Keynote Speech by Karen M. Gravel, Lord Aeck Sargent, “Places of Influence–Understanding and Preserving the Environment of a Writer”

Karen M. Gravel, Lord Aeck Sargent Planning and Design, Inc. is a historic preservation architect practicing in Atlanta. She serves as a principal, the Director of Historic Preservation and chair of the governing board for the company. She is a Kentucky native, having graduated with a degree in History from Centre College in Danville, KY, in 1993, before earning a Master of Architecture from Georgia Tech in 1999. She has been working on old buildings for the past 25 years, including several projects for Georgia College–the GCSU Campus Preservation Plan (2005), Hill House (2012), Ennis Hall (2014), Terrell Hall (2020), and exterior improvements to the Old Governor’s Mansion. She is now researching and writing a historic structure report for the Gordon/Cline/O’Connor home for GCSU. She loves the intersection of history, architecture, and the stories they tell.

This is part of the Flannery O'Connor's Second Century: Looking Forward, Looking Back conference sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.