2011 SPRING TOUR

  

Tour guests enjoying the front porch of the Ragland House

 

Thank you again to everyone who attended and volunteered for the 2011 Spring Tour.  We had another successful tour and a great time.  On Saturday, 170 guests sipped champagne as they walked through the five tour houses in the Governor's Mansion Historic District, and then gathered in the Garth of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral for dinner and dancing. 

 

On Sunday afternoon, we welcomed about 700 people to the area.    A rubber wheeled trolley took guests from house to house.  Along the way, they could buy hot dogs or lemonade, play croquet or sit in the shade and listen to live music.

 

We want to say a special thanks to our homeowners: Jay Barth and Chuck Cliett, Nick and Mary Paal, Mike Luter and Todd Raney, Scott Shepard, and Mike and Kelly Ward; The Jellies, who provided Saturday night's entertainment;  and to this year's Tour Chair (for the second time!) Dana Nixon, and her Co-Chairs Laura Sergeant and Anthony Black. 

 

We are excited to announce next year's Tour Chair is Laura Sergeant, and Co-Chairs are Amanda Sobel Driver and Jarrod Johnson.  We're already planning for next year, if you would like to serve on the committee or volunteer at the tour, please email Rhea at rroberts@quapaw.com or call 501.371.0075. 

 

Thanks again, 2011 Tour Sponsors and Donors:

 

Arkansas Democrat Gazette · Crye-Leike · Edwards Food Giant · Matlock & Associates · Modern Woodmen of America · Ruebel Funeral Home · Summit Bank · Wittenberg, Delony & Davidson Architects

 

Mark and Lyne Abernathy/Loca Luna · Arkansas Destinations · Arkansas Natural Produce · Aromatique · Sarah Brown · Boulevard Bread Company · Bylites · Cabbage Rose · Cabot Creamery Cooperative · Cajun's Wharf · Capital Bar and Grill · Community Bakery · Dizzy's Gypsy Bistro · Edwards Food Giant · Fresh Market · Grapevine Wines and Spirits · Mountain Valley Spring Water · Nixon Flower Farm · Petit Jean Meats · Scott Shepard · Stanley Jewelers Gemologist · The Green Corner Store · Tyson Foods

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT   

  

These are exciting times for the Quapaw Quarter Association!

 

Our Executive Director, Rhea Roberts, is featured on the cover of Inviting Arkansas's  current issue!  A few days ago several of us were at the Copper Grill holding the first planning meeting for the 2012 Spring Tour, when the magazine's publisher, Michele Towne, personally delivered the restaurant's copies hot off the press.  Rhea was sitting just a few feet away at the head of our table.  We got the Michele's attention and had a great time visiting for a few minutes.  Terrific fun and recognition for the QQA.  Well-deserved for Rhea, too.  (Go to www.invitingarkansas.com to see the feature.)

 

The 2011 Spring Tour of homes was a stirring success made possible by the participation of over 60 volunteers, including former Governor Jim Guy Tucker and his wife Betty, who served as hosts at their one-time Center Street home.  We sold 700 tickets for the Sunday tour and 160 for the Saturday night party.   We held our expenses to extremely low levels, thanks to the generosity of vendors and volunteers, and were able to net over $21,000. All these numbers slightly exceeded our 2010 totals. Thank you Dana Nixon for serving as tour chair the past two years!

               

                We're off to a great start for the 2012 Spring Tour, too.  Laura Sergeant has agreed to chair next year's event (and is already calling meetings!).  Amanda Driver and Jarrod Johnson have volunteered to serve as co-chairs.

 

                Rhea and Education Committee chair Lakresha Diaz have a full schedule of informative events planned for the remainder of the year.  Be sure to check out the "Preservation Conversations" to be presented every third Monday beginning in July and the upcoming quarterly Saturday workshops.

 

                Rhea also is managing a "Community Branding" project involving the various Quapaw Quarter neighborhoods.  You'll be hearing more in the months ahead.

 

                Cheri Nichols is chairing our Advocacy Committee, ensuring that the QQA's voice is heard on current preservation issues.  Cheri also serves on the Little Rock Visitors' Foundation Board.  We're working more closely than ever before with the group that supports Curran Hall.

