#calder loth

Aborting the Menokin legacy

Menokin House as it will look when rebuilt with “deconstructed” elements. (Menokin Foundation)

Menokin House, near Warsaw, Va., was built in 1769 by Francis Lightfoot Lee, who received the plantation’s land as a wedding gift. He was the brother of Gen. Lightfoot Harry Lee of Revolutionary War fame, and the uncle of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The mansion is the only remaining unpreserved home…

American Revolution Museum, Yorktown, Va. (Photo by Calder Loth)

About a year ago, the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown was completed, replacing the Yorktown Victory Center – a quotidian slanty modernist version of colonial (it is brick) – with a classical, quasi-Palladian building of considerable merit. Today, retired Virginia chief preservationist Calder Loth sent its main entry portico…

Garages can be beautiful

Staunton Parking Garage, in Staunton, Va. (Photo by Calder Loth)

Here is the column I wrote for the Providence Journal about the design of parking garages, as promised in “Garage design in Providence.” Seeing the latest proposed garage design, a friend thought at first that the headline was “Garbage design in Providence.” Understandable.

In September of 2013 I wrote a column based largely on…

Trad campus in Newport News

Great Lawn of new main campus of Christopher Newport University, in Newport News, Va. (CNU)

Calder Loth, a Virginia architectural historian, provided TradArch with good grist for chewing when he offered up a photo of a newly completed chapel, latest of a series of classical buildings erected for the new main campus at Christopher Newport University, a state school in Newport News, Va.

The…

Fascinating look at the history of the Flemish Bond.