Introduction

[Nick Redding] I’m Nick Redding and you’re listening to PreserveCast. Reducing flood damage is a challenge even in new buildings. For historic buildings floods can be catastrophic. Rod Scott joins us today to share his knowledge and experience from a long career of working on coastal buildings ranging from New Orleans to coastal Connecticut. Learn about how recent weather events have caused changes in the approach to flood mitigation as we dive into this week’s PreserveCast.

From Preservation Maryland studios in the historic podcast district of Baltimore, this is PreserveCast.

[Nick Redding] This is Nick Redding and you’re listening to PreserveCast. Today we’re joined by Rod Scott who is going to be talking to us about all things sea level rise, climate change, and how that can impact a historic building. Rod, thanks for joining us today.

[Rod Scott] Well, thanks for having me, I really appreciate the opportunity. And this outreach communication that Preservation Maryland is doing is really unique and I want to see it spread to other organizations. But go ahead and be a leader, it’s great.

[NR] Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So where are we talking to you from today, Rod? Where are you?

[RS] Well, I live in coastal Louisiana. But I’m up in coastal Connecticut today continuing work on a fantastic project with a city elected to save a building built in 1699 that, in order to build a new police station, we had to move it last fall. And since I come from many, many years of preservation contracting, I was hired as a preservation consultant on the building for the relocation and to keep it on the Register. But now they’ve asked me to come in and restore all the windows, which I haven’t really had my hands in for many, many years. And I am just tickled pink to be up here on a beautiful spring day to start removing some windows and re-glazing and priming and painting. And it’s really wonderful to save those old windows.

[NR] Yeah, absolutely. Well, we’ve done a couple episodes on windows. It’s an issue near and dear to every preservationist. Let’s talk a little bit, though, to take a step back to explain how you ended up doing all of this. What was your path to preservation? It’s always something that interests folks.

[RS] Well, it’s a great path. I have about twenty-five years of general contracting experience – historic structures, fire and flood restoration of structures. In 2008, I had a really bad accident and fell off a building and a couple of weeks of Humpty Dumpty back in the hospital and every day I wake up is a blessing.

And so I had to transfer to a different career path after that. A house mover, an elevation contractor, ultimately, picked me up in Iowa. We ended up transferring down to New Orleans after the hurricanes to elevate structures with the massive federal funding for elevating structures down there. I got to work on some very unique elevation projects down there for flood mitigation. Learned the whole field, went to a couple of other very well-known companies. In fact, the company that moved the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse – which is kind of the model of monolithic structure moving for flood protection back in the [1990’s] – and I ended up cutting my teeth that way. Because, really, these projects for flood mitigation are just specialized construction projects. And so I was able to add that knowledge to my original base and with the viewpoint that all of these old historic buildings near the water are going to have to do some sort of adaptation in order to survive. So it’s great to be a preservationist in this field.

[NR] So let’s talk a little bit about that kind of adaptation. What sort of steps can be taken? I mean, let’s say we’ve got a structure here in Maryland or really anywhere along the East Coast, that is sort of in that area that is beginning to see sunny day flooding, right? And then during the big storms and the big surges it’s seeing a whole heck of a lot of flooding. If there’s not steps taken, we know the end of this story. So what can be done? What happens when you’re called in and there’s a situation like that? What kind of steps do you consider as someone working in this field?

[RS] There are only a couple of adaptations that are acknowledged and accepted by FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program. That is kind of the limiting factor at this point until they approve any other types of modifications. The whole idea here is that for forty years – almost fifty years now – we’ve had a national flood insurance program in order for us to be able to afford to live near water with the occasional catastrophe. You’ve got to have insurance to cover that sort of an event and if you have a mortgage on your building and the building is located in a FEMA floodplain, you must carry flood insurance if you have a federally-backed mortgage. And since 98 percent of us have to have mortgages, – two percent or 1 percent can afford to pay cash – it’s a very real issue.

And now… It used to be 100 percent of the buildings in the late ’60s when it started were in the floodplain and not built to a flood map elevation standard. Now they’re down to about twenty percent  and it’s our really historic surviving buildings down near the water that are being impacted by the sea level rise, the climate changes. And it’s not just sea level rise. Remember, these climate changes are going to bring more intense rainfall events. Sometimes more frequently as we saw in Louisiana last year with 100,000 buildings flooded in one event with forty inches of rain in two days. It was just phenomenal.

