I spent yesterday in Hershey, Pennsylvania in an all-day course called “Architecture in America: International Origins and Influence”. I was a little worried that the class would be dry and dull.

No worries! It was an excellent course, sponsored by ERA Real Estate and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

So if you see me driving or walking around Cheverly – peering at houses and taking pictures – it’s because of this course. It’s making me look at houses in an entirely different way.

The most important distinction that we tend to forget is that most of what we call “styles” are actually forms of housing.  For example, what we call a Colonial is not a style, it’s a form of structure. The features of the house determine the style. It may be a Georgian-style colonial or a Federal-style colonial or it may be (more likely) a hodge-podge of several different styles. The fun is in identifying the features.

Our REALTOR magazine has a terrific on-line Architecture Guide and a column called Architecture Coach,. It’s fun browsing around in both of these sections – you may learn something about your own house!

Anyway, I can now market myself as being trained in historic real estate through the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I definitely won’t let this be the end of my training, though. I’m already looking forward to more.

(C) 2006 Susan Pruden.