Historical preservation
- Hayes & Hopson (2007-2009): I saved an important historic building from demolition.
- One of downtown Asheville's oldest buildings, this 1890s-vintage brick building close to Asheville City Hall was built by novelist Thomas Wolfe's uncle. In 2007, it was slated for demolition by a developer who wanted to install a large, highly controversial condo building on the site. I spoke out frequently as an opponent of this project, but I also worked closely with the developer to find a "win-win" solution that would preserve the historic building while still helping him recoup his investment. I took the initiative to bring in top local and state historic-preservation experts and get them together with the developer to tour and appraise the building, and discuss both its historic value and its economic possibilities (given its prime downtown location). My efforts bore fruit: The developer backed away from the condo project, and instead is opening (April 19, 2010) a much-anticipated 1920s-themed tavern in the preserved and renovated Hayes & Hopson.
- The experience made me well-versed in explaining the virtues of preservation easements, tax credits, energy retrofitting, and other important cutting-edge preservation concepts. I've also gotten to know many members of the active local preservation community, and am currently working with local museum experts and advocates who are seeking to establish a local-history center in downtown Asheville that would serve as a magnet for regional and national tourism.
- West Asheville history (2007-2008): I'm an expert on the history of this popular, newly renascent community.
- The owner of the historic Fortune Building, built nearly a century ago at one of the two main intersections in West Asheville, hired me to write "The 700 Block" — the histories and the stories of the people behind a dozen highly individual early-20th-century commercial buildings within a single block of addresses on Haywood Road, centered on the Fortune Building. I used resources ranging from the city library's collection of city directories to personal recorded interviews with elderly longtime residents to unearth and assemble what became a fascinating and colorful series of true-life "character sketches" of these hardy brick-and-wood survivors. I wrote, illustrated, and produced the first few in a projected series of pamphlets.
- Budget shortfalls forced the suspension of the project, but I still have the extensive research materials and would like to find a way to pursue and complete this project in one form or another. I have also found and begun to document the historic remains on Hominy Creek of the first hydroelectric dam in the Southeast. Such "historytelling" gives new and established locals alike a sense of place and unity in these fractured, contentious times.
- Weldon Weir (2005): As Asheville prepared to welcome a new city manager, I published a cover story about the most colorful and controversial city manager in its history — illustrating the important role of this powerful but little-understood office.
- Using newspaper archives and personal interviews, I researched and wrote the story of the Democratic power-broker who was the Asheville equivalent of Chicago's Mayor Daley. My article is still cited as a reference; for example, it is excerpted in Asheville: A History, by Nan K. Chase (McFarland & Co., 2007).
- The past comes alive when it is tied to the present. I also wrote a cover story about an unexpected local hero of religious tolerance: Gov. Zebulon Vance, who in an age of rampant anti-Semitism toured the U.S. lecturing in defense of Jewish religion and culture. And I have taken and submitted to the Pack Library archives photos of the remains of philanthropist George W. Pack's mansion, on the site of a proposed development on Merrimon Ave.