Architectural Historian
Therese Guillory attained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology with a minor in History from the University of New Orleans in 1991. At the University of New Orleans, she volunteered in the archeology lab of Dr. Richard Beavers.
Ms. Guillory received a Master of Preservation Studies (MPS) from Tulane University, graduating in 2006 and studied under Dr. Eugene Cizek, the nation’s leading expert on Creole architecture. As part of the MPS program she participated in a cultural study of the St. James Cemetery tracing the family histories of plantation owners who had been buried there as well as documenting the tomb of Confederate hero Ludger Leopold Armant with measured drawings for the Historical American Building Survey. The survey was later archived at the Library of Congress. This entailed completing measured drawings, research, and assessing the structural damage and conservation recommendations.
During the summer 2005, Ms. Guillory completed an internship with noted Preservation Architect David Dillard conducting HABS documentation on Battery Ransom constructed in 1890’s at Fort Jackson in Plaquemines Parish. She assisted in taking HABS measurements of the large concrete battery in the middle of Fort Jackson. The survey began with the perimeter and moved toward the inside where the mechanics of the guns were housed. After recording all of the measurements, survey of the area began with the Top Gun, Nikon Total Station Equipment. Points were taken ranging from the battery to the outer wall of the fort along its perimeter to use in mapping of the HABS drawings. Not since the renovation of Fort Jackson into a public park in the early 1960’s has preservation work of this scale been conducted at the fort. Future preservation work will take place based on the findings.
Ms. Guillory was employed as a Historic Preservation Specialist at ESI for a short time in the fall of 2005. She rejoined Earth Search as Architectural Historian and Assistant Historian in the spring of 2007.
Ms. Guillory has a great deal of experience assessing buildings and structures using NRHP criteria. Major projects include: FEMA architectural surveys of Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Jefferson, Plaquemines, and Washington Parishes. After Hurricane Katrina, numerous historic resources in the affected area were at risk. Ms. Guillory and ESI assisted FEMA to identify potential NRHP historic districts and individual properties. Then, Ms. Guillory and ESI surveyed the new NRHP historic districts of Edgewood Park, an early- to mid-twentieth-century residential neighborhood in the Gentilly area of New Orleans and Pontchartrain Park, a ca. 1950s and 1960s subdivision. Additions to several existing NRHP districts were also surveyed. These districts included Bywater, Holy Cross, Esplanade Ridge, and Carrollton totaling over 3000 buildings.
Ms. Guillory was a senior member of a team of surveyors in evaluating the buildings in terms of NRHP criteria. Many of the buildings on the list were found to be contributing elements of both NRHP and City of New Orleans Historic Districts Landmark Commission (HDLC) historic districts. Additional capacity that Ms. Guillory has served FEMA as architectural historian since Hurricane Katrina has been in the re-survey of existing NRHP/HDLC historic districts. The historic fabric of the various New Orleans historic districts has changed as the result of the hurricane and many of the districts were placed in the Register decades ago. These new surveys document the current composition of the districts and indicate buildings that have been lost since placement in the Register.
When not conducting architectural surveys, Ms. Guillory worked as a field archeologist on a Phase III data recovery on the C.J Peete Housing Complex (Phase III completed in February 2009) in uptown New Orleans. She has conducted background research for field investigations, including examination of site forms and technical reports on file at the Louisiana Division of Archaeology in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to identify areas where cultural resources were likely to be preserved, to identify previously recorded sites within or near the project area, and to provide a context for assessing the significance of sites located within proposed study areas. Her laboratory duties at ESI have included preparing prehistoric and historic artifacts for curation.
Ms. Guillory has also worked as assistant historian and researched numerous projects for ESI, producing site-specific histories and area overviews for projects in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas. Ms. Guillory is very familiar with a wide range of documentary source materials, including the U.S. Census, local newspapers (often no longer extant), land records, historic maps, plats, photographs, and the work of community historians.