Historic House Blog

This one is, well,  just a tad unique.  In 1976, a black couple — Donald & Thelma Smith — bought a beautiful mansion (circa 1912) in the historic Hill District of Pittsburgh.  While doing some renovations a few years later, some exterior wood was removed from the facade to reveal — surprise, surprise — a [...]

We usually stick to American topics here on HHB–  but, wow, this property “across the pond” really caught my eye. Up for auction on November 23rd in the U.K. is this incredible, post-Tudor, sandstone block property, which is “reputed to be one of the oldest houses in Wirral,” dating to the year 1627.  Yeah . . . that’s [...]

I really like Marshall, Michigan. I’ve only been there once, and that one visit was only a few weeks ago.  However, I am smitten.  I had long been looking forward to visiting Marshall (well, “long” being since March 2009), when I bought an old copy of Mabel Cooper-Skjelver’s Nineteenth Century Homes of Marshall, Michigan (see left).  Flipping through musty pages of old black and [...]