One of the highlights of the local holiday season is Stan Hywet’s annual Deck The Halls celebration, which is one of Ohio’s largest and most spectacular holiday traditions. The celebration runs from December 14-23 and December 26-30.

A million lights ensure that the holiday season always remains merry and bright.

The former Seiberling estate is illuminated inside and out with over ONE MILLION lights and this year, the historic Manor House is decorated and inspired by the theme of  Postcards from the Past. DAZZLE is a fantastic outdoor light show choreographed to three new songs this year and Gingerbread Land, the popular play garden has also been “dressed up” for the holiday season as well.

As always, the Great Hall is decked out in its holiday finest.

This year, the celebration is bigger and better than ever, and includes:

•Nightly tree lighting at 5:30pm. After Christmas, look for the Gingerbread Man.

•Live music in the Music Room, courtesy of area choirs and musicians.

•Self-guided tours of the Manor House included in ticket purchase.

•Freshly baked gingerbread cookies, savory warm pretzels, cocoa, hot cider, beer and wine for purchase in the Courtyard.

•Enjoy all of the above treats at the cozy warming fire in the Courtyard.

•Visit with Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the Corral in the Courtyard.

•Take a family photo at two featured photo spots—perfect for that family holiday picture.

•Marvel at our new animated Gingerbread Bakeshop Window in the Courtyard.

•The tropical Corbin Conservatory is beautifully decorated for Christmas with a 20ft poinsettia tree.

•Shop for unique holiday gifts in Molly’s Shop.

•Enjoy light fare or a sweet treat in Molly’s Café after your tour.

For more information, go to: www.stanhywet.org

Just came across this story from Houzz about a new exhibition in New York City that opens today, the 18th, and runs through January 31st at 218 W. 57th. Having visited Highclere Castle--where the Downton Abbey series was filmed--the exhibition fills in some of the show-oriented details that aren't evident when visiting the historic house. Click on the photo below for the complete story.

Downton Abbey: The Exhibition
When: Nov. 18 through Jan. 31, 2018
Where: 218 W. 57th St., New York City
Cost: Starts at $30

When Frank Mason, a senior executive of the B. F. Goodrich, built this grand home on Turkeyfoot Lake and gave it to his grandson and his newlywed wife, Zeletta Robinson, he may not have dreamed that it would one day be a local civic center. Today, the Frank Mason Raymond home—known locally as Tudor House—or the Franklin park Civic Center, continues to charm guests as a serves as a popular wedding, meeting and banquet facility, often available without charge to non-profit organizations.

Located at 655 Latham Lane, in the Portage Lakes area of New Franklin, the beautiful 20-room, 2 ½ story, brick and stucco mansion sits on 5.8 acres, adjacent to Portage Lakes State Park, and has 335 feet of frontage on the west shore of the lake.


Built in 1927 by local builders William F., Samuel G. and G. Edward Schweikert, the home is a distinctive example of the Tudor Revival style of architecture, with its arched doorways, carved wood staircase, prominent Tudor arch fireplace with oak paneling, and exposed beams in the living room. Typical of so many large houses of this type, it displays a rambling, asymmetrical composition—designed to appear as though rooms have been added on over many years. The exterior also reflects Tudor design elements, with its gabled front entry, featuring stone trim, massive stone and brick chimneys, slate roof with prominent cross gables, and copper gutters. The gardens include an embanked grotto, constructed of stone.

After the Raymonds moved to Bath, northwest of Akron, Tudor House was rented by Goodrich VP George Vaught and his family. In 1943, prominent Akron jeweler Henry B. Ball and his wife, Helen, bought the mansion. They lived there for 25 years with their children, Skip and Betty (Mrs. Dick Walter) who was married at the mansion. From 1968 to 1974, Akron contractor Robert Fabbro and his family of six children occupied the home. In 1974, it was sold to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and in July 1977, a 50-year lease was signed with the State for the facilities to be used as a civic center.

