Wow, that is a very ambitious project for someone who says they are very new to LA quilting. However, it can be done. I would think if you marked the quilt out with your design you can then follow your drawn lines but the design you describe will have loads of starts and stops or backtracking (for the building). Traditional wholecloths usually feature a center design so you have that, your building. I would then frame it in someway to further emphasize it as you want this to be the focal point of the quilt. A double line about a 1/4" apart always looks nice, espeically if done as an oval or a circle. You can then embellish it with feathers or sprays. How historic is the building? Maybe you can look at architectural elements from that period to use as embellishment. Then you could do crosshatching to fill in your background. Karen McTavish has beautiful feathered hearts that you could put in each corner. I used her designs to do Creme Brulee pictured in the link below:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...e-t184706.html