A 1971 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Doug Bucher joined the Peace Corps after college and found himself working on the restoration of a hospital in Brazil.



A 1971 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Doug Bucher joined the Peace Corps after college and found himself working on the restoration of a hospital in Brazil.

Asian aesthetic Doug Bucher finds furnishings and art almost everywher
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Sep 17, 2004

Times Union-Albany NY

by Ruth Fantasia

Doug Bucher began decorating his home when he was just 8 years old.

The stepson of an ad man who built window displays and the grandson of an interior designer, Bucher had been surrounded by an awareness of proportion, color and texture all his young life. One of his first memories is of visiting the castle-like building of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

But it was the moment he first saw the facade of a Chinese temple at the Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, that he fell in love with Asian art and architecture.

"I began saving my allowance to buy little Chinese teapots and ceramics," says Bucher, who is now a nationally recognized restoration architect and a partner at John G. Waite Associates in Albany.

Now, 40 plus years later, his three-story Troy townhome is filled with pieces from the Far East, imperial Russia, early America and, well, the nearest discount store.

"I love places like Marshall's where you can just find stuff," says Bucher who has managed to arrange so many items so carefully that it's hard to tell what's old and what's new.

"It's decorated per se, but I decorated it by accumulation," Bucher says.

A 1971 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Bucher joined the Peace Corps after college and found himself working on the restoration of a hospital in Brazil.

Over the years he has worked on such historic sites as Blair House in Washington; Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia Home; and Olana. And although he's never been to China, Bucher led a team through the reconstruction of Yin Yu Tang, a 16-bedroom house built in southeastern China around 1800 and moved to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., for permanent display.

Yet when he purchased a circa 1888 house constructed by Richard Hart, who also built the Marble House that is now home to the Rensselaer Historical Society, Bucher declined to restore the house to its original condition.

When this story was posted in November 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

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