 

                Our membership is growing, but not fast enough. In the 1980s the QQA had over 400 members. However, by last fall when Rhea was hired, our total had fallen to 175 with only two corporate members.  Today, our membership totals 215 with 17 corporate participants.

 

                If you believe in the preservation of our past, please go to 

https://www.quapaw.com/Membership.htm and join today.  Any enrollment level, small or large, would be much appreciated! The QQA needs and serves our entire community's support.

 

--Lynn Hamilton

   

PRESERVATION CONVERSATIONS

  

 

QUAPAW QUARTER NEIGHBORHOODS COMMUNITY BRANDING PROJECT

  

The QQA has been meeting with other Little Rock organizations over the past several months to discuss a possible downtown or Quapaw Quarter branding project, and is now organizing the Quapaw Quarter Neighborhoods Community Branding Project.   The project will create an overarching brand for the Quapaw Quarter, with "brand extensions" for any neighborhoods, businesses, or organizations that participate.

 

Any neighborhood, community group, business or other entity that is located or works in the Quapaw Quarter is invited to participate (see map).  Groups that participate are invited to attend round table discussions and input sessions hosted by the branding consultants, Arnett Muldrow & Associates.  Participants may request graphic designs for logos, banners, advertisements, brochures, events, etc. and will be given all of these resources after the branding visit for use in the future.   

 

Branding consultants Ben Muldrow and Tee Coker will be in Little Rock August 22-25 to help the Quapaw Quarter develop a brand.  The QQA and members of a steering committee are currently organizing participation in the community; contact Rhea Roberts at rroberts@quapaw.com  or 501.371.0075 ext. 3 for more information about how to get involved. 

 

This project is made possible by sponsorships from the City of Little Rock, the Downtown Neighborhood Association, the Little Rock Visitor Foundation and the Quapaw Quarter Association.  For information on becoming a sponsor, contact Rhea at  rroberts@quapaw.com. 

 

HPAA ANNOUNCES 2011 LIST OF MOST ENDANGERED HISTORIC PLACES

  

Rex Nelson announces HPAA's list of Most Endangered Historic Places at Curran Hall.

LITTLE ROCK VISITOR FOUNDATION 

BY CAROLYN NEWBERN 

  

CURRAN HALL NEWS

BY SHALAH BRUMMETT, CH FACILITIES MANAGER 

THIS PLACE MATTERS CHALLENGE--DREAMLAND BALLROOM

  

 

QUAPAW QUARTER ASSOCIATION RECORDS NOW AVAILABLE AT THE BUTLER CENTER FOR ARKANSAS STUDIES

  

REPRINTED FROM THE BUTLER BANNER

The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is pleased to announce the opening of the Quapaw Quarter Association Records, a comprehensive 196-box collection and the product many years of historic preservation efforts. It features research, documents, and more than 11,000 images focused on the historic neighborhoods of Little Rock, the architects who designed many of the recognizable homes, and the well-known families who inhabited the area.

 

The Quapaw Quarter Association, one of the oldest preservation organizations in the nation, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic Little Rock buildings and neighborhoods.  According to the association's website, "All of Little Rock's history . . . is encompassed by the Quapaw Quarter, a nine-square-mile area which includes Little Rock's central business district and adjacent residential neighborhoods. . . Although it actually encompasses a much wider area, the Quapaw Quarter is most closely associated with the neighborhoods surrounding MacArthur Park, the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, and Central High School. . . [where] Little Rock's historic preservation efforts have been concentrated for the past 40 years."

 

 

The Quapaw Quarter Association Records collection is broken into seven series:

 

Series I: Address research files organized by street address and containing architectural and historical information on many locations in the Quapaw Quarter and other neighborhoods in the Little Rock metropolitan area. 

 

Series II: Subject files of general Arkansas history including local architects, clubs, neighborhoods, and organizations, as well as miscellaneous historical documents and files related to specific families.

 

Series III: Files related to the operations of the association, including its popular historic home tours.

 

Series IV: Book proofs and research related to How We Lived: Little Rock as an American City by F. Hampton Roy and Charles Witsell, with Cheryl Griffith Nichols.

 

Series V: Files related to historic house and neighborhood rehabilitation and preservation. This series is broken down into various subject files that range from technical restoration guides to building materials to preservation organizations.  

