But that often acrimonious debate misses a larger point. I once spent months armed with a pry bar, scraper, and wire brush, laboring to reveal the rustic authenticity of a log cabin. Peel away enough plaster, expose enough beams and hand-hewn timbers, and I would touch the unadulterated past. Or so I thought. In fact, the first thing anyone who built a log cabin did in centuries past was cover up that it was a log cabin with plaster and lath and clapboards.
Antiquarian reverence can be as untrue to the past as philistine garishness.
Preserving the past is not about a piece of molding but about a way of life. Inc. All rights reserved.