Through its Grand Houses and Gardens Tour Program, set to run from September 15-23, 2017, Scotland’s National Trust has developed a deluxe travel package that will offer visitors a chance to explore a number of historic properties, including C.R. Mackintosh’s Hill House, Fyvie Castle, Falkland Palace & Garden, Craigievar Castle and many others.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's best known house - Hill House

The trip package is the first of its kind offered by National Trust for Scotland Foundation, USA (NTSUSA), which helps raise funds for the charity in the United States. Among the many trip highlights, art historian Dr. Evelyn Silber will lead a tour of Glasgow, taking in Charles Rennie Mackintosh's buildings, including the Glasgow School of Art as well as Hill House in Helensburgh, currently the subject of a fundraising appeal.

In the northeast, highlights will include Pitmidden Garden, the Robert Adam-designed Haddo House, pink-turreted Fyvie Castle, and Drum Castle, which now houses a contemporary art gallery.

Craigievar Castle was home to the Forbes family for over 350 years.

"We are so pleased to offer an exceptional tour to Scotland designed with an American audience in mind, said Kirstin Bridier, executive director of NTSUSA. "This trip combines visits to iconic sites like Edinburgh Castle with behind-the-scenes access at National Trust for Scotland treasures including Haddo House and The Hill House. We can't wait to share the extraordinary beauty and history of Scotland with individuals from the US."

You can find out more HERE.

Even I am subject to letting my feeling be known when it comes to politics and current events in the news. As are many, I am deeply troubled by the course things have taken since the election of Mr. Trump to our land’s highest office—and I have made mention of it at least once in my TLG Tweets. But I think…only once.

Which is precisely the reason I maintain multiple accounts; most of my gripes and tirades are on my personal account, which is where I focus on other interests like book publishing, advertising, marketing and urban development in the town where I live. Political and personal tweets, as they are, seem to fit in much better there; I don’t feel right subjecting my TLG audience and followers to my political views, even though I expect that, for the most part, their views may be largely sympathetic to my own.

This is especially the case since many of my followers and readers are in the UK. I’m sure many of them are already aware of the issues here in the US, and they have their own to deal with—namely Brexit. In the same way as Trump, that issue has “infested” many of the UK accounts I follow. This is really not surprising, since the subjects are inexorably linked.

The resulting situation has artists, designers, researchers, craftsman, historians, hobbyists and others—people who normally refrain from “dabbling” in daily politics—tweeting up a storm on current political events and policy. For some, it is only a mention here and there. For others, these issues now dominate their daily tweets rather than their usual subjects of interest, and it has now come to the point where they seem unable to focus on anything else.

Being patient, I would not think to block or mute anyone over such a matter; I follow people with some consideration, and I suspect things will return to normal soon enough (or at least closer to normal, after their initial outrage fades).


The biggest problem has become my daily Paper.li newspaper, The ArchRevivalist Daily. Again, I have always tried to select my news “sources” with a great deal of care—accounts that tweet useful and relevant information regarding heritage issues, traditional architecture & design, preservation, etc.—so the newspaper will offer breadth and usefulness.

Lately, however, I have seen a number of ARD issues where the featured story and image is something to do with politics—namely Trump. This is really not what I intended at all, and these stories detract from the primary subject of the newspaper. I recall one issue in particular where one of my usually-relevant sources had perhaps four or five “Trump” tweets or re-tweeted stories posted in one day’s edition. I suppose an improved algorithm on Paper.li’s part could alleviate this to some degree; I'm too busy to do daily content edits and instead rely on their AI to select which stories to “feature.”

As a result, I have been forced to (at least temporarily) take the approach of removing some Twitter accounts from my newspaper source list, at least until they return to tweeting relevant information. I still follow them, of course—I only removed them from the newspaper source list until that times comes again.

I imagine this issue will pass soon enough, but it does pose a significant question to many of us. How much is too much? No one would suggest that we refrain from observing, commenting and even expressing our outrage when it comes to politics and current events. But we must remember there is a time and place to do so, and that getting overwhelmed by such matters can take us off course, muddy our focus, and in the end--make us less happy.