 

Series VI:  More than 11,000 images of historic Little Rock and Arkansas.          

 

Series VII: Oversized materials such as maps and house plans.

 

 

The Quapaw Quarter Association Records can be accessed in the research room of the Arkansas Studies Institute. A full finding aid for the collection is also available under Manuscript Collections online at www.butlercenter.org.

RESTORATION TALES--GHOSTS AND TREASURES

  

BY JIM KING

 

Anyone dealing with old buildings automatically becomes a bit of historian, whether they own it or dig a ditch in the front yard.  It goes with the territory.  And anyone not interested in history is automatically expelled from owning an old building, or they're just plain misguided.

It's when history comes calling in the form of the physical and ethereal that my hackles rise in anticipation.

I personally believe in ghosts, but professionally do not.  I've never seen or gotten a picture of one, and trust me, I've tried. I three times recorded a nonexistent string quartet in the Married Officers' Quarters at MacArthur Park, now the Military Museum. Jim Eison, the past curator, would let me set up high-bias recording equipment in different areas of the building back in the eighties, when it was the Museum of Discovery. And that string quartet was there each time, no matter where we set up, with the same volume and clarity (neither of which amounted to much). The music was the same piece each time as well. I got the same results recording just outside, on the porch. No radio was left on, and the building was quiet as a tomb. Go figure.

And in case anyone wonders, I do know where one of the tunnels is, though if it's the fabled "tunnel to the river" that may or may not exist, I'll never know. Park officials made the backhoe driver fill it in as soon as they got wind of it, but I saw it just after he broke through. Triangulated its location, as well, after dropping into it. Made of hard brick, it measured ten by ten feet high, with an arched top. Stretched twenty feet to the south before a collapse and disappeared into darkness to the north. The park officials scolded me and the backhoe operator, but I was the archaeological monitor on the park at the time, so I had business there. They told me not to talk about it. Statute of limitations are up, gentlemen. The State Archaeologist at the time was not interested in its existence. Go figure again.

But I've not seen any floating vapors. There is an apartment complex we restored a few years ago, and the manager swore it was haunted. He still does. I went so far as to do a nighttime photographic survey during demolition, but no images of Casper. But I felt something weird about number fifteen. Nobody liked to work in there. It felt creepy to all the guys, regardless of belief. We had been told about number fourteen as well, and when a stranger showed up six months into the project and asked whether fourteen was still haunted, we laughed and told him we didn't know. We all kept up our guard after that.

But, while standing outside of number fifteen near the start of the project, I felt something cold and clammy move right past me. I spun around, thinking I was in someone's way, but nothing was there.

"Did you see that?" one of my carpenters, to whom I had been talking, asked.

"No! Did you?!!"

"No, but I saw you see it!" We laughed nervously and changed the subject.

I personally think these things are extensions of our selves, but I still like the movie "Poltergeist."

 

Treasure is where you find it. And have I found it.

While cleaning out the leftover junk from a tiny apartment in a carriage house in the Quarter before restoring it, I discovered two French Foreign Legion bayonets with numbered scabbards.

While scanning a wall for metal pipes in a home in Connecticut, I got WAY too big a signal; opening the wall, I found an ancient apple peeler with so many gears and hinges that it must have been designed by Rube Goldberg. The owner let me keep it, and it sits proudly on a bookshelf at home today. But why was it in the wall?

Sometimes the treasure can't be taken away, as it belongs to the house.

I cut my restoration teeth restoring an 1835 farmhouse in upstate South Carolina (it had some sort of presence in it, I assure you; tell you about it next time), and on one of my yearly updates to the property, I removed some deteriorated siding on the rear parlor wall, discovering a previously covered-up window opening. No casement or sash, just the framed opening.

"I always thought there should have been a window there," Peggy, the owner told me when I called her with the news. "How hard would it be to put in a new window with the same dimensions as the old one?"

"About twelve hundred dollars should do it," I said. There were matching sashes in the barn, possibly the same ones that had been removed. I milled the casements, sill and facings to match the original, and that room now has windows on three sides like it did in 1835.