[NR] And we saw that here in Maryland as well last year in Ellicott City, right, where a pretty significant flood that occurred in a matter of moments.

[RS] And very isolated, very small area impacted with large amounts of moisture coming down. So what’s happened is The National Flood Insurance Program has said, “because these buildings are so susceptible to flooding and it’s getting worse out there,” they’ve basically said that, “we’re going to take a transition period and raise the insurance,” which used to be subsidized. It used to be $500 to $1,000 a year for full insurance on these old buildings. They’re going to take them up to risk-rate now. And so if you’re four feet below the map elevation level and you have a house – not a commercial building but a house – you’re looking at $9,500 a year for flood insurance, not $500 a year. So that changes the whole value of the structure for resale. It changes, ultimately, the people who can’t sell their homes are going to ask the tax assessor to lower their taxes, which results in less money to schools and fire and police and roads and all that stuff. So before the ocean gets there they’ve kind of looked ahead and said, “We have to do something with, we think, 3,000,000 older historic buildings in this country on rivers and coastal areas.”

The Northeast has a high concentration, New Jersey, New York, and so does Florida. We estimate 600,000 of these older, post-World War II historic buildings, except they haven’t been surveyed for historic, which is a whole other issue that we’ll get into on another conversation maybe. But we’re facing a real issue here with with our older historic buildings near water, and that is financially foreseeing owners of these buildings to make some decisions on whether they’re going to adapt these buildings for flood prevention, flood risk reduction. So there’s three ways that we accept as preservationists to deal with these buildings. The fourth way, we don’t accept, which is demolition and removal from the flood plane. Because that should always be a last issue thing. We go with the elevation of a building.

[NR] Okay. And so if you raise the structure, let’s talk that through in terms of the context of the insurance discussion that we just had here. If you raise the structure and it was originally two feet below the flood line, and it’s now two feet above, how does that impact your insurance?

[RS] Every foot you go above the flood map is called freeboard. That’s called “adding freeboard,” and it comes from an old nautical term. The more your boat has freeboard above the level of the water to the entrance into the boat, the safer the boat is. So if your boat rides right down on the water, you don’t have much freeboard. So they’ve translated that now – that’s the historic definition of freeboard – now they’ve transferred it to the flood map and elevation of buildings. And so the FEMA flood map level is really based on insurance and risk. It’s not based on your – I mean, they call it a 100-year or one percent flood every year. But it’s really for insurance; it’s not a safety factor.

In my community in coastal Louisiana, we’ve had five hurricanes in ten years all exceeding the 100-year flood elevation. We call the FEMA flood map elevation the absolute minimum you need to get that building to. And if you raise it above, every foot you raise it above the minimum flood map elevation, you get another twenty percent off your flood insurance. So, conceivably, you could be at $300 or $400 a year for flood insurance at three feet above the flood map.

Now the problem is that in my community at the water’s edge, some of these homes were either near the ground because, you know, in the Gulf we have the open foundations. Even the historic ones, a lot of them were on piers and open with the wood frame construction underneath and with that, allowed better airflow and kept them cooler in the summer. We’re required to be at twelve feet above the ground now. So that dramatically impacts the visual context of the community, especially from the street. The real issue with preservation is really the dramatic changes.

[NR] Right.

[RS] The changes in height of these buildings as we adapt these buildings. And does that qualify for de-listing them off the National Register or the local register? Or are we really in the middle of a historic era that we just haven’t defined yet as preservationists? And I claim that we are in the climate change era. We’ve probably been in it for over twenty years now if you look back. Fifteen years for sure. And we started these elevations about fifteen years ago as these storms got more frequent, more intense. And so I live in a historic Gulf community right on Lake Pontchartrain in the north shore across from New Orleans that has a sea wall. It does not have levies. It will never have levies. And like I said, it’s been over that sea wall five hurricanes in ten years. And my community is now seventy percent elevated. So those in preservation who say, “Well, one or two of them up in the air is going to destroy the historic district or destroy the continuity of roof lines and visual…” I say, “It’s going to alter it but, ultimately, all of the buildings will have to be there or they’ll be gone.”

