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.

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.
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.
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.