While digging a garden in the front yard of the same farm early in the project, I hit brick. Thinking it was an errant remnant of past chimney building, I tossed it aside. Then I found another right next to the first. I tossed my shovel aside and went for my mason's pointing trowel. This, to you whom have not been archaeologists, is the primary tool of that profession. I carefully cut the soil away from this structure until I had uncovered three feet by eighteen inches. The bricks were aligned end to end, with a depression in the middle.

I stood up and eyeballed the direction it seemed to lead away from the front porch, and walking away from the house towards the railroad cut in the front yard, I smiled when I reached that fifteen-foot drop. Because there, having been cut through many decades before, was the same brick structure. Five bricks wide, with the same depression in the center. I scraped this one, too, and after uncovering three feet of it, I stood up and looked towards the house.

Then I got it.

"Of course!" I laughed. "Of course! Why didn't I see it before?"

I hadn't seen it before because I didn't have the house as a center point. And to get the best view of my find, I had to climb down into the railroad cut and up the other side.

I turned around, and there, perfectly profiled by the railroad cut, was the cross-section of the original driveway of the house, complete with its brick gutter on the left side. The gray sandy loam of the farm was interrupted by a foot-deep, twelve-foot wide berm of hard clay and gravel, compacted into this hidden driveway only revealed by mischance and cross-section. Further research showed that this driveway had been built in the 1840s and abandoned around 1900 when the tracks were built.

I photographed the excavations and reported my finds to Peggy, who couldn't wait to see the exposed brick. Cordoned off like a museum exhibit, it can still be seen on the Cason Farm in Hodges, South Carolina.

But by far, my favorite offchance find during a restoration was what dropped into my hands while demolishing a plaster ceiling in an 1873 row house in Washington D.C. in 1988.

What dropped into my hands was a rat's nest, complete with the rat.

Before you go running to the bathroom to wash out your eyes from having read such a thing, let me assure you that Brother Rat had been dead for long enough to mummify it. Or, with a nod to the Egyptians, long enough to desiccate it and allow it to be preserved in the exact form it had in life.

Now, people, I can assure you that I have iron testicles. I chase tornadoes, explore virgin caves, and have no problem singing in front of strangers. I can carry a musical show for four hours if my voice holds out. I spent years hitchhiking across this country. I've had a black widow for a pet for three years. I let her go when she got too big.

I was not freaked at this experience. I felt the plaster and lath give way, and knew I'd get a mouthful of black dust and spider eggs and splinters and godknowswhatelse.

And guess what? I did. In two seconds, I was covered with the hidden dirt of a century.

My exclamations (a little too colorful to print here, I assure you) were heard throughout the third and second floors, and my fellow craftsmen came running to see what was wrong, if they could help, or if there was a funny story to be gleaned from my discomfiture. And they all laffed and laffed and laffed upon seeing my face and hair and shoulders completely draped in black dust, spider webs, and tattered paper.

But when the dust began to clear and they saw that I held something remarkable in my hands, they gasped.

"Get me a piece of plywood or drywall!" I sputtered, spitting centuries of dirt from my face. I stood there on the stepladder, shaking the dirt from my hair, trying to make it possible to open my eyes without going blind. I held something airy and ancient and colorful in my hands, and it was so light that I thought it'd blow away with my next breath.

"What IS that?" more than one worker asked.

"Its history, boys," I smiled, my mouth crusted with black dust. "And you're the first to see it in decades."

It was true; I had so much dust in my eyes that I could hardly see a thing. But I knew what I had from feel and from the first glimpse of what had dropped before the dark dust cloud took over.

One of the carpenters held out a scrap of drywall with shaking hands, and I placed my find onto it carefully.

"Take it into the front room and put it on the table with the plans," I said, wiping blackness from my eyes. "Somebody bring me another scrap! There's more!"

I had soon emptied the two-foot space above the third floor of its rat nest, and lighting from the ladder, walked to the front room with the second half of the treasure. Word had spread of the find, and within a minute, fifteen guys stood agape at the table.

"How old is it?"

"Is that a rat?"

"What's all that stuff?"

The rat was ten inches from tip to tail, and its tail measured that again; this appendage was wrapped tightly around its side, and its face was turned up slightly. It appeared to be looking at me, and its grin revealed more of its teeth than I wanted to see. Tan skin stretched tautly across a long skeleton, and I surmised that this particular rat lived rather well.

