Renovations Continue on Blair County's 'Most Important Building'

John Rita, a conservator of art and architecture, said buildings talk to him. As a young boy, he wrote in his journal, "I see faces in the paint peelings as an erosion of time," and that it gives him a feeling of those who came before him.

Preserving the past while looking to the future was the challenge Rita and his team faced when they took on the work of renovating the second floor of the Blair County Courthouse, which includes restoring two courtrooms and the lawyers' lobby to their original state, before years of neglect and poorly executed renovations destroyed its grandeur.

On Friday mo...