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Brick & Mortar Monthly

Brick & Mortar Monthly, a column that follows one couple’s efforts to preserve a historic Hopkinsville home, is published monthly. It is written by Grace Abernethy, an artist and preservationist who purchased the old Dalton home, 713 E. Seventh St., with her husband Brendan in March 2023.

A beaten path to the Dalton kitchen

Grace and Brendan Abernethy are taking their kitchen back to its origin, which will include space for the venerable beaten biscuit machine.
beaten biscuit

Domestic work and family ties on East Seventh Street

Sarah Dalton Todd's memoir provided clues Grace Abernethy sought to learn about Black families who did laundry and other domestic work on East Seventh Street around the turn of the 20th century.
The basement of the Dalton house on East Seventh Street. This room might have been were laundry was washed by hand. (Photo by Grace Abernethy)

Brick & Mortar Monthly: Ghosts of Seventh Street past

Nearly half of the old homes that stood within the boundaries of the East Seventh Street Historic District when it was designated in 1983 are now gone. But columnist Grace Abernethy still sees reason to hope for the revival of areas like her neighborhood.
An early postcard image of Virginia Park following its development in the 1910s. (From the collection of Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County)

Brick by brick: Rebuilding the Dalton house chimney

After a tornado took out the Dalton house chimney, owners Grace and Brendan Abernethy, along with a mason who works on historic properties, spent 40 hours and used 700 bricks to rebuild it.
Dalton Grace roof

Brick & Mortar Monthly: A window into the Dalton house’s past

The fact that the Dalton house still had nearly all of its historic windows was a big selling point for Hopkinsville's Grace and Brendan Abernethy, whose restoration efforts now provide lessons for others working on older homes.
brendan replacing palladian feature
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​612 S. Main St., Suite 203​
Hopkinsville, KY 42240
270-484-1145

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