Home and Garden Edition: Two of Petersburg character preservers The apartment and the net house

As a teenager in California, Wally McDonald watched the community he grew up in become unrecognizable and commercialized, setting the groundwork for his later effort to preserve Petersburg's character.

"I've just really appreciated this town over the years," said McDonald, who's owned an apartment complex on Hammer Slough for about 22 years. "And I just want to kind of maintain it for as long as possible."

McDonald owns a four-unit apartment complex on Birch Street in the historic district of Petersburg. He was renovating one of the units recently and found electrical insulators and wiring tha...