BY ARNOLD BERKE

(Art by Richard Thompson)

And Chicago makes two. A year after launching in San Francisco, the Partners in Preservation (PIP) program staged its second metrowide contest. In September and October, residents of Chicagoland voted on-line for their favorite historic sites, choosing from a list of 25 identified by the Trust and PIP's sponsor, American Express. The winners, to be announced in November, will share $1 million in restoration grants from AmEx. (Check www.partnersinpreservation.com for the happy champs.) Through PIP, AmEx has pledged $5 million over five years to Trust-linked ventures.

... It's installment two for another Trust partnership, with The Taunton Press, which has just published New Rooms for Old Houses: Beautiful Additions for the Traditional Home, by Frank Shirley. This volume in Taunton's Trust alliance steers you away from clumsiness as you add on to your colonial, Victorian, or other old abode. Using 17 built examples from east and west coasts, Shirley, a Cambridge, Mass., architect, shows it's perfectly possible to make an addition look first-rate while respecting the old house and having the whole structure look, and function, just fine.

... A big win has cheered foes of a proposed development hard by Harpers _Ferry National Historical Park, along the Potomac in West Virginia. Opponents of the scheme-a hotel, conference center, and office buildings-scored in July when the Jefferson County commissioners rejected the developer's rezoning request. A coalition of the Trust, Civil War Preservation Trust, National Parks Conservation Association, Harpers Ferry Conservancy, and others worked hard to secure the vote (as well as prior rejections by local boards). Aiding the cause in its wide-ranging way, the Trust appealed to its members for support, testified against the proposal, provided legal analysis, and funded a preservation ad in local papers; senior staff made personal calls to each county commissioner. In pursuit of a happy finale, the coalition is now chipping away at its next goal: adding the property-site of a Civil War battle just before Antietam-to the park.

... The hot topic in Oregon of late is Measure 49. This Election Day proposal would tamp down the excesses of 2004's infamous Measure 37, which requires the state and localities to pay owners if land-use restrictions lower property values-or to allow non-enforcement of those rules. The measure weakened Oregon's much-_admired system of urban-growth controls, making it easier to develop farmland and forests. The Trust, 1000 Friends of Oregon, and other groups support 49 as a chance, the Friends says, "to fix the mess that Measure 37 has created around the state."

... Erase those images of crumbling concrete from your mind-the Ennis House is back. The 1924 masterpiece by Frank Lloyd Wright now sits strong and restored on its Los Angeles hillside, a far cry from its recent ruinous state. Years of decay, worsened by an earthquake and heavy rains, earned the house a berth on the Trust's 11 Most list in 2005 (Preservation, November/December 2005). The Trust, Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, and Los Angeles Conservancy raised money for reconstruction, which included structural upgrading, a new roof, restored interior features, and repair or replacement of 3,000 of the house's famous concrete blocks. Running the show is the Ennis House Foundation, which is working on plans to reopen the site.

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