Bio
From the beginning, Bob has dedicated his career to community planning, historic preservation, central city revitalization and woodworking. In the mid-1970s he spent several years as an apprentice to a German furniture and cabinetmaker. Soon afterward, he opened a business designing and building custom furniture and also bought his first house--a craftsman bungalow--to renovate. Since that time Bob has been involved in the restoration and rehabilitation of over 150 historic properties, many of them award winning. He usually has multiple ground-up restorations/renovations going on at any given time and has restored & weatherized over 6,000 historic windows.
In the 1980s he continued to restore homes and build furniture for clients from California to Chicago.
In 1991 Bob was appointed the Housing Director for The Rock Island Economic Growth Corporation in Rock Island, Illinois. At Rock Island High School he started and taught a new voc-tech program to give students hands-on-experience in rehabbing historic homes. Bob, his wife Pat and their dogs George & Gracie live in Hannibal, Missouri. Their 1859 home is a brick Italianate located it the Central Park, National Historic District and is the headquarters for Bob’s new school, The Belvedere School for Hands-On Preservation.
Bob’s media career began in 1980s with a weekly column in the Des Moines Register as The House Doctor. He has written and co-written many woodworking and preservation articles in national magazines including; Meredith Publishing’s Wood Magazine and Renovation Style Magazine. Currently Bob writes and self-syndicates a monthly feature story on historic house restoration.
In 1986 Bob began a syndicated radio show called "The House Doctor". In 1996 Bob began production of the national, weekly PBS program, About Your House with Bob Yapp. Bob was executive producer, writer and host for this National Trust for Historic Preservation sponsored, 52 show series.
Since leaving PBS Bob has dedicated himself to preservation education.
He has helped establish and taught at numerous preservation trades programs around the country in high schools and colleges. In addition to operating and teaching at The Belvedere School for Hands-On Preservation in Hannibal, he founded and teaches The Historic Preservation Trades Program for at-risk students at Hannibal High School.
Bob is the president of Preservation Resources, Inc. and travels America as a historic preservation and planning consultant. In 2015 Bob restored all the historic windows in the Cupula of George Washington's Mount Vernon Home. He gives keynote speeches, conducts seminars and hands-on workshops on just about any subject having to do with preservation, housing and community. In 2006, 2009, 2010 & 2016 Bob was a member of the Design Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington D.C.
Bob’s first book, About Your House, was published by Bay Books in December 1997.
