Council on April 7, and citizens are encouraged to attend and make their concerns heard.
The rest of Eric Beidel's article summarizing last night's event can be found at The Winchester Star.
Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation: Trees, Streetscapes, and the Historic District
Join Preservation of Historic Winchester on March 25th at 7 p.m. in the Old Town Event Center, 403 S. Loudoun St., for the next Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation event on trees and streetscapes in the Historic District of Winchester. Four guests will speak on the programs and goals of their respective departments, followed by a question and answer section. This event is free and open to the public.
Speakers:
Patrick Farris, Chairman of the Tree Commission
Perry Eisenach, Public Services Director
Tom Hoy, Public Works Director
Tim Stern, City Arborist
Spread the word and bring a friend to this timely event on the role of trees in downtown Winchester!
PHW wishes you a happy and safe St. Patrick's Day. As part of the "green" theme of the day, there are three events impacting the downtown historic district in the coming weeks:
A Zoning Ordinance survey is available online at http://www.winchesterva.gov/planning/ You may complete the survey online or by printing the PDF document.
On March 24th between 4 and 7 p.m. in the Exhibit Hall at Rouss City Hall, the city is having an "open house" for citizens to look at plans for the Downtown Utility Infrastructure Improvements Project, which includes the replacement of sidewalks and curbs. PHW urges you and any of your neighbors to attend the open house to ask questions and examine plans.
The City Council, sitting as a "Committee of the Whole" for Public Services, will meet on April 7 at 5:30 p.m. in Council Chambers to determine one of three options for the sidewalk replacement program for Braddock, Loudoun, Cameron and Piccadilly Streets. The options are: (1) Mostly concrete pavement with a brick strip, as seen on Boscawen and Cork Streets; (2) All (new) brick, at an additional cost to the city of $190,000; or (3) Permitting property owners to choose to repair/replace (under city supervision and inspection) the old brick sidewalks adjacent to their property. PHW urges you and your neighbors to attend the City Council meeting on April 7th, and be prepared to speak or to present petitions of those who share your sentiments retain and repair original brick sidewalks.
This project requires advance registration. Contact Terry Heder, Program Manager at the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation at theder@svbf.net or (540)740-4545 for more information or to schedule a half-hour time frame to bring in the materials on the day of the project.
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2009 Time: 9 a.m.- 4 p.m. Place: The Winchester-Frederick County Visitor Center (document digitization) and Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society (preservation information)
What: The Winchester-Frederick County Sesquicentennial Committee is looking for owners of historic Civil War-era documents and photographs to take part in a special document digitization project. As part of the Sesquicentennial Commemoration of the Civil War, the purpose of this project is to display digital reproductions of items on The Library of Virginia's Web site for use by researchers. The project will promote scholarship by providing electronic copies for personal study and not-for-profit educational uses. The Winchester-Frederick County program is a pilot project that will be used as a reference when the Library of Virginia applies for federal grants that will allow it to do the same type of research in every county in the state. Eventually, its work will be available to view at the Library of Virginia's web site, as well as locally.
Guidelines:
Materials must be originals
Materials must be from private collections
Materials can be no larger than 8.5 x 11"
Only flat materials can be scanned; no three-dimensional objects can be included
This is not an appraisal opportunity
All participants must pre-register and will be given a 30-minute time slot during the program.
Preservation Advice: Participants in the project will also have the chance to learn more about the correct care and handling of their historic materials. Representatives of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society will be at the Hollingsworth Mill to counsel owners on the correct care of their historic documents and photographs, as well as to give recommendations on the proper materials to use when storing such artifacts.
If you were unable to attend PHW's first Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation seminar in Traditional Mortar, not to worry. Jeff Price of Virginia Lime Works has uploaded his lecture on Youtube.com:
PHW launches a new, free seminar series in compatible building materials, Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation. The first seminar focuses on traditional mortars in restoration and repair, with guest speaker Jeff Price of Virginia Lime Works. The event will be held at 2 PM in the Old Town Event Center at 403 S. Loudoun St. and is expected to run approximately two hours. Light refreshments will be provided afterward. RSVP by March 3 to the PHW office by calling 667-3577 or e-mailing phwi@verizon.net.Click here for the postcard.
Join Dr. Warren Hofstra in his ongoing lecture series for the next installment, entitled Radical Republicans and the Idealism of Reconstruction. The event will be held at 7:30 pm in the Douglas Community Learning Center, 598 N. Kent St.
RSVP for the upcoming Limestone, Sycamores, and Preservation Seminar in Traditional Mortars in Restoration and Repair at the PHW office by calling 667-3577 or e-mailing phwi@verizon.net.Click here for the postcard.
The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities - Northern Shenandoah Valley will be holding its first General Membership meeting on Sunday, March 1, at 2:00 pm at Blandy Farm (State Arboretum) on Rt. 50 in Clarke County, in the Library of the main building. After a program on Greenway Court by Maral Kalbian, well-known architectural historian, we will go to Greenway Court and tour the site.
Non-members of APVA are welcome. We hope you will consider joining Virginia's principal preservation organization, and its brand new "Branch" for Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah, Warren, and Winchester.
PHW is pleased to announce the launch of our blog. The blog takes the place of our static News and Events section on the front page. Events, news, and other activities normally listed in the news section will continue to be posted as usual. There are a few minor differences in the new blog format:
- Comments are enabled. You may leave a comment with a Google or Blogger account, OpenID (from services such as LiveJournal, WordPress, Typepad, or AOL) or anonymously. All comments are moderated to prevent abuse, so comments will not show on the website without approval from PHW.
- Events will now be listed in newest to oldest format. To find earlier entries, a link to the archive pages is provided in the left-hand column. Past events will no longer be organized by year in the "Past Events" section, but will be automatically organized by month in the sidebar.
- Posts may also be e-mailed to interested friends and family. Click the envelope icon to fill out the form. E-mailing posts requires word verification to prevent spam.
- The events page also creates an automatic RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed. You may subscribe to the feed by clicking the RSS icon at the bottom of the page, or by using the following link: http://www.phwi.org/rss.xml
Thank you for your support of PHW. We would love to hear your feedback -- please give the new commenting features a try.
