Category Archives: Uncategorized

Summer 2019

October 26, 2019UncategorizedCharissa Durst

HDC President Charissa Durst Presents at SIA Chicago Conference

For the first time in 15 years, Charissa Durst attended the Society of Industrial Archaeology Conference, held this year in Chicago in June. This conference was more personal than usual, as Charissa also took her mother — who was visiting for several weeks from Nevada — with her to the conference. Charissa and her mom attended the Friday tour called “Energy Research and the Nuclear Age” that visited the Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, and Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois. On another personal note, the tour was selected in memory of Charissa’s father, Hai-Boh Wang, who passed away in January. Dr. Wang was a structural engineer who designed nuclear power plant containment shells and retired from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2004. On Saturday, Charissa presented a paper titled “Putting the ‘Cold’ in the Cold War: Nose Dock Hangars of Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska,” based on the HABS/HAER documentation of the last remaining 1946-1947 hangar designed for the B-29 on the base. The conferenced wrapped up Saturday evening with a banquet at the Lost Marsh Golf Club, built on the site of an old steel mill, in Hammond, Indiana, and coincidentally in the town where Charissa was born.

View from the top of Wilson Hall at Fermilab National Accelerator

The Gammasphere at Argonne National Laboratory, which was featured in an Incredible Hulk movie

Roofing Work Underway at Five Oaks Historic Home

The red slate roof on the Five Oaks Historic Home in Massillon has been a key character-defining feature since the house was constructed in 1895. It is New York Red slate, one of the world’s rarest and most expensive slates due to its exceptional high quality and life span. After enduring 124 years on this roof, the slates show no deterioration, no surface spalling, no crumbling or softening, and they sound with a clear ring when held in the air and hit with a hard object. Since the slate could easily last another 50 to 100 years, HDC’s project is designed to retain the majority of the existing slate, make minor repairs and replace damaged slate. Red slate native to the west side of the porte-cochere was removed to use as replacement slate on the highly visible main roof. Inappropriate Pennsylvania gray slate was removed from the porte-cochere, and the roofing contractor was able to find salvaged red slate that was an excellent match to use on the less visible porte-cochere roof. The project also includes replacing copper valleys, gutters and flashings at the six chimneys and two turrets.

The built-in gutters at the North Turret were relined with copper.

Detail of stone scupper and copper gutter at the North Turret.

Detail of copper cricket wrapping around one of the many sandstone lion sculptures.

Devon Pool Bath House Opens on Memorial Day Weekend!

After almost 10 months of construction, the Devon Pool Bath House opened on Memorial Day weekend with a ribbon cutting for the 2019 swim season. The new Bath House features an expanded office area, which includes a pool manager’s office, staff break room, staff restroom, and first aid area. The locker rooms feature an increased number of toilets and lavatories to meet building code and skylights for natural daylighting, plus the addition of a family restroom. The concessions area, previously a separate shack, was brought up to health code with a grease interceptor, 3-compartment sink, and custom worktable. Between the concessions and Bath House is a large storage room, and between the office area and locker rooms is a covered entry area with service windows under exposed decorative trusses and skylights.

Upper Arlington council member Carolyn T. Casper cuts the ribbon along with attending children on May 25, 2019.

Devon Pool Bath House with offices at right, locker rooms in the center, and concessions at left.

Covered entry area featuring decorative wood trusses, exposed decking, and skylights

A Columbus Carriage House Tells a Story with a Tragic Ending

In March, HDC was commissioned to prepare HABS level documentation of a carriage house at 602 E. Town Street. Charissa Durst and photographer Jeff Bates shot the exterior and interior of the first floor (the second floor was unsafe to access), and Charissa researched the history of the building, which was in poor structural condition and scheduled for demolition. This large Stick Style carriage house was originally associated with a house (now demolished) constructed in 1888 for James Kilbourne, a successful businessman and grandson of the founder of the city of Worthington. James Kilbourne was born in 1842, one of five children of Lincoln Kilbourne and his wife Jane. James had a brilliant mind and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Kenyon College before the age of 21. Upon leaving Kenyon in 1862, James volunteered and enlisted as a private in Company A of the Ohio 84th Infantry Regimen. He distinguished himself in multiple Civil War campaigns in the west, rising to the rank of captain. He was made a brevet colonel and was addressed as Colonel Kilbourne for the remainder of his life. After the war, James earned a law degree from Harvard Law School but elected to help run his father’s hardware and railroad supplies store.

