PreserveCast

It takes a village to make a preservation project a reality – and in today’s complex financial environment it also takes an expert in tax credit law to take a project from idea to completion. Today’s guest, Bill MacRostie is one of the nation’s leading experts in that complex but critical field. Sharpen your pencil and grab you calculator, because we’re talking the dollars and cents of preservation on this week’s PreserveCast.

In private practice for more than 30 years, Bill MacRostie has advised clients nationwide on projects ranging in size and type from the multi-phased $175 million mixed-use project in Detroit, Michigan to a $1.5 million hotel rehabilitation in Santa Rosa, California. For the 14 years that NPS certification project review was conducted in regional offices, Bill worked extensively in every regional office and most major states around the country.

Bill MacRostie is now a senior partner at MacRostie Historic Advisors where he advises clients on historic rehabilitation tax credit design and regulatory issues. In addition, he also serves on the board of directors of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association and previously served on the board of Preservation Action.

Historic places and resources come in all shapes and sizes. On Maryland’s eastern shore, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum preserves and restores a wide variety of historic resources – including historic boats and ships. Today’s guest, Pete Lesher, the chief curator of the museum is assisting in the latest restoration project of the 1882 Chesapeake Bay nine-log bugeye Edna E. Lockwood. You don’t know what a bugeye is? Well batten down the hatches and check your port and starboard as we set sail for this week’s PreserveCast.

Pete Lesher is chief curator at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where he has served on staff since 1991 and now oversees museum collections, exhibitions, and programs. He graduated Lafayette College, holds an MA in history from Columbia University, and studied maritime history at Mystic Seaport’s summer Munson Institute for American Maritime Studies.

Active in his community, Pete is a member of the Talbot County Council, chairs the St. Michaels Historic District Commission, and serves on the boards of the Maryland Humanities Council, Council of American Maritime Museums, and Maryland Heritage Areas Authority. In his spare time he sails, taking particular pleasure in his role as jib tender on the 1882 Chesapeake Bay sailing log canoe Island Bird.

Do you enjoy international travel, historic buildings, and helping to restore important places? This week’s guest works to connect those interests through her work as Executive Director of Restoration Works International, an organization whose mission is to restore buildings of cultural significance and provide cultural exchange and understanding. Make sure you have your passport ready and lock that tray table in the upright position – we’re headed overseas this week to talk international preservation on PreserveCast!

Melanie Lytle is the Executive Director of Restoration Works International, an organization which uses national and international volunteer tourism as the catalyst for its mission to help communities around the world protect their cultural heritage sites and prosper through preservation and renewal of their history. A trained architectural historian, prior to her current position, she served as the Executive Director of the non-profit Maryland Association of Historic District Commissions. Melanie is a graduate of Goucher College's MA in Historic Preservation program.

Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, like Colonial Williamsburg to the south, is now historic in its own right. Founded in 1946, the 72-year old museum has told the story of the early federal period for nearly five decades – and like any institution of its size and scope – it is working hard to adapt to a new reality. Fortunately, CEO James Donohue is focused on making the site relevant for a new generation. Sit back as we head back to 1830 to learn how this old site is coming up with new ideas on this week’s PreserveCast.

Food is a powerful tool for building relationships, warming the soul, and providing comfort. Food can also tell us a lot about a culture – and can tell us a lot about our history. For foodways historian Joyce White, historic food is not only her passion, it’s also her career.

Warm up something tasty as we talk historic food on this week’s PreserveCast.

Joyce White is a foodways historian operating A Taste of History with Joyce White, offering food history PowerPoint presentations with tastings on a variety of topics. Joyce is also the foodways consultant to the ca. 1801 Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, Maryland, was the consultant for the restoration of the 18th century kitchen at Annapolis’s William Paca House, and was the guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans.  

Historic Preservation and Smart Growth are cut from the same cloth – and a interconnected in a variety of important ways. When we grow smart, we revitalize historic communities and keep from sprawling outward.

It’s a message that Preservation Maryland has been making for years – but in the past several months the organization has become much more serious about this issue following its merger with 1000 Friends of Maryland, the statewide smart growth organization.

Kimberly Golden Brandt, the former Executive Director of 1000 Friends now heads up Smart Growth Maryland, a campaign of Preservation Maryland.

On this week’s PreserveCast we’ll learn why the organizations merged and what it could mean for the future of Maryland.

Towny Anderson has over 40 years of experience with historic preservation. He has restored historic properties first as craftsman, then contractor, and later developer and owner. He was an independent scholar, cum laude graduate of Middlebury College and attended the Preservation Leadership Training program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Anderson served as Vermont’s first appointed State Historic Preservation Officer, as a Director of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers and as Chair of the Vermont Historic Preservation Advisory Council. He is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum. Anderson co-wrote groundbreaking statewide legislation encouraging reinvestment in Vermont’s historic downtowns. He was a founding board member of MainStreet Steamboat Springs. Two of his certified historic rehabilitation projects received National Trust Preservation Honor awards. Appointed Executive Director of HistoriCorps in August 2012, Towny Anderson is bringing together everything he loves about historic preservation – buildings, people, beautiful places, and education.

If you work in historic preservation long enough, inevitably the question comes up, "Do you believe in ghosts?" For today’s guest, Mindie Burgoyne, she’s made a career of telling those stories as a travel writer, blogger, author, and most famously, a tour operator.

The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is truly a renaissance organization. With a proud history of land conservation, the conservancy also operates the Center for Towns, a program focused on the health and sustainability of the Eastern Shore’s historic communities. Most recently, one of the organization's projects has been selected as one of Preservation Maryland's Six-to-Fix projects for 2019. In this episode, Nick speaks to Katie Parks White, the vice-president of conservation for the Conservancy to learn about this exciting adaptive reuse project at the historic Phillips Packing Plant project in Cambridge, Maryland.

Reflection of the term "cultural landscapes" conjures up sweeping images of natural wonders and vast landscapes. More specifically, it refers to the historic and contemporary interventions we have made upon those landscapes.