But the real treasure was its nest; a hundred years of history filled the sticks and straw that made up its bulk. Apparently this home had a sewing room on the third floor, because the third most prominent ingredient was thread. Thread of all colors, thread of all sheens. It looked as if it had just been taken from the spool, nevermind the black dirt. Then there was a plethora of fabric cuttings, some merely rag edges and some as fine as crinoline. The rat was apparently egalitarian in its tastes.

And buttons! Oh, my! I had heard that rats are attracted to shiny baubles, but this was the first proof I'd seen. It had a thing for silver buttons, and the gaudier or more embossed, the better it liked them.

I dated the nest to 1893 at the oldest, mainly because the rat also had a taste for paper. Scraps of personal notes, bits of newspaper, postcards, and box tops littered the nest. Most of the dates were in the early 1890s, but it was the nearly intact playbill that excited me most. I forget what the play or venue was, but the date was 1893.

The crew debated and declaimed, discoursed and discussed. Until the foreman came and sent us all back to work. Then he added his three cent's worth.

"Damn! It's a rat's nest from a hundred years ago!"

That's why he was the boss. Sharp as a spoon, he was.

That night, I presented the nest, complete with Brother Rat, to Alan, the owner of the house. Being a corporate lawyer, he was not impressed.

It was his loss.

I kept the rat. Still have it somewhere, though it may have gone to dust by now.

History stands still only when kept in a dark, dry place. But it's nice when it's discovered.

Then we can learn and talk about it.

What time capsules are waiting for YOU? 

 

 

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THE OLD HOUSE DOCTOR 

KNOW YOUR BUGS, THEN KILL THEM 

According to Doctor E.O. Wilson of Harvard University, there are over ten quintillion insects in the world, give or take a few billion. And I'll bet there are some pissing you off right now. So I'm going to write about what you can do about them.

I don't mean building ant farms or hiring them to pull little wagons; I mean how to recognize and get rid of them. Notice I didn't say 'how to preserve them.' This isn't "Wild Kingdom." And I don't much like dealing with formaldehyde myself. Preservation, indeed. We are not children here.

Now, don't all you entomological types get up on your soapboxes. Oh, okay, go ahead; you've nothing else to do, being entomologists, and you look so silly up there. I could use the entertainment.

I do not condone killing bugs wholesale; there are undoubtedly many services they perform, other than making my idiot of a neighbor scream in pain when he steps on a stinging one. THAT'S sometimes worth it. But most are just plain impossible to live with. Bugs, not neighbors. Though in his case...

Take spiders. Yes, I know they're not technically bugs. They're not even arthropods, they're arachnids. But just get one crawling on you in your sleep and see if you care.

The only two spiders you should care about are the black widow and the brown recluse. Both can hurt you, and the black widow can kill you outright.

Black widows love darkness and wet. I most often find them in the water meter enclosure, and they are so beautiful, I hate to kill them, but I usually do. I don't want a meter reader or plumber or homeowner to open the meter box and have a fourteen inch spider grab their faces and suck them dry.

Actually, black widows seldom grow to more than three quarters of an inch across. They are shy, gloss black, hairless, and play the piano quite well, thank you. The females have a bri

ght red hourglass shape on the underside of their abdomens to identify them as extremely poisonous. Isn't that handy? Either Mother Nature or God has a sick sense of humor when you have to turn over the most dangerous spider in this hemisphere to identify it.

Okay, if it's shiny, black and slick, kill it or leave it alone.

The brown recluse, on the other hand, is much more common. There are hundreds in your house right now.

Here is a picture of one. If you see it, kill it.

 

They are low to the ground, splayed-out-looking, light tan to dark brown, hairless, and look more like crabs than spiders. Though they tell you there is a violin shape on their backs (there is), their thoraxes are so tiny that by the time you identify the mark the damn thing has jumped into your blouse. That's a lie; they don't jump. They will crawl into your bed, though.

The recluse bite tends to rot your skin and muscle adjacent to the bite, leaving a huge, seeping, stinking wound that will eventually heal after depriving you of muscle tissue and a social life. They hide in linens, shoes, and anywhere they can spin their messy little webs. Vacuum around and under the bed and in the window sills. They are scavengers as well as live feeders.