[NR] Yeah. It’s an interesting debate. Just yesterday, I was on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and talking with folks. And there are certainly those preservation purists who would say, “You’re destroying the building by doing that. And so you might as well let it flood,” which is an interesting perspective but is certainly one side of that argument. And then I think you make a pretty compelling argument for why it should be the other way. Let’s take a quick break here. And when we come back, maybe we can get into the nuts and bolts with Rod about how you actually lift a structure. Because we’ve been talking about it and why you might want to do it. Perhaps, when we come back, we can talk a little bit more about how about all that works here on PreserveCast.

Maryland: Mini-America

[Stephen Israel] Rod and Nick are talking about the coast. And here in Maryland, coastal practically means crustacean. So grab your hammer, knife, and Old Bay because we’re about to crack open a bit of the history of crabbing in Maryland. No one knows who ate the first crab. Different species of crab can be found all across the face of the earth; and crab has a history in many different cuisines. One thing is for sure, whoever first cracked open one of those creepy-crawly, snippy-snappy looking ocean spiders was a very brave soul. One other thing we might be sure of is the first American colonists who ate Chesapeake Bay blue crab. It was recorded by a colonist Ralph Haymore in his 1615 book A True Discourse in the Present State of Virginia. The Chief Powhatan served Haymore and other European guests crab as part of a breakfast.

In the following decades and centuries, crabbing became an integral part of the culture of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay. At first, crabmeat was used sparingly in soups and stews. But as crabbing became more established and more individuals were able to dedicate themselves to the practice, more people started eating crab as the centerpiece of their meal in full-scale crab feasts!

The heart of the blue crab tradition has always been Dorchester County. Located on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Dorchester County was settled by British colonists in the seventeenth century. And the combination of the bountiful brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay, the incredibly fertile soil, and the peaceful nature of the native Choptank and Nanticoke tribes led early settlers to consider the area a veritable Garden of Eden, a name that still exists on roads and other locations in the county.

For most of the history of crabbing, the practice was highly localized because crabmeat spoils quickly even when refrigerated. Around the turn of the twentieth century, fishing companies began looking for the best way to catch crabs on a large scale rather than the traditional nets and baskets used all along the bay. Eventually, it turned out that the most effective way to catch crabs wasn’t by trolling or other newer methods; but basically by a modification of the traditional trap. Benjamin F. Lewis patented his crab pot in 1928 and the design has remained relatively unchanged and is the most common crabbing implement used around the world.

This was, of course, just a taste of all there is to know about the blue crab in Maryland history. But I’m making myself hungry; and you need to get back to PreserveCast.

Do you have questions? We may have answers. If at any point during this podcast you thought of a question that you have for us or maybe one of our guests, we’d love to hear about it. You can send an email to podcast@presmd.org and we’ll try and answer it right here on the air on the next episode of PreserveCast.

[NR] This is Nick Redding and you’re listening to PreserveCast. We’re talking with Rod Scott about all things climate change, sea level rise, and how and why you might want to lift a historic structure out of the floodplain. Before we took our break here, we were talking about whether or not that kind of activity would result in a structure being delisted from the National Register. Is a historic structure still historic when it’s up in the air to try and keep it dry from increasing floods and an angrier climate? Rod, we’ve talked a lot about sort of this in the broad sense. But, obviously, you’re a contractor. You know the mechanics of this. How does this really work? And I think it would be great if you used an example down in Louisiana where you already have structures that are sort of on these piers, and then maybe take us up to New England or Maryland, for that matter, where our structures perhaps don’t sit on piers, and how do you handle it there. So can you just walk us through that?

[RS] Yeah, sure, thanks. So it’s all based on engineering and design. Those are the key critical components. The actual manipulation of the structure is a very old process. America leads the world in numbers of structures moved annually. We’ve always, especially in our farming communities, have relocated structures. Even in settlement communities that were settled at the water’s edge and the settlement moved back until the railroads got there inland and then the freeways. But it was very common to relocate a previously built structure to build a structure of higher value. If you go into all these riverfront and coastal communities, I guarantee you, you can find half a dozen to a dozen in the core area that have been relocated at some point in their life to make way for another building and reutilized. So it’s not uncommon at all.