One of the more gratifying things one can do is to be able to put knowledge to good use, and I was able to do exactly this last weekend as I was able to lead a historic neighborhood tour of Akron’s Goodyear Heights through @Akron2Akron, a local group that helps organized and promote city neighborhood tours in an effort to help residents discover and appreciate the places where they live.

This pedestrian pathway and steps was dedicated to Clara Bingham,  a 47-year Goodyear employee who was popularly knows as "The First Lady of Goodyear."

I won’t go into a lot of detail in this post—there is a downloadable brochure I prepared; a PDF Dropbox link is HERE if you’d like to read more about it. In short, Goodyear Heights is one of the better American examples of the Garden City Movement as it was transformed into a high quality community for industrial employees of Frank Seiberling’s Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Planning began in 1912, when Seiberling used his master landscape designer, Warren Manning (who had already designed the grounds at his landmark Tudor-Revival mansion, Stan Hywet) to layout a small town for his workers.


Manning, who was a senior assistant to the legendary landscape designer Fredrick Law Olmstead, laid out a masterful plan that followed the topography of the site, leaving many open areas for parks and other public areas. Seiberling also hired noted architects to design attractive homes for the community; rather than settle for typical utilitarian worker housing, he insisted on a wide variety of higher-quality “cottages” – many of which were based on traditional English small home designs.
While the community is also home to a number of other popular early 20th century house styles, like bungalows, craftsman-style homes and quaint colonials, the English influence is clear, from the Tudor-revival Boy Scout Center to more modest homes reminiscent of small houses by Voysey, Baillie Scott and Lutyens. Other buildings in the area followed this trend, including the original high school (built to resemble a Tudor palace) the neighborhood’s public library and Goodyear Hall, which was the company’s educational center and recreation building.

Due to the neighborhood’s size and historic character, our @Akron2Akron tours were held over two days, with two distinct tour routes offered on each date. The tour I led followed a slightly more challenging uphill route, following a series of pedestrian paths and steps that had been integrated into the neighborhood’s original design, allowing convenient access between various street levels. Pour other tour followed a more level route, through the project’s initial phase and taking in some of the open park spaces that Manning had preserved.

On each route, the guides were able to discuss the history of the development, the challenges of construction and the wide variety of home designs found in the there. The weather was perfect, with everything so green and the flowers in bloom, the neighborhood showed quite well, and afterward, everyone was able to meet at the gazebo at the “square” on Pioneer Street for refreshments and cookies. This public area offers a great opportunity to capture Manning’s (and Seiberling’s) original vision, with its human scale and comfortable mix of buildings used for commerce, housing, social services and worship. In recent years, the R.I.G.H.T. Committee (Resident Improving Goodyear Heights Together) led by Sharon Connor, has done an outstanding job in helping to build the gazebo, restore and maintain the rose garden here, and helping to stabilize and improve the neighborhood. Overall, the tours were a great success; somewhere between 75-100 people attended the first Thursday evening tour on June 9th, and another 35 or so attended the Saturday 6/11 follow-up--making this the best attended @Akron2Akron event so far. It was nice to see that not only did we have attendees from all over Akron, but that a number of neighborhood residents came out as well to discover more about their neighborhood and celebrate its history!

The gazebo was built almost 20 years ago by community volunteers, using materials, proportions and a scale that would compliment the surrounding buildings on the public square.

The @Akron2Akron tour is the first of many activities planned for Goodyear Heights, as current and former residents, city officials, preservationists and other activists are finally coming together to develop plans to protect and preserve this historic neighborhood, which has been recognized for its significance on both the state and national level. During our tour, I discovered that part of the Heights had actually been nominated for the National Register of Historic places back in the 1970’s, but a short-sighted city planning director had discouraged the nomination. Currently discussion has centered on developing a simpler local historic designation as a start, in combination with educational programs and some local funding to encourage and support the preservation and restoration of neighborhood homes.

This was just some of our Thursday night tour group - one more busload of trolley riders was yet to arrive!

A city trolley bus was available to transport attendees from parking areas nearby to the starting point on Malasia Road.

