Professor Recognized with Blue Grass Trust Award

LEXINGTON, Ky. (July 2, 2010) − Clyde Carpenter, chair of the University of Kentucky Department of Historic Preservation, has been named the 2010 recipient of the John Wesley Hunt Award. The award, presented by the Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation, is presented to an individual who has demonstrated a lifetime commitment to the preservation movement in Central Kentucky.

The Blue Grass Trust Annual Preservation Awards recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals and organizations to the Blue Grass Trust or to the preservation movement in Kentucky. The Hunt Award is one of nine honors bestowed by the organization, including another award named for Carpenter recognizing excellence in adaptive re-use of a building or buildings. Carpenter was presented with the award at Blue Grass Trust’s annual meeting and awards ceremony held June 27.

Until recently, Carpenter served the local community on the Board of Architectural Review for the Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, where since the early 1970s he was either a member or chair.

The John Wesley Hunt Award is the second historic preservation award Carpenter has received this summer for his work in the field. He also was selected by the Kentucky Heritage Council/State Historic Preservation Office as the recipient of this year’s Ida Lee Willis Memorial Award, which recognizes an individual who has demonstrated outstanding dedication to the cause of historic preservation in the Commonwealth.

"Both of these awards are very great honors. When I think about the saints in historic preservation who have received these awards in the past, my work in preservation seems pale by comparison," said Carpenter. "These awards really belong to my students from whom I have learned far more than I have been able to teach them and to my colleagues in the College of Design and the preservation community who have inspired me far more than I have been a source of inspiration."

 
Serving as the Clay Lancaster Endowed Professor of Historic Preservation, Carpenter also serves the UK College of Design as a professor of architecture and is a former interim dean. His areas of specialty are residential architectural design, both new construction as well as renovation/restoration/adaptive re-use of historic structures, and the modern house in Kentucky, about which he is writing a book with Gregory Luhan, associate dean of research at the College of Design. A fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA), Carpenter earned his bachelor's degree in civil and architectural engineering from UK and his master's degree with academic honors in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.