Ingrid Abramovitch

I just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where hard-won victories in architectural preservation seem to lead quickly to fresh new battles. Read the rest of this entry →

Many thanks to Jenny at the wonderful blog Little Green Notebook for the Restoring a House in the City book giveaway, which ends February 4 at midnight. I love reading all the comments about the dream homes people would love to restore. As for me, I live in Brooklyn but wouldn’t it be fun to restore an old town house in Savannah or Charleston? And a farm house too, while I’m at it.

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2010/02/give-away-restoring-house-in-city.html

The Daily News has a story on the chapter in my book on the neo-Victorian townhouse belonging to Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke and his wife, fashion designer Lorraine Kirke. Reporter Jason Sheftell calls Restoring a House in the City “the best resource currently available on the subject…a must-read for anyone who loves real estate or is redoing an old city home.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2010/01/29/2010-01-29_bad_company_drummer_simon_kirke_and_fashion_designer_wife_lorraine_.html

The Washington Post featured a story on Restoring a House in the City today, with a Q and A with me on the design challenges of renovating an antique town house. Where to start? How about with bringing in more light?

http://bit.ly/5iZNX4

In the late 1930s, NYC used WPA money to hire unemployed workers to photograph every building in the city for the Department of Finance. All the photos still exist–I went online and ordered a print of my Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, brownstone, which in the photo looks almost identical to its appearance today (except for the Model T out front!). Read the rest of this entry →

In this interview with Bridgette Meinhold of the blog Inhabitat, I explain why old houses were the original green architecture. I also offer tips on how to renovate sustainably, Read the rest of this entry →

When I do book signings and lecture/slideshows for Restoring a House in the City, invariably one of the first questions I get is how I found the 21 houses in my book. There is no short answer as each house–and how it came to be included–has its own story. As a former editor at House & Garden and Martha Stewart Living, I had many contacts in the interior design and architecture community and I cast a wide net. I called everyone I knew and looked at hundreds of houses before choosing the ones in my book. I sifted through emailed photos and whenever possible scouted homes in person. I’d visit a city or town–Boston or Savannah for instance–and make a targeted scouting trip where I would visit as many as fifteen houses in a weekend. There were so many wonderful houses. The final selection came down to variety–I wanted the book to include a range of architectural styles, locations, decorating styles and renovation approaches.

One house, in Troy, New York, astonished me both in the beauty of the architecture and in the way the restoration and décor capture the original spirit of the home which dates from the 1850s. Check it out on p. 42 of Restoring a House in the City, in the chapter titled Forgotten Grandeur. What’s Sonic Youth and Edith Wharton got to do with it? Here is the back story on how I discovered this wonderfully preserved house.  http://bit.ly/6v8DrJ

Although I’ve never visited Akron, Ohio, the town already holds a place in my imagination at the home of David Giffels, who wrote a wonderful chronicle of his old-house reno, All the Way Home. Meanwhile Michael Ruhlman’s House, about his restoration of an old Victorian, is set not far away in Cleveland Heights. So I couldn’t resist these before and after photos sent to me by Akron resident John Joyce who renovated an 1853 house that had been abandoned for a decade. Here is the garden that lured him into taking on this huge reno.

Click on John’s photo essay which tells the whole story. http://redincorporated.com/wp-content/uploads/RenoBookSmall.pdf

This Reuters story on Restoring a House in the City is on the business/real estate home page for MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com

I have three appearances coming up this week:

November 14: I’ll be signing books at The Conran Shop from 3-5 p.m.

November 17: Lecture/slideshow at The Salmagundi Club, sponsored by the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation. 6:30-8:30 pm.

November 18: Lecture/slideshow at the 92nd Street Y Tribeca, noon to 1 p.m.

Check the events page on this website for contact information.