Turning a historic house — whether designed for laborers or lords — into a hotel is never easy. When Fred Krehbiel, a Chicago industrialist, decided to buy Ballyfin, a Georgian manor on 600 acres in Ireland’s County Laois, the property was being used as a school, he says, “and we had to give them six years to build a new building.” During that time, Krehbiel’s team of more than 100 workers began transforming the 1812 mansion into a hotel with 15 rooms, all… (View original article)

Stone Bridge mansion opens beautifully refurbished rooms in Chadds Ford

Published: Thursday, May 12, 2011

By Caryl Huffaker

The Stonebridge mansion at Webb Road and Route 1 has received a face lift that has the area buzzing with curiosity. The beautiful 24 room house has been completely overhauled and decorated with the aid and inspiration of 24 decorators and seven landscape designers and has opened as a Designer’s Show… (View original article)

By: Paul Rogers

Though nestled next to Highway 101 in the heart of California’s wine country, Los Alamos (pop. 1,374) can feel oddly isolated. Its main drag, Bell Street, is an unlikely mélange of tourist traps (trendy antique stores, art galleries and eateries) and truck stops (18-wheelers overnight at its south end), punctuated by a brace of almost adjacent follies: the Union Hotel, a refurbished stagecoach stop; and the Victorian Mansion, an externally Psycho-esque h… (View original article)

Editor’s note: This is the first of a planned two-part series on Maybrook, also known as the Merriam Estate. It is an incredible, historic property in our midst, yet very few local residents know a thing about it aside from legal sniping over the past decade. We invite you to share your wisdom and anecdotes about Maybrook with us by dropping the author a note via email, or sharing in the comment box below.

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“The Reserve at Maybrook,”View original article)

PROVIDENCE –– An open house will be held Thursday, from 4 to 6 p.m. at 153 Ontario St., one of Elmwood’s most noted houses, which has been rescued after a foreclosure and rehabilitated by the Providence Revolving Fund and Casa Buena Builders.

The house was constructed in 1890 for George Wilkinson, the general superintendent of the Gorham Manufacturing Co. It was designed by Providence architect E. I. Nickerson. The property is in the South Elmwood Local Historic Dis… (View original article)

When I was growing up there was a fairly large park with a rickety old playground nestled in the woods around the block from my grandparent’s house.

The playground’s amenities were shabby, to say the least, but the park had a glorious secret. Off to the side of the play area, far behind a baseball field whose diamond was so overgrown you could barely make out the outline, was a trail. As a curious kid I followed the path, led by the sound of a babbling brook, and that’s h… (View original article)