In 2012, we built our Preservation Shop, thanks in large measure to a grant from the Friends of Heritage Preservation. This structure has been fundamentally important for our continual preservation efforts. The structure follows our north boundary, with a wide dog trot separating the two internal spaces and the lower garden shed.

When our wonderful next door neighbors planned a landscape and fence replacement project, I suggested we collaborate on the design. Their driveway only leads to the frontage road, which is very dangerous because of a blind curve and speeding cars. Since their three boys will be going to school in our neighborhood, I suggested a series of layers—fence, gate, steps, and screen door—so they can safely pass through the Foundation’s property.

The design negotiates the architectural styles on each side of the property line, diminishes the overall scale of the Preservation shop, and makes a series of evocative layers that will be illuminated at night.

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When we undertake new projects here at the Compound, we start by carefully thinking about the needs. And then we look at the original pieces as a kind of “tool kit”, which we can borrow from and adapt to make something new that has a conversation with the original. Variations on a theme.

I kept thinking of Charles Moore’s fondness for Western towns and Hollywood sets, whose narrow streets were often lined with “false fronts”, applied facades for saloons, the sheriff’s office, or mercantile. So the folly becomes our own false front that grows up out of the picket fence, with a square cut out of the center. Think Sergio Leone meets Huck Finn! This false front includes a gate that swing out of the long diagonal. And the form helps to soften the scale of the Preservation Shop.

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It's all a play of Southern architectural tropes. Train cars (which we can hear rumbling on the nearby Missouri Pacific railroad), a Dog Trot to encourage breezes, a bead board ceiling painted Haint Blue, a giant screen door recalling those in Hill Country barbeques or kitchen back doors, and a whitewashed picket fence.