The Schaeffer House today (Mississippi Heritage Trust)

We invite you to send your before-and-after photos to us at preservation@nthp.org.

The Schaeffer House in Pass Christian, Miss., has made a comeback. Katrina's storm waters had swept away the lower level of their house, but its pillars kept it from collapsing. Today, three years after the deadly storm, the Schaeffers have restored it with federal funds—and advice from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Schaeffer's story is not typical, however. "Of 1,400 National Register-listed buildings on the Mississippi coast, roughly 900 remain," writes Alan Huffman in the magazine's September/ October issue. "What used to be was a seaside promenade lined with historic houses, some more than 200 years old, that ran intermittently for perhaps 50 miles along the Mississippi coast."

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Read more about National Trust's work in the Gulf Coast and New Orleans >>

Welcome Home

Swetman House, post-Katrina (Mississippi Heritage Trust)	August 2007 (Mississippi Heritage Trust)

The owners of the Swetman House in Biloxi, Miss., had almost given up on the devastated 1905 house when volunteers from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Mississippi Heritage Trust convinced them to stabilize it. With restoration almost complete, the Swetman family is being reimbursed for the work through the Katrina Relief Grant, federal funds for preservation of storm-damaged historic buildings. Read more about the Swetman House >>

The Inn Crowd

Hotel Fauchère before	The Italianate inn after the five-year restoration

Sara Bernhardt, Mae West, Lionel Barrymore, Babe Ruth, Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, and Robert Frost—all were guests of the Hotel Fauchère in Milford, Pa., 75 miles from Manhattan. After a five-year restoration, the 16-room hotel reopened last summer with a trendy interior and a dazzling restaurant.

Smokin' Lofts

Cigar factory in August 2005 (Miles Development Partners)	The lofts today, with restored walls and new 20-foot-high ceilings (Miles Development Partners)

Once the world's largest cigar factory, a 1915 handmade-block building in Ybor City, Fla., now houses 53 loft apartments. Atlanta architects Lord, Aeck & Sargent won an award from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation in May for the design of the $7.4 Million Box Factory Lofts, which have revitalized the suburban Tampa neighborhood.

Side by Side

Before (Allison Holloway)	After (Allison Holloway)

Downtown Bellingham, Wash., is experiencing a revitalizaiton of sorts. These two conjoined buildings were returned to their original c. 1903 appearances earlier this year.

Milling About

Porterdale before (Pimsler Hoss Architects, Inc.)	Mill after (Pimsler Hoss Architects, Inc.)

Closed for three decades, a riverfront mill 40 miles east of Atlanta was refitted as apartments and retail space and reopened earlier this year. In May, the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation gave Porterdale Mill's architects an award for its work on the mill buildings, some of which date to 1899. "The project aims to restore life to the old buildings and the town alike," says architect William Bryant of Atlanta-based Pimsler Hoss Architects, Inc.

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