Engraving a Home’s History

This Engraved House is a stylish remodel of a fairly plain looking building that over the years has served as a boarding house and convenience store. The newly clad exterior walls feature original engravings drawn using traditional bone tools. But what caught my eye is that, into these same walls, the current owners also stamped the names of all owners of the land and building, from the Algonquin Indians to present-day. Finally, they also stamped an exact copy of the original property deed into the once-wet cement.

Record the history of your home at Historyofhomes.net

Photo by Dwell

We Owe It All to the Georgians

According to author and historian Amanda Vickery, our passion for property began with the Georgians, who in the 1700s spurred a great property boom complete with the first property developers, streets of brick terraces erected after the Great Fire, new fashions in glazing, wallpapering, plasterwork and distinctly chirpy colours.

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World’s Most Expensive House

With an estimated value of over US$1 billion, this 27-story high-rise gives a whole new meaning to single-family home. Billed as the most expensive home in history, it took seven years to build and is now home to just one six-member family in Mumbai, India.

Share your favourite over-the-top home at www.historyofhomes.net

Mad Men Mansion

Fans of the retro TV hit, Mad Men, will enjoy the virtual tour of this well preserved 1950s home. Light up a smoke and step back into the era when the most modern of men were ad execs and everyone else, didn’t really count.

Share your favourite retro home at www.historyofhomes.net

If You Love Frank Lloyd Wright

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy holds its annual conference in Cincinnati this week.

The conference includes tours of three local homes designed by Wright, as well as his Westcott House in Springfield and several other modern homes and buildings, including the Dwivedi-Schiff house pictured above.

Add your favourite modern house to: Historyofhomes.net

Leaving Your Mark

Have you ever literally left a mark on a home you’ve lived in? As we were selling our family home and packing up a lifetime of contents, one of our final tasks was to take our ailing Dad into the basement where he could reach up and sign a beam with a permanent marker. There was not a dry eye in the house.

Photo: Gordon Chibroski/ Home and Garden Staff Photographer

Leave your mark at: Historyofhomes.net

Homes of the Underground Railroad

This online opinion stresses the importance to ensuring the accuracy of a home’s history. As well, it details several characteristics that defined homes – or stations – along the Underground Railroad.

Photo: Trella Romine

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House On Fire!

It’s not often that one comes across a photo of a burning house in the family photo album. Even in black and white, this image illustrates a scale and speed of loss. It also tells how the people scrambled to save whatever furniture and belongings they could retrieve, before the home was completely engulfed.

To read more about this house, visit Historyofhomes.net

Summer Sleeping Quarters

With the hot weather this summer, the chat among home history lovers soon turns to the era of the traditional sleeping porch. Hambleton House in Easton, Maryland, sports a grand porch on its second floor where I am sure many a nap has been accommodated over the home’s 200-year history.

To read more about sleeping on the porch, check out this post on the This Old House blog. It’s a good read, just before you head out to doze off.

Life in the Tenement

This New York City Museum brings to life the stories of immigrants who lived at 97 Orchard Street, a tenement built in 1863 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I especially enjoyed the Virtual Tour and the Immigation Game in the PLAY section. Hope to visit some day.

I have added a tenement from my family tree to www.historyofhomes.net