Kill them. I mean it. 

All other spiders should be left alone. They kill all those bugs you hate and are no threat to you. As a bonus, if you kill one, the spider God Ulthalla will sneak into your room at night and relieve you of your insides. It's not pretty. 

Cockroaches have been on this planet for longer than most species; they go back to the Silurian, when frogs were the size of Volkswagens and everything was swamp. Come to think of it, things haven't changed all that much in Arkansas.

There are two types of cockroaches in my estimation; little ones and big ones. Oh, I hear the entomologists moaning again. Somebody feed them some grubs or mealworms.

The big ones show up one at a time, and the uneducated among you (The Majority) call them Water Bugs or Palmetto Bugs. This is a lie, people. They are cockroaches. GIANT cockroaches. They crawl through spaces air can't even penetrate and they leave disgusting roach slime all over your food. If you manage to smack one with a flyswatter, they just look at you. Then they fly up in the air, land on the back of your neck, and crawl down your shirt.

Don't think you've got 'em? Look in your food pantry and under your sink. If you see tiny black round specks the size of tiny poppyseeds, you have them. This is their offal, their ordure.

These roaches are normally absent in the winter, but as soon as the spring rains come, they come a-callin'. Then they come around again when the weather turns hot and dry, because they are attracted to water.

Forget traps. Use a chemical spray under your sink and along the paths upon which they travel. Ortho's Home Defense is a good one; it comes in a large container with a pump-up handle and will pretty much banish the buggers. Spray baseboards, kickplates under cabinets, and under the fridge. Keep your sink cabinet clean and dry, spray there, and they will go elsewhere.

Little roaches, however, are difficult to exterminate. These are the half-to-three quarter inch variety, and they come out in numbers. You have them because you inherited them from a filthy individual or they hitched a ride home from another filthy individual. If you leave dirty dishes around, if you leave your trash to fester, they will come. And they are a nightmare to eliminate. I suggest the same chemicals and to clean up your act. Do NOT bring home paper bags or liquor boxes; they love the taste of glue and will be happy to relocate and then breed. 

Let's talk about the flea.

You can't crush them, because they'll just laugh and bounce away. They can jump the equivalent of you leaping a twelve-story building. They suck blood and killed most of Europe in the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

If you have them, they likely came from pets. Treat your pet with one of the chemicals that sterilize the females (Advantage and  Revolution are two), and they will begin to die. It just takes a few drops placed between your pet's shoulders to start the killing, then do it once a month.

If you have an infestation, get rid of your rug; that's where they incubate. Sorry, it's unlikely you can clean them of eggs. Remove all your cushions, take them outside, and vacuum your furniture. Vacuum the house BIGTIME. Wash your bedding and vacuum your bed, as well as the area beneath it. Go to the vet's or the Farmer's Association on Stagecoach Road and get VetKem or some seriously expensive spray with which to treat your cushions.

The most important thing is to keep the pets treated once a month with the sterilization drops. They will eventually go away. 

Little black ants come into your kitchen and take over. What to do?

Wipe up the kool-aid and sweet stuff, go down to Besser Hardware and buy a small bottle of Terro Liquid. The ants will gather round the inch-wide pool you squeeze onto the counter (do it along their scent path), lap it up, and then they will disappear. Rinse and repeat if necessary. The stuff is very low in toxins and will do the trick. 

My favorite bug (okay it's an arachnid) is the chigger.

Small red dots the size of the point of a pin, these little boofers are the bane of humans in the summer woods of Arkansas. They live a charmed life, hanging on the edge of a blade of grass until they sense something warm-blooded walking by. Then they stretch out their tiny claws and get on your pants.

Before you can say 'knife,' the chigger crawl on your skin to constricted area such as your waistband or socks, where they find a pore. Then they burrow into it, bottoming out and feeling quite pleased with themselves. They secrete a substance that is both caustic and anesthetic, numbing the fact that your cell walls are dissolving. Then they suck up a minute amount of your protoplasm/blood/nuclei/mitochondria/farandolae (a tippo of the ol' hat to Madeline L'Engle there) and then crawl out of the pore, dropping off into the grass to go and find a mate. Your blood helps to make many, many more chiggers.

