BY ARNOLD BERKE

(Art by Richard Thompson)

The best parties offer fine settings, first-rate food and music, and crowds eclectic enough to all but ensure happy chatter. So it was at the opening reception of the National Preservation Conference on Sept. 29 in Louisville, held outside on a stretch of West Main Street. Framed by rows of late-19th-century mercantile buildings葉he ornate stone, cast iron, and terra-cotta caused many a neck to crane葉he block party was a model of merriment. (The ultrafine Kentucky bourbon being poured may have had something to do with that.) To top it off, the weather was flawless. More than one person was heard to pronounce this the Trust's best opener ever.

... The fete followed the first plenary session, at the crisply modern Kentucky Center for the Arts. The keynoters, fiction writer–philosopher Wendell Berry and growth policy ace Bruce Katz, presented two views of the search for community葉he first an abstract and sometimes worried look at how we've sought that end, the second a fact-dense portrait of sprawl's causes and cures. (A striking notion from Berry: "Mere opposition finally blinds us to the good of the things we are trying to save.") Announcements peppered the session. The Trust has given $15,000 to start the 2004 Hurricane Relief Fund, working with Floridians to assess and remedy damage from last year's storms. A new Kentucky Preservation Fund, backed by local donors and run by the Trust with Bluegrass State groups, has been born. And Home & Garden Television will donate $1 million葉he third such gift葉o its joint initiative with the Trust, Restore America: A Salute to Preservation. Check out the cable channel's latest series, Generation Renovation, which debuted in November, showing owners injecting new life into old houses.

... As in years past, the menu of educational sessions was as long as it was enticing. How to choose from topics spanning archaeology to transportation, with countless temptations in between? Not easily, but by the look of the crowds rushing cheerfully from room to room, folks were gobbling up as much of the feast as possible. This year's offerings included "The Recent Past Dating Game," a take on the legendary TV show in which the "bachelors" advocated different ways to save not-so-old buildings. "Not Your Grandma's Revolving Fund" exchanged ideas on using the classic financing tool in new ways. "$41 Trillion Up for Grabs" explained how the intergenerational transfer of wealth might be put to work for the movement. One session tackled the cause as a whole, sagely peering into "The Future of Preservation."

... Tours offered a fresh-air gander at the real thing, the countryside being a case in point. A trip down the Paris Pike, running through horse country from Paris to Lexington, showed off the stunning results of a sensitive road widening that's a model for teamwork among preservationists and highway designers. Back in town, tourists viewed 20th-century houses of the Lustron, Gunnison, and modern ranch types. Some excursions took in Indiana riches庸rom Madison, one of the three original Main Street towns, to the enormous, domed, and partly restored West Baden Springs Hotel. Buses were not the only transport, though. One expedition bicycled through 15 miles of Louisville's parks, many the work of Frederick Law Olmsted.

... The city's front yard, a.k.a. the Ohio River, provided the backdrop for the closing party, thrown on the Belle of Louisville, a 90-year-old steamboat (and National Historic Landmark). Outfitted to evoke old times and places, the Belle did a fine job of rollin' on the river as its passengers dined and danced, mellowing out of conference mode.

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