Nowadays, we have some really marvelous equipment. In the old days, they used jacks, individual jacks. So when they were jacking up Michigan Avenue in Chicago – if you’ve ever been down the Miracle Mile there – they elevated all of the old buildings in 1903 about the same time they were elevating Galveston Island after the devastating hurricane. They had 100 men with railroad jacks underneath a city block size building and they were using drum beats to elevate the structure, all the structures. So they could elevate the roadway, so they could get more gravity velocity for their sewage and drainage and so it was a infrastructure-based need.

[NR] Now, I presume you don’t use drum beats anymore, though.

[RS] No. No whistles, no drum beats. Now we have this amazing equipment with the age of hydraulics. And, basically, right around the time that we relocated thousands and thousands of buildings in the 1950s from the Interstate highway system as it burrowed its way through communities, very often the lower class and ethnic classes of our socioeconomic classes of our communities, ergo we started the Section 106 process [laughter] as a result of some of that destruction. But we relocated thousands of homes and reutilized them. Used as infill, they’re continuing to be used today in many communities where these interstates went through. And in order to get them up faster and be more gentle instead of elevation with individual jacks, we developed what was called the Unified Hydraulic Jacking System. And it has now progressed to a very fine art. These machines can lift hundreds and thousands of tons of building all at the same time uniformly with minimal damage to a structure. Remember, no structure was ever meant or built to be elevated or relocated. But our industry does it every day.

We place these jacks under the house and we set them up for the load that they’re carrying. So one portion of the house may have a large brick or stone fireplace, but it’s a wood frame structure. So you set the jacks for lower pressure and lower weight on the other parts of the house. But under the chimney, you set them for a higher weight. Then you flip a lever on the machine, and these patented machines lift all of the jacks simultaneously regardless of the weight differential.

So in the old days, you just kind of jacked up the house, and all the plaster cracked, and the windows could crack. And it was very aggressive on the structures. Nowadays, it’s relatively gentle. There is some cracking sometimes above the window frames and door frames because that’s where everything is pretty solidly built. And if it’s going to give, it gives there. But that’s easily repaired. You don’t have any structural damage. It’s just in the finish wall systems.

Now with the regulations in the floodplain after a flood or a disaster – and I know Preservation Maryland is dealing with this with Ellicott City – and after Sandy, we flooded 600,000 buildings in the Northeast with Sandy. If you were fifty percent damaged of the value of the structure, not the land and the building, but just the building, you are required by code and by ordinance in the community to actually bring that structure to elevation in order to get a permit to rebuild. Now, we do have an exemption for historic structures that was put into place about fifteen years or more ago when the substantial damage component came into the requirements. And it’s based on the fact that you might do something to that historic designation to cause it to be no longer historic. It’s not well-defined. It never has been well-defined. We’re still working with the Park Service as an industry and as a nation to come up with standards for these elevations to where they can stay on the National Register or local registers, and we just haven’t seen those documents come forward yet. They’re still in the works for a couple of years now.

[NR] So I think that that kind of makes sense for your structure down in Louisiana. But what ends up happening if you’re doing this with a structure that’s sitting flush with the ground? I mean, does it sudden have a longer sort of skirt wall or just a bigger looking foundation? How do you do this Maryland?

[RS] That form of elevation, there’s two types of foundations that we put under these elevated structures. One is the open leg foundation that’s so common and near the water edges. And you’ll see that in the gulf and along the East Coast right up at the interface with the water. As you move back from the water, you get out of the V-Zone. The V-Zone is the velocity zone. It has the big, tall waves, a lot of debris. So you really want an open foundation so it doesn’t get hammered because when the water has debris in it, it’s like a sledgehammer with a big hammer and takes foundations out. So as we get back aways from that initial velocity zone, you can have enclosures, fully-enclosed enclosures. You still have to have flood venting so the flood waters can come and go out of the lower area under the occupied floors. And so, traditionally along the East Coast, you had – there’s two eras. One is the [1800s/1900s era] until concrete really got in. And those were usually on brick piers. Those did not have any footings. And so when the water comes in, it tends to undermine and scour those individual piers and footings. Then we see a lot of structure damage and collapses after Sandy with those individual brick pier type setups. Three feet, two feet, those kinds of things.

Then into the 1950s, our wood frame construction was put on top of an enclosed cinder block crawl space. So those post-World War II era used a lot of – some poured concrete crawl spaces, but mostly the cinder block crawl spaces with some air venting that supposedly let the water come and go. But that we really hadn’t refined our flood venting technology like it is today with the need to move large amounts of water so the foundation doesn’t cave in.

