welcome
Do you want to know the history or significance of your property, family, or organization? Do you want to know how best to preserve its legacy? As an independent contractor I provide my varied clients with professional services within architectural history and historic preservation. I assist my clients by preparing detailed property histories, historic resource assessments, and other topic-based histories. At the heart of my work is original historical research into government agencies, archives, and libraries. These services result in detailed and footnoted reports including property title and permit history, biographies of original and renovation architects, explanation of architectural style, and biographical/genealogical summaries of previous owners and occupants. My clients include architects, developers, interior designers, realtors, and private individuals. As diverse as my clients, these reports serve a variety of purposes from expert testimony, to marketing, to personal interest.
With a lifelong passion for history and preservation, I earned my MS in Historic Preservation from The Art Institute of Chicago and my BA from DePaul University in Architectural History and Urban Planning. I have worked in architecture and preservation since 1999 and in 2009 seeking to have a closer relationship to my work and clients I decided to launch my own consultancy.
historic preservation
historic vs. historical
Historic means something is famous or important in history, whereas historical simply refers to history or historical events. For example, an historical lecture tells about something in the past, whereas an historic lecture would impact future events.
historic context
The circumstances that form the setting for interpreting history, such as through common themes of geographical location, time period, etc; used as a foundation for decisions about planning, identification, evaluation, registration, and treatment of historic properties, based upon comparative significance.
historic integrity
A measure of the authenticity of a property’s historic identity, evidenced by the survival of physical characteristics that existed during the property’s historic or prehistoric period in comparison with its unaltered state; for example a building of high integrity has few alterations or ones that can be easily reversed.
historic significance
Historic significance is the reason why a property is deemed important within its historic context. Significance is usually determined within governmental historic designation criteria, which generally includes an association with important persons or events of the past, as a noteworthy representative of design, construction, or technology, or for ability to yield important information about history or prehistory. These categories are divided and clarified differently among local, state, and national historic registers
