Author Archives

Thomas J. Rosell lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and has had an interest in preservation for twenty years. He has been lucky enough to work in different aspects of the field for the past ten years. His current area of focus is materials conservation, but he has worked in archival, interpretive, and building restoration arenas as well.

• A Hustling Contractor and the Governor of Mississippi

  By Thomas Rosell on May 22, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  Schemes and scams by unscrupulous hucksters are nothing new as we’ll see in today’s post.  The American Architect and Buildings News reported about one such hustle that occurred during the 1900 bid opening of the New Capitol. A Hustling Contractor… Read More ›

• How Paul Rudolph gave Vicksburg a Brutal piggyback

  By Thomas Rosell on May 8, 2013 • ( 23 )

  

  The other day I was surfing the Society of Architectural Historians Digital Resources webpage scoping out all the neat links.  As I checked out the pages I keep my eagle eye out for Mississippi connections. So I was very excited… Read More ›

• Updating two MissPres Architectural Words of the Week

  By Thomas Rosell on May 4, 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  If you are like me you are always searching for examples of past MissPres Architectural Words of the Week. I recently found two that will hopefully get all y’all’s creative juices flowing for the weekend. The Standard Oil Building in… Read More ›

• Miss Pres Architectural Word of the Week: English Bond

  By Thomas Rosell on May 3, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  AWOTW is back this week!  I had a word request from our very own E.L. Malvaney. Sent along with this image was the following text: “To get the ball rolling again with requests for word of the week, Susasippi’s Hazelhurst… Read More ›

• Presentations from Preservation in Economic Development Conference

  By Thomas Rosell on April 17, 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  While not breaking news, I learned this week that shortly after the April 2012 Power of Preservation in Economic Development Conference, the Mississippi Heritage Trust made available on their website several of the presentations given at that conference in Ocean… Read More ›

• National Trust Planning Grants Available for Main Street Communities

  By Thomas Rosell on April 10, 2013 • ( 1 )

  Good planning before a bricks and mortar preservation project will save time and money and usually result in a better quality project.  The grants below are for this planning phase.  If your town is a Main Street community you might be interested… Read More ›

• Munsell v. The Color Orange

  By Thomas Rosell on March 30, 2013 • ( 5 )

  

  First developed at the turn of the 20th century, Munsell color tools are used for producing physical color standards across a wide range of industries and disciplines to communicate color easily and accurately.  Often Preservationist and Conservators use the Munsell Color… Read More ›

• Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture

  By Thomas Rosell on March 19, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  This video is a trailer for the film “Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture.” Released in 2010, this interesting film discusses our Ocean Springs resident Louis Sullivan’s career and  philosophies.   Unfortunately, like most scholarly work on Sullivan, it does not touch… Read More ›

• “Harping” On About Water Meter Covers

  By Thomas Rosell on March 6, 2013 • ( 6 )

  

  With carnival over for another year I’ve bagged up all my beads and recycled them. But I have one throw this year that I’ll be holding on to. On Joe Cain day (is it Joe Cain day if it’s not… Read More ›

• Bay St. Louis Theater Receives Award

  By Thomas Rosell on February 26, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  You may have heard that the Bay St. Louis Little Theater is one of the recipients of a 2013 Governor’s Arts Awards. The award is in the category of “Arts In Community.” You might remember back during 2010, Malvaney reported… Read More ›

• A new header for MissPres.com’s 4th year

  By Thomas Rosell on February 22, 2013 • ( 6 )

  

  Two weeks ago we quietly celebrated the fourth birthday of MissPres.com with a great article about the early conversations regarding the first restoration the Old Capitol.  Discussing the old capital has become an anniversary tradition.  Another anniversary tradition has been the introduction of a… Read More ›

• Architectural Siblings? Jackson, MS and St. Louis, MO J.C. Penney Department Stores

  By Thomas Rosell on February 21, 2013 • ( 50 )

  

  If you’ve ever read the MissPres post The Beauty of Modernist Storefronts, you’ve seen some HABS images of Jackson’s long gone, international style, J.C. Penney department store. This unique building was taken away before it had the opportunity to be appreciated.  J.C. Penney Department… Read More ›

• Preservation Events for the week of Feb. 17th, 2013

  By Thomas Rosell on February 15, 2013 • ( 0 )

  

  Two preservation related events are coming up this next week: If you are going to be New Orleans adjacent this Monday Feb. 18, the Louisiana Landmark Society is hosting a panel discussion entitled “Fight Blight”.  While this discussion is taking… Read More ›