He married Anna Bancroft Wright, and they settled in a house (still standing) down the street at 550 E. Town Street. James left his father’s store in 1886 to form Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Co., which made construction equipment such as road scrapers, wheelbarrows, steel sinks and trucks. Two years later, he moved into the new house at 604 E. Town Street and remained there for the rest of his life. The company was phenomenally successful, capitalized at $100,000 in 1886 and grew to more than $1 million by 1900. James and Anna had two children, and his son worked in the business with him. The years during and after World War I saw labor unrest, high wages, and escalating income tax rates. James died in the summer of 1919, and his son Lincoln tragically passed away two months later. With the loss of two owners in one year, the Kilbourne & Jacobs Manufacturing Co. descended into bankruptcy by 1923. The bankruptcy occurred just one year after the untimely death of James’ daughter Alice in 1922, leaving his widow Anna to weather the tragedies alone. Anna sold the house in 1923 and lived the remaining two years of her life in a room at the Seneca Hotel. The house was demolished to construct the Chateau De Ville Luxury Apartments, which opened in 1932 with 13 one- and two-bedroom units.

Southwest corner of the carriage house at 602 E. Town Street in Columbus.

Chateau De Ville apartment building built on the site of the original house at 604 E. Town Street.

Click here for a copy of the report.

HDC Welcomes Ziti…the Beagle

Just in time for Mother’s Day, Charissa Durst brought home a 9½-week-old beagle-hound mix* from Tails of Hope in Cincinnati. She was one of four females in a litter of seven from a beagle-hound mix mother named Cinnamon. All of the puppies were named after spices, and this one was named Ginger. Charissa and Don tried out the name Ginger for the weekend but decided that Ziti suited her, and she responded better to it. Ziti had never been outside before and had never seen grass, so persuading her to do her business outside has been quite a challenge.

Ziti looking stoic on her first day outside.

Six weeks later, Ziti climbs walls like a pro at Prairie Oaks Metro Park.

German Village Pride Parade Float

June 15, 2018UncategorizedCharissa Durst

HDC employee Cathie Senter is leading the charge and working late with her crew to get the first-ever German Village float ready for the June 16 parade! Click here for the article. Below are photos from the parade:

View of the float getting ready for the parade.

View of the float in the parade.

Neil and Shiloh in full costume.

Cathie with a COA granted by Nancy Kotting.

Fall 2017

November 3, 2017UncategorizedCharissa Durst

HDC Welcomes Cathie Senter!

Cathie worked with HDC on the Woodward Opera House in 2007, where she assessed the condition of the wooden windows and prepared drawings and specifications for their repair. Cathie noticed that the second floor windows were originally 6-over-6, but the muntins had been cut out and they were reglazed as 1-over-1 windows. Because of the alteration, we were able to replace the windows with new insulated 6-over-6 windows that matched the other multi-pane windows on the building. In 2011, we worked with Cathie on implementing the first phase of the Historic Structure Report she had prepared for Five Oaks Historic Home in Massillon. After 7 years teaching at the Building Preservation & Restoration program at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, Cathie was ready to get back into designing and managing projects. When she contacted HDC, we snapped her up immediately! While moving to Columbus from Wheeling in late summer, we had her work on projects in nearby Belmont and Noble Counties, and she also conducted assessments of historic stone buildings at the St. Louis Arsenal.

HDC Receives Praise for Eielson Air Force Base Documentation

Cover sheet with maps and front elevation

Floor plan and building section sheet

The final version of the Level I HABS Documentation of Building 1190 at Eielson Air Force Base was reviewed and approved in July 2017 by Ms. Sylvia Elliott, Architectural Historian with Alaska’s Review & Compliance Office of History & Archaeology, who commented that “It was an excellent report.” The MOA required that the documentation drawings include floor plan, section, and the front and side elevations. However, HDC thought a drawing of the side elevation would not convey any more information than a photograph, and focused on adding a plan of a B-29 aircraft, for which the hangar was designed.

Click here for a copy of the final report: Bldg1190 HABS Report Final

Indian Mound Recreation Center Getting Ready to Bid

REVIT rendering of the proposed Indian Mound Recreation Center

HDC’s first major project with the City of Columbus Department of Recreation and Parks is the design of the new Indian Mound Recreation Center to replace an existing one constructed in 1970. The existing rec center was built during the energy crisis and has low ceilings and no windows, which is a major complaint by the staff. As the design progressed with multiple neighborhood meetings, it became clear that the new building would be larger than the $7 million budget. This prompted HDC Project Architect Brad Curtis to recommend that the City retain the gym from the 1970 building, which is still in good condition, and put storage and other less public functions into the existing building, thereby shrinking the size of the addition and meeting the budget. The project is scheduled to bid at the end of December.