And so, a lot of people on the East Coast now are deciding because of the parking problems in these very dense East Coast neighborhoods down near the water, historic neighborhoods, they’re electing to go another story up and put basically parking facilities underneath. In other words, we’re not only adapting to flood historically with these structures in this historic era of climate change. But we’re finally adopting these structures to the automobile, which is here to stay and eliminates that horrible problem down there in those coastal areas, which is the parking problem.

There’s no doubt that this changes everything visually in the neighborhoods where this is ongoing. But in my community with seventy percent of them elevated, it started way back probably before [Hurricane] Katrina. So we’ve had ten plus years of elevating and now all the homes are up, or a large seventy percent of them are up. Now there is no differential except for those few that are still on the ground who in 2012 still took their prized possessions, and TVs, and couches all out to the curb one more time after [Hurrican] Isaac flooded them out.

[NR] Let me ask you this, in a word or two, what would you say to people who say that a National Register structure that is now elevated with a parking garage basically underneath of it has lost its defining characteristic as a historic structure should no longer be considered eligible for the Register, and it sort of destroyed the character defining features of that? I mean, obviously, we’ve gotten all the background on from your perspective why it should be done. But to those who might say that, where do you stand on that? What’s your position on that?

[RS] First of all, I say I understand what you’re saying to me. I really do. And for those professional preservationists and avocational preservationists who have not been near any of this stuff happening in this evolution over the last fifteen years are really needing to get some information and education and get up to speed on what’s happening out there because they’re coming from an information deficit.

They’re reacting, as preservationists do, to pretty radical changes in a structure, but they don’t have all the picture. And so I don’t condescend their viewpoints and I don’t belittle their viewpoints. I tend to recommend to preservationists that number one you learn about the flood plain because you’re going to be dealing with it from here on out. And those preservationists who become educated in the flood plain, and the regulations, and what’s happening with climate change are going to be ahead of the curve of the preservationists that don’t understand it technically.

I do the same with architects and engineers when I speak with them. You talk to people in the Gulf and we’re past that. I mean, our S.H.P.O. is approving state income tax credits for these elevations. New York State is the only other state where the S.H.P.O. is now understanding what they’re dealing with. They are understanding that these are historic changes and adaptations to these structures. And as my wife, who’s a planning director for thirty years in Louisiana, says, “If you don’t elevate them, you’re going to lose them.” And you’ve already lost a lot of them to storms and in the future financially you’re going to lose them.

[NR] And I think that that’s really the strong counterpoint to all of that discussion about does it lose its character defining features? Is you’re going to lose every single last character defining feature if it’s laying at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain.

[RS] And so it’s really an adaptation of our preservation movement, albeit preservationists are slow to adapt because we live in such a fear of disappearing resources, and the constant fighting to keep them, and the losses that we suffer every year. And you get the one victory, and then you do some more losses, and you get a victory. So, I mean, we have a lot of battle scars and scar tissue on us as preservationists, and to see these dramatic changes affects us, and we react to that negatively a lot of the time. But, again, I would say I understand preservationists’ concerns. I want preservation and preservationists to really start digging in and learning about the floodplain, flood insurance, and even to the point of where I’ve gone to get your floodplain manager certification to where you can read the flood maps. You know the regulations. I think every nonprofit preservation organization that deals with assets and resources near water needs a floodplain manager so they can really talk to the local community, the local government.

And then there’s one more thing that is just so important for us preservationists to remember is that we’re in a position where we’re supposed to educate property owners. We’re supposed to help preserve them, but very often we don’t own these resources, and it’s our job to help guide them, and save them, and help them evolve, and keep them historic as much as possible. But you’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of the owners, too, because if these owners are facing astronomical insurance costs and they can’t sell their buildings for what they have into them, then we’re in real trouble. So we need to kind of look at that and balance our immediate feelings with the knowledge that this climate’s changing, and it’s not going to be long. I mean, I’m sixty, I’m towards the end of my run. Give me another twenty years if y’all will, and don’t kick me out. But we have all these new younger preservationists coming up, like yourself, who have this opportunity and challenge ahead of dealing and adapting to these climate changes and how you respond and react is the younger preservationists coming will directly determine how many of these resources are still here fifty or 100 years from now.

