A HOUSE RESTORED

Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft meets Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own with echoes of A Year in Provence in this lyrical meditation of a finance executive turned preservationist steadfastly repairing a ramshackle historic home.

Old houses have secrets to share but only if they survive. Growing up in New England, Lee McColgan always daydreamed about restoring one to its former glory. Realizing that more money doesn't create more happiness, he trades the corporate ladder for the Loring House, built in 1702, and a stepladder. He commits to preserving this beautiful but decrepit home, using only period materials and methods, on a holiday deadline. But his enchantment withers as he discovers the massive repairs that the house needs. From beneath 1970s paneling, centuries of problems emerge. A small kitchen fix reveals that the structure's frame has rotted and could collapse at any moment. On a bathroom ceiling, black mold appears and spreads. He fights deteriorating bricks, frozen pipes, shattered windows, a punctured foundation, and even an airborne chimney cap. Along the way, he learns from a motley cast of preservation specialists, including a plasterer who has worked on Elizabethan buildings, a master mason named Irons, a stone whisperer, and the Window Witch. But can he make the home shipshape before family and friends arrive, or will it all come crashing down? Constructed around the house's six key materials - wood, lime, iron, stone, glass, and brick - McColgan's harrowing, inspired journey expertly examines our relationship to the past through the homes we inhabit and beautifully articulates the philosophy of preserving the past to find purpose for the future. Lee McColgan, founder of a preservation contracting company, has worked on Boston's Old North Church, Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House, and other historic buildings. He and his work have appeared in the pages of Architectural Digest, Boston Globe, and Wall Street Journal, and he has demonstrated traditional woodworking techniques on Houses with History on HGTV and Discovery+. He has given presentations to the Plymouth Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the fraternal organization of Freemasons, and other organizations. He sits on the board of the Pembroke Historical Society and belongs to Historic New England and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He lives with his wife in Pembroke, Massachusetts.