HDC President Visits Taiwan and Japan

Taiwan’s Pacific coast on the one sunny day of the trip

Gassho (praying hands) thatch roof buildings in the Shokawa Valley, Japan

HDC President Charissa W. Durst spent 14 days in October accompanying her mother on an overseas trip. Charissa’s uncle had arranged a college reunion trip to Japan, but was two people short of getting a group rate, so her mom volunteered the last two people. Since her uncle’s college is in Taiwan, the group trip originated and ended in Taiwan. Charissa’s last trip to Taiwan was in 1983 when she attended a summer language school with her brother. During the last week of that 2-month trip the class toured Taiwan but was unable to make it to the east coast since monsoons washed out the road. The rainy season typically ends at the end of September and October is normally sunny and dry. Unfortunately, global warming extended typhoon season well into October this year and it pretty much rained every day in Taiwan and Japan. They made it to the east coast of Taiwan, but were unable to access the national parks due to dangerous road conditions from the constant rain.

Donut Gets Marooned!

Donut the Beagle made multiple trips to Prairie Oaks Metro Park this summer, and she frolicked in Big Darby Creek a record number of times. During one trip after a heavy rain, Big Darby Creek was higher than normal and the usual center islands were underwater. Donut had to make do (unhappily) with a rock.

HDC says Goodbye to Office Manager Mej Stokes

August 31, 2017UncategorizedCharissa Durst

HDC’s office manager for the past 11 years passed away on August 7 after a long illness. Since 2006, Mej took care of bookkeeping, human resources issues, filing, and just about anything and everything to support the office. Mej will be fondly remembered by current and former coworkers for listening to our personal and office issues, bringing in home-made treats or getting the best caterers for office events, remembering everyone’s birthday, and giving Donut a morning treat. We will all miss her, and Donut will especially miss napping under Mej’s long skirts during the winter months.

Hardlines Design Company President on Women’s Radio Network

December 30, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(originally posted by Andy Sewell on October 2, 2014)

Women’s Radio Network (www.wrnw1.com) is an online broadcasting company dedicated to giving female professionals a voice online. Women’s Radio Network provides women with an avenue for communicating their professional knowledge to a wider audience and with a forum for networking with other professionals. On September 23, Hardlines Design Company owner and President, Charissa Durst, was interviewed by Lisa Singer for Ms. Singer’s program Open Forum. In this eight minute interview, Charissa discusses how her interest in both history and architecture led to the creation of HDC, how she blends the two disciplines in her work, and what it takes to become an architect.

Click here for Charissa Durst Interview on Open Forum

The 2012 American Cultural Resources Association Conference: Takeaways

December 20, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(by Anne Lee, originally posted October 11, 2012)

I recently attended the American Cultural Resources Association’s (ACRA) annual conference in Seattle, held September 6-8 – three days packed with educational sessions full of useful information. I learned that I can take a lot of notes very quickly – which is good since my brain has a limited capacity for remembering all the facts and tips I learned during the conference! If you are in the field of cultural resources management, attending an ACRA conference is a must.

Workshops and sessions fell into one of three topical groups: the Business of Business, Developments in the Technical Aspects of Cultural Resources Management, and Trade Association topics. For a technical specialist like myself, the topics covered in the business of business sessions were those most outside my comfort zone, and the ones I found the most thought provoking. Here are some of the highlights of the business sessions I attended, as well as a few of the useful tips and reminders I came away with:

Workshop: What Wins and Why? – The Art and Science of Winning Proposals. Presented by Joanmarie Eggert, LG, CPSM, Pacific Northwest Marketing Manager, Kennedy/Jenks
- Highlight: Being introduced to how the concept of “bug dust” can be applied to proposals. While the term “bug dust” refers to the very fine dust created from the boring of a mining machine, the concept as applied to your proposal efforts refers to those proposal elements that have little influence on the award selection committee, which are ones that you should pay as much attention to as miners do to “bug dust” – very little, in comparison to the big things that matter.
- Useful tips and reminders:
  - Do internal proposal debriefings to improve the process on future endeavors.
  - Do quality control reviews of proposals – for content and appearance.
  - Clients care about their project, not what we as consultants do, so focus your proposal content on the project you are going after.
  - Questions to keep in mind as you develop proposal content: Why do you want THIS project? What value do you bring to the project?
  - Don’t “we we” on the client – Emphasize the client and the project, not your firm ( “You,” not “We”).
  - Debriefings for winning proposals may be more useful than debriefings for losing proposals in identifying what to focus on in future proposals.
Workshop: Business Development – Uncovered/Proven Methods and Tools for Successful Client Development. Presented by Jon Davies, Vice President and Director of Client Services at BHC Consultants, LLC, and Traci Nolan, CPSM, Business Development Manager at GeoDesign, Inc.
- Highlights: Recommendation to look up Ford Harding’s Rainmaking series.
- Useful tips and reminders:
  - Learning the difference between marketing and business development
  - Assign people to business development that WANT to do it; your business development efforts will fail if the people assigned to carry them out have no interest in them.
  - Tailor business development efforts to a person’s style
  - Every employee plays a part in the business development cycle – you just have to figure out what someone is good at and utilize them in that aspect of your business development strategy.
  - Remember – business development is a numbers game – if you want more clients, make more contacts.
  - Clients are people just like you.
  - In a face-to-face meeting, your job is to listen.
  - Social media is good for recruiting employees and getting your name out there, but is unlikely to land you a job. Relationships win you jobs.
Marketing: Business Development Live! – 3, 2, 1 and ACTION – are you ready?Presentation consisted of three real life marketing professionals meeting with Scott Williams, Manager of the Cultural Resources Program at the Washington Department of Transportation, feedback from the potential client, and a Q&A session.
- Highlight:
  - Seeing Kenda Salisbury’s brilliant portrayal of a really bad business development professional acting inappropriately during the first meeting with a potential client.
  - Useful tips and reminders:
    - Client relationships drive the professional service industry.
    - Don’t worry about bothering a potential client – pick up the phone and call. The person on the other end can choose not to take the call.
    - Make sure multiple people in a firm have contact with a client so you don’t lose contact with the client if a staff member leaves your firm. Vice versa, make sure you have contact with multiple people in a client’s firm so you don’t lose the client if your only contact gets a job elsewhere.
    - Do not send literature to private clients. Instead, identify common clients and meet with the private firm to discuss how your company can help the private client win a project with mutual clients.
- Marketing: It’s What You Don’t Say That Counts – How to Project Your Best Non-Verbal Self. Presented by Kenda Salisbury, CPSM, Director of Marketing at Historical Research Associates, Inc.
  - Highlight: Experiencing the limp handshake…
  - Useful tips and reminders:
    - Humans communicate in all kinds of ways that are unspoken and being aware of what those non-verbal cues mean will help you be more successful at business development.
- Management: Strategies to Address Critical Leadership and Ownership Challenges. Presented by Ed Edelstein
  - Highlight: Definition of a leader as the person who is most contagious, whether positive or negative.
  - Useful tips and reminders:
    - There is a difference between explicit and implicit drivers in a company.
    - Company culture is heavily influenced by the implicit drivers of the leaders within a company.
    - You can become a “positive contagion” – your attitude is your choice.
- Finance and Accounting: Key Financial Indicators – Building a Performance Dashboard. Presented by David James, CPA, CMA, Clark Nuber P.S.
  - Useful tips and reminders:
    - There is more to understanding a company’s financial health than accounts payable, accounts receivable, and the dollar amount of contracts awarded.
    - Hire a professional to calculate the benchmarks and interpret them for you.

Bill Faciane: 15 years of Service at Hardlines Design Company

December 20, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(by Charissa Durst, originally posted on October 3, 2012)

When facilities planner and architectural engineer Bill Faciane first started work at Hardlines Design Company in 1997, he assured me he would work on anything we needed, except he would not pick out any colors. Bill came to us with a pretty impressive range of experience (Navy builder, construction superintendant, cost estimator, and facilities planner), so we found plenty of things for him to work on, including construction management, roof repair and replacement, interior renovations, and work on exterior building envelopes (To date, we’ve never had to ask him to pick out colors). A few years later, Bill told me he went to boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes and swore he’d never go back. Well, that’s one promise I had to make him break multiple times, since we’ve had several projects there since 1998.

Congratulations to the 2012 Recchie Award Winners!

December 20, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(by Andy Sewell, originally posted October 1, 2012 )

Hardlines Design Company would like to congratulate our friends at Schooley Caldwell Associates and Burgess & Niple, who were on the teams that jointly won the 2012 James B. Recchie Award on Thursday, September 27th. “A River Runs Through It” could easily describe the projects that won this year: the Scioto Mile project (project team member: Schooley Caldwell Associates), and the Scioto River Bridges project (project team member: Burgess & Niple).