• MissPres Word of the Week & Friday Fun: Screen Block Bingo Sheet

  By Thomas Rosell on February 8, 2013 • ( 2 )

  

  I thought with carnival coming to its crescendo this upcoming week it might be fun to have a contest to go along with our word this week.  Mr. Cyril Harris defines our word in the 2006 edition of his Dictionary… Read More ›

• Photo Update of the Hub City Lofts

  By Thomas Rosell on February 1, 2013 • ( 7 )

  

  A few weekends back I made a day trip to Hattiesburg to check out the progress made on the adaptive reuse projects of the Carter and Ross buildings.  I had been wanting to check these two projects out in person… Read More ›

• MissPres Word of the Week: Window

  By Thomas Rosell on January 25, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  In January 2012 Malvaney ask us in the post entitled “When You Absolutely Positively Have to Know What’s a Volute?” to share our favorite definition of a volute.  In that spirit I’ll ask y’all to share a definition of the word… Read More ›

• Architectural Twins? Eaton and Walthall Schools, Hattiesburg

  By Thomas Rosell on January 17, 2013 • ( 4 )

  

  Schools are structures that are often duplicated from one set of plans, as seen in some of Malvaney’s early Architectural Twins posts (January 14, 2010 & July 14, 2010). The school board of Hattiesburg was no different when they hired… Read More ›

• MissPres Word of the Week: Pigeonhole Corner

  By Thomas Rosell on January 11, 2013 • ( 23 )

  

  “…working on catching up on my photo organization, and found this picture of a corner on Murrah Hall at Millsaps. Don’t know the term for it although I probably should…”

• Architectural Twins: Natchez’s Legitimate Siblings?

  By Thomas Rosell on January 9, 2013 • ( 13 )

  

  In my post “Happy Hanukkah Y’all” one of the buildings featured was the Gerard Brandon V house designed by the firm Weiss, Dreyfous, & Seiferth. It’s a handsome house that I had seen before but never really studied before writing… Read More ›

• 2012 MissPres AWOTW Roundup

  By Thomas Rosell on December 28, 2012 • ( 11 )

  

  Believe it or not we’ve made it through the entire alphabet.  With 26 terms, and 38 words containing 92 syllables, we touched on 100 structures in 43 towns in 32 Mississippi counties.  I skipped over having a AWOTW for the letter X since… Read More ›

• MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: ZigZag Molding

  By Thomas Rosell on December 14, 2012 • ( 7 )

  

  This is our last MissPres Architectural Word of the Week for 2012!  Whether you are crying tears of sadness or joy you can check out any previous words here. As always our example photographs come from the MDAH Historic Resources… Read More ›

• The Buena Vista and a Hyperbolic Parabaloid that should have been

  By Thomas Rosell on December 13, 2012 • ( 8 )

  

  In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy I was glad to see that the Wildwoods Shore Resort Historic District in New Jersey made it through relatively unscathed.   This got me thinking about some of our lost motels on the Mississippi… Read More ›

• Happy Hanukkah Y’all

  By Thomas Rosell on December 7, 2012 • ( 22 )

  

  Hanukkah begins tomorrow at sun down.  In celebration of the festival of lights I’ve gathered some photos from the MDAH Historic Resources Database of some of Mississippi’s cultural sites associated with the Jewish faith. Along with the places of worship featured… Read More ›

• Project updates from Biloxi

  By Thomas Rosell on December 6, 2012 • ( 8 )

  

  Back in June JR Gordon reported on the rehabilitation of the White Pillars restaurant in Biloxi. Since the restaurant has been closed since the early 1990′s my interest was piqued and I went by for a look. Work has been… Read More ›

• MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Y-Tracery

  By Thomas Rosell on November 30, 2012 • ( 9 )

  

  Time for another MissPres Architectural Word of the Week! If you want to check out any previous word you can do that here. As always our example photographs come from the MDAH Historic Resources Database. This week’s word is typical… Read More ›

• Borrowing Market Research

  By Thomas Rosell on November 28, 2012 • ( 5 )

  

  You may or may not have noticed that MissPreservation.com does not run ads and this post is not an endorsement of any product or service.  But that doesn’t stop me from being interested in the workings of marketing and how… Read More ›

• MissPres Architectural Word of the Week: Witch Door

  By Thomas Rosell on November 16, 2012 • ( 3 )

  

  Time for another MissPres Architectural Word of the Week! If you want to check out any previous word you can do that here. As always our example photographs come from the MDAH Historic Resources Database. This week’s word might sound… Read More ›