Alice Ball and The Trouble (or one of them anyway) with the Internet

I have Google Alerts set for all sorts of things. This can be problematic on many levels. One of my alerts is for Neutra. I have been talking, via email, and working with Dion Neutra about and one things related to the works  of his late father. Because of my alert, I get all sorts of news from around the internet about all things Neutra. This is good except that I also get every sale announcement about Lysol Neutra Air.

Another alert I have is "Alice Ball". This is, of course, The Alice Ball House built by Philip Johnson in New Canaan but that's not the "trouble" mentioned above.

The trouble is that once information is printed on the interent it is there, for the most part, for ever. That means that information printed here or in other blogs and websites can be picked up by Google or any other search engine, and treated as new.

For example... this morning I got a Google Alert that Philip Johnson's Alice Ball House was again facing demolition. That owner Christina Ross was again filing for a demo permit. The article was posted on the Connecticut Trust For Historic Preservation website and the date, probably autogenerated through Javascript, was March 2 which is today.

I called Prudy Parris, the listing agent, for confirmation. She assured me that this was just one of those self perpetuating news items. She also said that Ms. Ross has all of the permits needed to build the second home she wants to build on the site while still preserving the Ball House.

The house remains for sale at $3.5m and more information can be found at Prudy's website .

It was nice to find out that the agent is herself a member of DocoMomo, the modern preservation group.