[NR] You really hit the nail on the head as far as the new generation of preservation is coming up and having to deal with this. So as we draw to the conclusion, let’s ask the question that we ask everyone who comes on PreserveCast, which is: if you have a favorite historic building or, perhaps, a favorite preservation project that you’ve worked on that might want to share with us.

[RS] There are so many. I would say if we’re going to keep in the genre of – I’d love to talk about this building… I’ve been working on in Connecticut built in 1699 that we had to move to save it from the new police station. That was quite an experience and we’re still working on it. But my favorite probably is the historic three-building historic district, the Santa Fe Depot Historic District in Fort Madison, Iowa. In 2010 – they built in 1903 – the Eastern most terminus of their business offices for the Santa Fe Railroad, which I grew up with because I am from Albuquerque. So the historic Santa Fe Railroad had a three-building complex: a freight building, an office building, and a depot Santa Fe style in Fort Madison, Iowa, right along the river, no protection. It’s in the floodplain and had been abandoned in the late ’70s after being flooded repeatedly. And the state worked a multi-financing source from FEMA and the state revenue bonding after the floods of [2008]. And we were able to elevate those three buildings four feet up. They filled in the parking lot and basically, they’re just about ready to put a passenger ramp out the back side of it on the river side to reactivate the depot as a passenger depot. And then the other buildings are used by the Lee County Historical Society with a tremendous museum collection there in their buildings. And it’s gone through two major floods now, and they were a foot and a half above the flood waters on the Mississippi. No more sandbag in the building. The freight building was solid brick, probably weighed 300/400 tons. The office building was solid brick and cinder block, two story, probably weighed 700 tons. And then 140-foot long, 60-foot wide depot was a slate tile, you know, the Spanish tile roof?

It was a phenomenal project and it just came out wonderful. And if anybody has a chance to go look at some of the pictures I think Lee County Historical Society has, Lee County, Iowa, has some of those up. But that truly was a very early learning experience for me with that process and came out wonderful. And I just – we can do this. Remember, America sent people to the moon. We built the Hoover Dam and the interstate system. We can adapt to climate change as it occurs because it’s not going to come overnight. But our historic structures are all down near the water because that’s how we settled as Anglo-Europeans was at the water’s edge in this country. And if we don’t adapt these structures, they will be gone and I just don’t want to have that happen. And I want my grandchildren to be able to see these buildings, although they’ll be adapted.

[NR] Yeah, it’s wonderful. And also, I should point out that your favorite building fits with a reoccurring theme here on PreserveCast of railroad stations and state capitals. So yet another railroad station there as a favorite building. That’s great. Rod, if people want to get in touch with you as we wrap up here, how can they find you?

[RS] Well, they can contact me. My website is www.LRResourcesLLC.com. Phone number is area code 985-273-9590. Our company is L & R Resources and we protect and preserve our historic and cultural buildings for various reasons. But the flood mitigation thing is really coming to the forefront. And we specialize in community education, too, which is really important to educate the property owners that if they’re going to do this, they got to do it with design considerations, do it in concert with the historic commission in the city. And remember that these buildings were left to us by previous generations. We need to leave them as architecturally designed as we can, I’ll be that they’re adapted for height elevation into the future.

[NR] Wonderful. Well, Rod, this has been really great and sort of eye-opening, I think… and certainly for me and, hopefully, for our listeners around the country. And thank you for all your doing to help protect a lot of our history at the water’s edge. We look forward talking with you again in the future.

[RS] Thank you very much.

Credits

You don’t need to open a history book to find us. Available online from iTunes and their Google Play Store as well as our website: PresMD.org. This is PreserveCast.

This podcast was developed under a grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, a unit of the National Park Service. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Preservation Maryland and the Maryland Milestones Heritage Area and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the National Park Service or the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.

This week’s episode was produced and engineered by Ben and Stephen Israel. Our executive producer is Aaron Marcavitch. Our theme music is performed by the band Pretty Gritty. You can learn more about them at their website: PrettyGrittyMusic.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter @PG_PrettyGritty.

To learn about Preservation Maryland or this week’s guests, visit: PreservationMaryland.org. While there, you can check out our blog and learn about what’s current in historic preservation. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter @PreservationMD. And of course, a very special thank you to our listeners. Keep preserving!