I receive This Old House magazine and one of the “Thirty lessons learned in 30 years of TOH TV” is that restoring an old house is a good investment.
The article points out that not long ago (1970s) razing old buildings to make way for “progress” was common. Many local buildings, such as the original Arcata City Hall, were lost this way (the photo below is a repeat, I know, but what a great old building).
Original Arcata City Hall
Fortunately, many things have changed (and few Humboldt residents had the funds to flatten old buildings and construct new ones from scratch). Today we have many wonderful historic structures in the area.
Just yesterday I worked for a client who has his office in the Stewart School Building in Arcata (across from the high school). The building was built in 1925, closed some time ago as a school, was repurposed as office and studio space, and just became the new home of College of the Redwood’s Arcata extension program.
Hopefully this trend of repurposing historic structures will continue. Not because we’re too poor to destroy old structures to create new buildings, but because we’re too smart to.
Posted by Lynette M 
