Historic Preservation

In 1987, The Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia recreated the original Edifice for the second time, and unlike the 1887 reconstruction, this Edifice was the same size as the original. It took part in Philadelphia’s “We the People… 200,” the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution. Alvin Holm, A.I.A. and Carpenter’s Company member, redesigned the 1987 Edifice based on period descriptions because no drawings from the period are known to have survived.

In 1989, the Edifice was called upon again, to take part in the Inaugural Parade of President Bush. Like its role in 1987, the Edifice was again celebrating a bicentennial. Two hundred years before President Bush celebrated his election with a parade, another George, the nation’s first president, had done the same. The same order of march as the original Inaugural Parade was followed in President Bush’s parade. The Edifice was led by The First City Troop, as it had been two hundred years before.


In 1987, The Carpenters’ Company of Philadelphia recreated the original Edifice for the second time, and unlike the 1887 reconstruction, this Edifice was the same size as the original. It took part in Philadelphia’s “We the People… 200,” the bicentennial celebration of the Constitution. Alvin Holm, A.I.A. and Carpenter’s Company member, redesigned the 1987 Edifice based on period descriptions because no drawings from the period are known to have survived.
The Grand Federal Edifice, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Design of a memorial for the Constitutional Bicentennial for the Carpenters’ Company of the City and County of Philadelphia, founded in 1724. The design is modeled after an 18th-century newspaper description of the float the Carpenters’ Company built for the parade celebrating the adoption of the National Constitution. This monument was drawn through the streets by the Budweiser team of Clydesdales for the Bicentennial parade and later drawn down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington to represent Pennsylvania in the Inaugural parade of President George H.W. Bush.



New Castle, DE
The George Read House (1800)
A Historical Structures Report and Selective Restoration for the Historical Society of Delaware.
George Read was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the house he built around 1800 remained in his family, largely unchanged until it was acquired by the Historical Society in the 1970s shortly before I began the historical structures report. I concluded that the original style was between Georgian and Federal, having distinct characteristics of both. The period of its design and construction was a time of rapid transition from hand craftsmanship to increasing mechanization.

Like the Read House, Elutherian Mills was built around 1800, and similarly, it remained in the DuPont family for centuries until taken over by the present owners, the Hagley Foundation, in 1952.

While the Read House was an amazing study in continuity through changing times, Elutherian Mills was a study in significant shifts and development over the same period.


Like the Read House, Elutherian Mills was built around 1800, and similarly, it remained in the DuPont family for centuries until taken over by the present owners, the Hagley Foundation, in 1952.
Greenville, DE
Eleutherian Mills,
the E.I. DuPont House
A Historical Structures Report, Systems Analyses and Selective Restoration for the Hagley Foundation of Wilmington, Delaware.
My experience with these two buildings over a period of four or five years taught lessons I never learned in eight years of excellent college and fourteen years of architectural practice.


Edgar Allan Poe House HSR
Historic Structure Report for the National Park Service