Second Annual St. Patty’s Day Poker Party

stpattysmallMark your calendars for PHW’s poker party on Saturday, March 16 from 7-10 p.m. at 510 South Loudoun Street in Winchester. Buy your chips at the door for $20 as a donation to PHW and play in a friendly atmosphere. If you’re not the gambling type, stop in to socialize and see the Grim-Moore House, one of the PHW Revolving Fund properties, before the building is updated by its new owner. Beer and light refreshments will be served also.

As a special thank you, new members to PHW since 1/1/2011 will receive $5 in chips on the house. Bring a friend as well and introduce them to PHW!

Click here to see the invitation. RSVP your attendance by 3/13/2013 to 540-667-3577 or phwi@verizon.net.

George Washington’s 281st Birthday Celebration, Feb. 22

The French and Indian War Foundation & The George Washington Hotel invite you to join in on the fun for the 281st birthday of Colonel George Washington. The event will be held Friday, February 22, 2013, 5pm – 8 pm in the George Washington Hotel Half Note Lounge, 103 E. Piccadilly Street.

The celebration includes a cash bar & hors d’oeuvres, special drinks for history lovers, violin by Jane Casper, and Colonel James Wood will be present! Call 540-678-4700 for more information and questions. Click here to see the invitation.

Happy Valentine’s Day

219valentineFun trivia: Did you know some of the PHW Revolving Fund properties were once likely given as a Valentine’s Day present from a husband to his wife? On February 14, 1951 Joseph Hodgson “in consideration of natural love and affection” granted his wife Irene Virginia Hodgson joint ownership of five properties, including 219 South Kent Street (pictured), for the rest of “their joint lives,” as well as granting the survivor absolute ownership in the event that one spouse predeceased the other. The other Hodgson properties include three more Revolving Fund properties, 211 South Kent, 124 East Clifford, and 125 East Clifford. Thanks to our former intern Mike St. Jacques for uncovering this piece of history for us!

Journey Through Hallowed Ground Conference Registration Open

If you attended the Preservation Virginia conference last year, you may have attended a panel presented by the JTHG organization. Registration for their annual conference, which will be held May 21-22 in Gettysburg, PA, is now open. To see the schedule of events and slate of educational workshops, please visit the JTHG website at jthgannualconference.org.

Reception and Silent Auction at the Samuel Noakes House

Please join Preservation of Historic Winchester for a Reception and Silent Auction Saturday, March 9 at the Samuel Noakes House at 201 South Braddock and 101 West Cork Streets to benefit PHW. Two event times will be offered with different refreshments and auction items. Admission is $20 per person for the 3-5 p.m. event with beer and barbeque, or $30 per person for the 6-8 p.m. event with wine and hors d’oeuvres. Auction items will be added to the event page for advanced viewing.

Space is limited, so only the first 40 paid reservations for each event time can be accommodated. Don’t delay – many auction items are one of a kind gems. Buy your tickets now via Paypal through the links below, or mail in your check to PHW, 530 Amherst St., Winchester, VA 22601.

Afternoon Showing, 3-5 p.m. – $20 admission

Evening Showing, 6-8 p.m. – $30 admission

Hawthorne and Old Town Spring Building Nomination Meeting

articlehNext Monday, February 11 at 6 PM, there will be a public meeting in the Council Chambers at Rouss City Hall to discuss the National Register nomination of Hawthorne and the Old Town Spring Building on Amherst Street. These properties have been recommended as eligible for listing in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. You may attend the meeting in person or submit your comments before the meeting to:

Director Kathleen Kilpatrick
VA Department of Historic Resources
2801 Kensington Avenue
Richmond, VA 23221

Please click on the image of the special notice for more details and how to obtain information about this proposal.

The Samuel Noakes House, Part 21

The Samuel Noakes HouseWe continue our journey through the renovation process at the Samuel Noakes House at 101 West Cork Street/201 South Braddock Street. Updates are posted each Tuesday through the PHW blog, following the progress with virtual hardhat tours. The previous entries may be found at the PHW blog at part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13, part 14, part 15, part 16, part 17, part 18, part 19, and part 20.

In today’s installation of the Noakes house project, you can see a number of salvaged items being reinstalled in the building. As you may recall, a number of original doors were removed during the early stages of the project and tucked away for future use. They have now been reinstalled. In cases where there were not quite enough matching doors on hand, historic replacements were purchased from Maggie’s Farm architectural salvage in Front Royal. Note in the upstairs bedroom on the Braddock St. side that the closet doors have been reversed to expose the unpainted sides to the room. Several double swinging doors have been re-purposed as single closet doors. A few brand new doors have also been installed along with the historic ones — see if you can spot them!

Preparing for doors at Cork Street.Doors upstairs at Cork Street

Doors downstairs at Cork Street

Doors upstairs at Braddock Street

Doors downstairs at Braddock Street

Help Restore the Winchester Hiram Lodge

The Winchester Hiram Lodge, located at 118 North Loudoun Street, needs your help. As you may remember, in March 2012 the Lodge was vandalized during a break-in and several of the fresco paintings on the third floor were damaged.

The frescos were painted on the walls and ceiling of the Lodge in 1868 by a Mr. Ango from the Peabody Institute of Baltimore. More history and images of the treasured frescos may be viewed at the Lodge’s website www.winchesterhiram21.org. Although the vandalized artwork has since been restored, the Lodge is continuing work to preserve the rest of the undamaged frescos. The work will remove the layers of grime and soot that have accumulated over the years and return the paintings to their original luster in order to match the already restored panels. To see some examples of the ongoing restoration/cleaning process, visit the Picasa album or watch the slideshow.

Currently, the Lodge requires about $50,000 to finish the restoration work on 6 side panels. For more information on how to donate to the fresco preservation project, call Larry Renner at 540-722-0172.

Help Make Our Events a Success

The Membership and Events Committee is hard at work planning the events roster for 2013. While we have some fabulous event ideas in mind for the upcoming year, we don’t have all the supplies we need to make the events a success. The committee has generated a list of items we will need to have loaned and/or donated:

Card tables
Folding chairs
Tablecloths, preferably white, for card tables
Croquet sets
Flameless candles
Decks of playing cards

Please contact the PHW office at 540-667-3577 or phwi@verizon.net if you have these items, and let us know if these will be available for loan or for donation. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, items donated to PHW may qualify as a tax-deductible contribution.