Features
Traditional Building Turns 30!
Happy Anniversary! You might have seen a recent article in Architectural Digest, which declares that traditional building and classical design is “trending.” Several of the professionals whose work we regularly feature were quoted in the story. The gist of their remarks might be summarized “trad is rad.”
Here we are, come full circle from 1988, when Clem Labine successfully founded TRADITIONAL BUILDING, to serve a growing need for product and design information, aimed at professionals involved in historic preservation, restoration and renovation, and traditional new construction.
Labine knew then what is still true today: that architects, contractors, interior designers, and building owners need credible and easy access to period accurate products and services. Readers often tell us, “If I see it in TRADITIONAL BUILDING, I know the product is appropriate and that the supplier understands my business.”
Twenty years ago, in 1998, TRADITIONAL BUILDING expanded service to readers by launching traditional-building.com, which, in concert with the print magazine, made product research and supplier sourcing even easier. The TRADITIONAL BUILDING audience grew beyond paid magazine subscribers, reaching a wider audience with freely available information on the web.
Effective with our 30th anniversary, architects, contractors, interior designers, and building owners who qualify may receive a complimentary subscription to TRADITIONAL BUILDING. The news gets better. Effective with the October 30th anniversary issue, we merge sibling publication PERIOD HOMES with TRADITIONAL BUILDING to make one magazine eight times a year with broad content about the field—commercial, civic, and residential. We’ve added new departments, columns, and features—more insight, more product coverage, more projects. There might be new content but our team are traditional building enthusiasts who have been in the business or reporting on traditional design for many years.
Although we say good-bye to editor Martha McDonald as she retires this fall and thank her for her loyalty and dedication to the subject, we welcome Nancy Berry as the editor of the publication. As the editor of New Old House, and Period Homes, she is well versed in the marketplace and will lead the charge along with Managing Editor Emily O’Brien and Editorial Director Patricia Poore.
We’re upping our game, and intend to serve readers and advertisers for years to come.
Peter H. Miller, Hon. AIA, is the publisher and President of TRADITIONAL BUILDING, PERIOD HOMES and the Traditional Building Conference Series, and podcast host for Building Tradition, Active Interest Media's business to business media platform. AIM also publishes OLD HOUSE JOURNAL; NEW OLD HOUSE; FINE HOMEBUILDING; ARTS and CRAFTS HOMES; TIMBER HOME LIVING; ARTISAN HOMES; FINE GARDENING and HORTICULTURE. The Home Group integrated media portfolio serves over 50 million architects, builders, craftspeople, interior designers, building owners, homeowners and home buyers.
Pete lives in a classic Sears house, a Craftsman-style Four Square built in 1924, which he has lovingly restored over a period of 30 years. Resting on a bluff near the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., just four miles from the White House, Pete’s home is part of the Palisades neighborhood, which used to be a summer retreat for the District’s over-heated denizens.
Before joining Active Interest Media (AIM), Pete co-founded Restore Media in 2000 which was sold to AIM in 2012. Before this, Pete spent 17 years at trade publishing giant Hanley Wood, where he helped launch the Remodeling Show, the first trade conference and exhibition aimed at the business needs and interests of professional remodeling contractors. He was also publisher of Hanley Wood’s Remodeling, Custom Home, and Kitchen and Bath Showroom magazines and was the creator of Remodeling’s Big 50 Conference (now called the Leadership Conference).
Pete participates actively with the American Institute of Architects’ Historic Resources Committee and also serves as President of the Washington Mid Atlantic Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. He is a long-time member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an enthusiastic advocate for urbanism, the revitalization of historic neighborhoods and the benefits of sustainability, including the adaptive reuse of historic buildings.
