Category Archives: building

on memory alone.

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Detroit is getting another home renovation series on HGTV and this one promises to tackle the toughest projects in the city.

“Condemned” is scheduled to premiere this summer on the cable network. The show, which will have eight one-hour episodes, will star a father-daughter rehabbing team, property investor Kristyn Patterson and her builder dad, Pancho Patterson, according to HGTV.

“Kristyn and Pancho have a tangible passion for Detroit and the necessary skills, grit and humor to renovate crumbling homes no one else will touch. Our cameras will follow the highs and lows as they grow their family business and prove that no home is too far gone,” stated HGTV head of content Loren Ruch in the announcement.

They will be facing what is being touted as the city’s “most blighted homes.” As the news announcement for the series puts it, the Pattersons “will stop at nothing to rescue The Motor City’s worst houses that are destined for the wrecking ball.”

Along the way, they will encounter financial pressures, people who have moved into the properties without permission, the challenges of a Detroit winter and more, as they set out on their reality-TV mission.

‘this house is standing on memory alone.’

-roberta brown 

 

 

 

source credits: Julie Hinds, Detroit Free Press, HGTV

the soul of the building.

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built by albert kahn and george mason in 1904, one of my favorite places to visit is this lovely glass structure, filled with botanical wonders. during world war II, the anna scripps whitcomb conservatory was responsible for saving endangered cypripedium (greek ‘the shoe of Venus”) orchids, housing them during the bombing of london.

the conservatory has recently been undergoing renovations for last 5 months, and is slated to reopen later in may on it’s 120th birthday. the conservatory/aquarium site had been an old baseball field and remains the oldest conservatory in the united states.

*The Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory is a greenhouse and a botanical garden located on Belle Isle, a 982-acre island park located on the Detroit River within Detroit, Michigan. While located near the Canada–United States border, the island is entirely within the U.S. (wiki)

 

“an old building is like a show. you smell the soul of the building. and the building tells you how to redo it.”

-sir cameron mackintosh

 

 

photo credit: belle isle photography, mark gade