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Lewes Historical Society celebrates preservation with awards

Lighthouse foundation, Lewes In Bloom, private residence restorations recognized
April 23, 2018

Lewes Historical Society celebrated preservation on April 12 with the presentation of awards given out every two years. Three private residences and two community-group initiatives - The Delaware River and Bay Lighthouse Foundation and Lewes in Bloom - were recognized in a program held in the community meeting room of Lewes History Museum.

Lewes Historical Society Executive Director Mike DiPaolo set the tone for the awards presentations: “We’re all stewards in this town. Our responsibility is to keep up the work of previous generations. Preservation, community work and caring are what make Lewes special.”

Randy Burton of Burton Builders sponsored the luncheon for the celebration. “We have a unique coastal town here, and right now we're at the pinnacle of preservation,” he said. “My family has been in the Lewes area since 1720. Sometimes I get pushback as a builder and developer, but I can tell you I have a passion for preservation. And preservation is becoming more and more challenging in downtown Lewes. There’s a different demographic coming to town now. People who used to move here had an interest in preservation. That was a big reason they came. But that’s changing now. People are not as interested. But we have to get involved for the next generation.”

Tim Slavin, Delaware’s historic preservation officer and director of the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs, addressed the crowd gathered for the presentations. “Lewes is a shining example of how historic preservation can be done in a community. People are taking advantage of tax credits available which at the end of a project can be converted to cash. There’s also an ethic of stewardship in Delaware that is particularly evident in Lewes. The environmental benefits of rehabbing a structure are important. The carbon footprint of rehabbing is much less than tearing down and hauling away. We say it often: The greenest building is the one that is already built.”

Slavin said he’s noticed that environmental stewardship is often accompanied by cultural stewardship.

He finished by talking about the strong emotional attachment people have to places familiar to their lives. “When we lose places that are important to us, we lose something important. What are we missing that we look so hard for in the past? We crave order and remembrances. A river of history flows through lives - it connects our past experiences with new challenges we face in modern society.”

The private residences recognized at the celebration included Maggie Macintosh and Diane Stollenwerk’s restoration and conversion of the 1880s St. Paul’s Methodist Church on Fourth Street into a residence; Amy Frederick and Linda Madrid’s restoration of the early 1900s Groome House at the corner of Manila Avenue and Kings Highway; and Lee Ann Wilkinson’s restoration of the mansard-roofed duplex at the corner of Church Street and Market Street, also of early 1900s vintage.

More information about the projects is included with the photographs.  

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