One of the more gratifying things one can do is to be able to put knowledge to good use, and I was able to do exactly this last weekend as I was able to lead a historic neighborhood tour of Akron’s Goodyear Heights through @Akron2Akron, a local group that helps organized and promote city neighborhood tours in an effort to help residents discover and appreciate the places where they live.

This pedestrian pathway and steps was dedicated to Clara Bingham,  a 47-year Goodyear employee who was popularly knows as "The First Lady of Goodyear."

I won’t go into a lot of detail in this post—there is a downloadable brochure I prepared; a PDF Dropbox link is HERE if you’d like to read more about it. In short, Goodyear Heights is one of the better American examples of the Garden City Movement as it was transformed into a high quality community for industrial employees of Frank Seiberling’s Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Planning began in 1912, when Seiberling used his master landscape designer, Warren Manning (who had already designed the grounds at his landmark Tudor-Revival mansion, Stan Hywet) to layout a small town for his workers.


Manning, who was a senior assistant to the legendary landscape designer Fredrick Law Olmstead, laid out a masterful plan that followed the topography of the site, leaving many open areas for parks and other public areas. Seiberling also hired noted architects to design attractive homes for the community; rather than settle for typical utilitarian worker housing, he insisted on a wide variety of higher-quality “cottages” – many of which were based on traditional English small home designs.
While the community is also home to a number of other popular early 20th century house styles, like bungalows, craftsman-style homes and quaint colonials, the English influence is clear, from the Tudor-revival Boy Scout Center to more modest homes reminiscent of small houses by Voysey, Baillie Scott and Lutyens. Other buildings in the area followed this trend, including the original high school (built to resemble a Tudor palace) the neighborhood’s public library and Goodyear Hall, which was the company’s educational center and recreation building.

Due to the neighborhood’s size and historic character, our @Akron2Akron tours were held over two days, with two distinct tour routes offered on each date. The tour I led followed a slightly more challenging uphill route, following a series of pedestrian paths and steps that had been integrated into the neighborhood’s original design, allowing convenient access between various street levels. Pour other tour followed a more level route, through the project’s initial phase and taking in some of the open park spaces that Manning had preserved.

On each route, the guides were able to discuss the history of the development, the challenges of construction and the wide variety of home designs found in the there. The weather was perfect, with everything so green and the flowers in bloom, the neighborhood showed quite well, and afterward, everyone was able to meet at the gazebo at the “square” on Pioneer Street for refreshments and cookies. This public area offers a great opportunity to capture Manning’s (and Seiberling’s) original vision, with its human scale and comfortable mix of buildings used for commerce, housing, social services and worship. In recent years, the R.I.G.H.T. Committee (Resident Improving Goodyear Heights Together) led by Sharon Connor, has done an outstanding job in helping to build the gazebo, restore and maintain the rose garden here, and helping to stabilize and improve the neighborhood. Overall, the tours were a great success; somewhere between 75-100 people attended the first Thursday evening tour on June 9th, and another 35 or so attended the Saturday 6/11 follow-up--making this the best attended @Akron2Akron event so far. It was nice to see that not only did we have attendees from all over Akron, but that a number of neighborhood residents came out as well to discover more about their neighborhood and celebrate its history!

The gazebo was built almost 20 years ago by community volunteers, using materials, proportions and a scale that would compliment the surrounding buildings on the public square.

The @Akron2Akron tour is the first of many activities planned for Goodyear Heights, as current and former residents, city officials, preservationists and other activists are finally coming together to develop plans to protect and preserve this historic neighborhood, which has been recognized for its significance on both the state and national level. During our tour, I discovered that part of the Heights had actually been nominated for the National Register of Historic places back in the 1970’s, but a short-sighted city planning director had discouraged the nomination. Currently discussion has centered on developing a simpler local historic designation as a start, in combination with educational programs and some local funding to encourage and support the preservation and restoration of neighborhood homes.

This was just some of our Thursday night tour group - one more busload of trolley riders was yet to arrive!

A city trolley bus was available to transport attendees from parking areas nearby to the starting point on Malasia Road.