And there's the rub. You never get ONE chigger bite. You get fifty or a hundred. And the cell walls they infested continue to dissolve, making you itch for weeks. The common myth is that they die in your body, but that's a lie. Nothing lives to die inside you unless it reproduces first, and chiggers just don't play that.

Coat your constricted areas with DEET if you are going into the woods in summer, or if you want a less poisonous repellent, go online and get some Cactus Juice. Made from prickly pear extract, this crème smells like oranges, is non-greasy, and a tiny amount will keep the little boofers at bay for hours.

I haven't even gotten to termites, mosquitoes, wasps, yellowjackets, or Sarah Palin yet! Stay tuned!

Next time; MORE bugs to kill! Summer's just started.

Got a problem with my opinions, or, more likely, want to buy me drink? E-mail me at king.oldhousedoctor@gmail.com. I'll be waiting.

ARKANSAS GLASSWORKS HAS NEW ADDRESS BUT IS STILL CONNECTED TO DOWNTOWN

JIM METZGER 

A view from inside Arkansas Glassworks, photo by Jim King

Some residents may have noticed that long-time Quapaw Quarter business Arkansas Glassworks has relocated its studio from Seventh Street to Rodney Parham near I-630.  But the stain-glass window maker is still working in the QQ area on a regular basis, according to owner Jay King.

 

"We just needed a place with better space utilization," King said in an interview this month.  "Plus we are now sharing the studio with Glass Concepts, who sells stained-glass supplies and offers classes in glass working."  They settled into the new location in November 2010.

 

AG was founded by King in 1993 and specializes in church-window designs for smaller congregations, although he has created windows for many Arkansas churches of all sizes.  In addition, he does specialized work for individual home and business owners.  Also, as a glass artist King has shown his stained glass in juried exhibitions, mostly mosaics and windows from glass tile, natural rock, and "found" objects.

 

The studio works with older stained-glass pieces to make repairs and modifications.  Currently, King says they are working on windows at the historic Ragland House at 1617 S. Center, at Liberty Hill Baptist Church at 1215 S. Schiller, and an apartment on S. Scott.  Additional church projects are continuing at buildings in Clarksville, Marvell, and Stuttgart, among others.  AG can restore old and damaged windows by replacing broken glass, straightening warped windows, reattaching bracer bars when necessary, and regrouting glass panels.  Examples of their work are shown at http://www.arkansasglassworks.com/repair-restoration

and you can always call Jay at 993-0012 for a consultation or an appointment.

 

 

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REGULATOR'S CORNER

BY BOYD MAHER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CAPITOL ZONING DISTRICT COMMISSION

The Capitol Zoning District Commission reviews architectural changes in the areas surrounding the State Capitol and the Arkansas Governor's Mansion.

I never had a sister, but I did have a younger cousin I was close to.  When we were kids, she would sometimes get into my aunt's makeup and do all kinds of things to her face.  I distinctly remember my grandmother wiping copious amounts of rouge off her cheeks and saying "you're pretty just the way you are." 

 

I guess that's what I'd like to say to Little Rock's historic neighborhoods currently experiencing redevelopment.  I cringe when I hear someone wants to make their house more "Natchez-y" or their block more "New Orleans-y".  (Or Charleston or Austin or Savannah ... )  I know it's always well-intended.  But we don't do future generations any favors when we try to make our community "more historical" by swiping elements (a wrought-iron balcony, for example) from someone else's history.

 

That's not to say our old neighborhoods should never grow, never change, or never take "beauty tips" from another locale.  But maybe just a little "snobbery" regarding Little Rock's individuality wouldn't be such a bad thing.  Can I look forward to a day when Little Rock residents will look at something and say "Ewww, that's just too ... Memphis-y"?

 

Little Rock has its own unique history, look, and feel.  Don't try to fake it - you're pretty just the way you are.

ABOUT US

The Quapaw Quarter Association's mission is to promote the preservation of Little Rock's architectural heritage through advocacy, marketing and education.

 

Incorporated in 1968, the QQA grew out of an effort to identify and protect significant historic structures in Little Rock during the urban renewal projects of the early 1960s.  Throughout its existence, the QQA has been a driving force behind historic preservation in Greater Little Rock. 

 

Become a member today