I’m an architect, and I’ve lived and worked in downtown York for the last seven years. I serve on York’s Historic Architectural Review Board, on the York County History Center’s Building and Grounds Committee, and for the last year and a half I’ve been sharing my hand-drafted pencil-and-ink portraits of York’s historic buildings under the name York Architecture Illustrated.

I grew up in a place called Cypress (a suburb of Houston, Texas) which, while originally mostly rural, was developed heavily and haphazardly through the late 1970’s into a series of planned suburban communities. Throughout my life, the environment around my home was changing so frequently that physical ties to community and history were often lost at a rate too quick for preservation. This regular feeling of loss – even grief – left me seeking a sense of place and shared identity that eventually led me to Pennsylvania, and later York.

It was through living and working in York City that I arrived at a way that I could truly engage with the surrounding environment by combining my practical skills with my passion for preservation. I have some experience drawing in pencil and ink, and as an architect, I have a few years of hand-drafting classes under my belt. While this skill is no longer used in practice, it felt fitting to revive the techniques of historic architects to shine a contemporary light on York’s beauty, as well as return the favor to a place that has made me feel at home.