Carol Davis, Author of Restoration

Lenox Library is pleased to welcome Carol Davis to discuss her debut novel, Restoration, an evocative story of an American architect who travels to rural England to restore a centuries-old barn—and finds herself rebuilding the fractured story of her own family. What does it mean to rebuild something that time has nearly erased? A literary novel about grief, inheritance, and the quiet ways the past shapes the structures we build—and the ones we must rebuild. In 1984, an American architect travels to rural England to oversee the restoration of a centuries-old barn. The assignment promises professional challenge and a welcome escape from the unresolved tensions of her life at home. But the work quickly becomes something more complicated. As she begins uncovering the building’s layered history—old foundations, forgotten rooms, and the stories embedded in its beams—letters from the past begin to surface, revealing a family history she never fully understood. The deeper she goes into the restoration, the more the project begins to mirror her own reckoning with grief, inheritance, and identity. Set against the quiet beauty of the English countryside, Restoration is a richly textured literary novel about the ways the past lives inside the structures we inherit—both the physical ones we restore and the emotional ones we carry with us. Carol Davis holds a BA in Art and Architectural History and an MFA in Writing and Literature. Her work as a researcher, archivist, teacher, and writer has taken her into close collaboration with architects and art conservators in New York City, Los Angeles, and London. She lives between New York City and the Berkshires. Restoration is her first novel. Copies of Carol’s book will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of The Bookstore.