A full list of Columbus Landmarks award winners for 2012 can be found here.

Columbus Landmarks’ 2012 Annual Design & Preservation Awards Tonight!

December 20, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(by Andy Sewell, originally posted September 27, 2012)

It’s that time of year again, when Columbus Landmarks presents the annual Design & Preservation Awards. Our friends at Schooley Caldwell Associates and at Burgess & Niple are nominees for the James B. Recchie Design Award honoring excellence in urban design this year.

The event is being held at the historic Lincoln Theatre in downtown Columbus, one of our landmark projects and coincidentally (or not), the project for which we won the 2011 Recchie Design Award. Come and rub shoulders with Columbus’ best design professionals! (Hey, do you really need an excuse to take in the gorgeous Egyptian Revival restoration?)

Lincoln Theatre interior, as viewed from the stage.

Good luck to all the nominees!

Heritage Tourism, Hardlines Design style!

December 20, 2016UncategorizedCharissa Durst

(by Charissa Durst, originally posted on September 7, 2012)

In the past two months, my husband Don and I managed to take a couple of weekend days off and explore the sites at the Dayton Aviation National Historical Park. Don has a National Park Service passport book and is obsessed with getting as many stamps as possible. Dayton is an easy day trip and good for five passport stamps.

On a Saturday in late June, we drove to Dayton and stopped at the Wright Brother’s Memorial near Area B of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. HDC actually worked on a project here in 2008-2009 to stabilize the archaeological mounds that ring the edge of the memorial site The memorial features a visitor center, memorial obelisk, and an overlook to Huffman Dam and the edge of Huffman Prairie Flying Field, where the Wilbur and Orville Wright perfected their flying machine in the early 1900s.

While at the visitor center, we picked up brochures for other area attractions and learned that if you visited seven of twelve aviation-related sites, you receive a free “Wilbear Wright” teddy bear, complete with goggles, scarf, and leather jacket. The bear looked really cute, so I was determined to get one!

The Wright Brothers Memorial provided one of the seven stamps. Next, we drove through downtown Dayton to the Wright Cycle Company complex, which consists of the shop operated by the Wright Brother and the Hoover Block, out of which the Wright Brothers operated a printing company. We received our second stamp at this location.

Next, we drove a few blocks further for our third stamp and a quick look at the Paul Dunbar House, jointly operated with the Ohio Historical Society. Paul Dunbar was a nationally-acclaimed African American poet who was also a friend and colleague of the Wright Brothers and their printing company. HDC did a study of Dunbar’s namesake theatre in Wichita, Kansas.

Paul Dunbar House in Dayton, Ohio

Our fourth stop was Carillon Historical Park, home of the 1905 Wright Flyer III. This was originally intended to be a quick stop to see the flyer and get a stamp, but on that particular Saturday the park was hosting a model train show. If there’s one thing my husband likes to do besides look at airplanes, it’s look at trains. So, we ended up staying at Carillon for the rest of the day, leaving me three stamps short of bringing the Wilbear home.

View of a Section of an N scale model railroad

So, on a weekend in early July, Don and I drove back to Dayton and headed south to see a working version of the Wright Model B Flyer and obtain our fifth stamp. Then, we headed back toward the National Museum of the United States Air Force for the sixth and seventh stamps (a separate one was issued for the Aviation Hall of Fame).

View of the Wright Model B Flyer

The Air Force Museum was packed, and trips to the hangars on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base were sold out earlier in the morning. Don and I had visited these once before, but not since they expanded into a third hangar bay. Oh well, maybe next time. Instead, we went to the newest section of the museum that we had not yet visited, which contained missiles and aircraft associated with the Southeast Asia and Cold War missions.

View of Cold War Gallery from the missile balcony

The missiles were displayed in their own two-story silo-like wing, arranged in a circle so the space resembled a columned temple. HDC had recently completed a project on the Nike Missile Battery in Cleveland, so I was actively looking for one. But, the museum did not have one of these missiles on display at this time.

View of missile display

In the Cold War gallery, my eye fell immediately on the slick black shape of the F-117 Stealth Fighter. When Don and I were working on the HAER documentation of Area B in 1992, we got a phone call from the base historian to get out to the old runway to watch a plane landing. We actually witnessed this fighter land on the Area B runway on its way to being curated at the museum. We were able to walk around the plane after it landed, but could not get closer than 10 feet while and armed guard stood on duty because its avionics were still intact. But, it’s pretty cool to be able to point to that plane and know that I saw it fly in and land 20 years ago.

F-117 Stealth Fighter