photographs by Paul Rocheleau

An Eccentric Plan Resulted in a Workable and Beautiful Space.

OVER THE PAST 27 YEARS, Janet and Jim Laverdiere have, with the help of restoration experts, restored nine homes of their own while raising a family. Jim was running his manufacturing business (Kleenline Corp.), but there was always a house project going on. Jim sold his company in 2013 and, after buying the Homan House shown here, decided to turn his hobby into a business. Fine Period Homes was founded in 2014. The company of highly skilled tradespeople selectively chooses important or endangered houses to restore and bring to market.

The front entry long ago was removed to make room for a trolley line. Correct in proportion and details, the new inset design is based on the entry of the General John Glover House. The builder was Nat Emerson. Paint color is ‘Blair House Buff’, custom-mixed by Benjamin Moore from a Colonial Williamsburg color.

Every period architectural detail in this magnificent ca. 1744 Georgian home has been meticulously restored; all 12 original fireplaces—two now in bathrooms—have been preserved. The Homan House in Marblehead, Mass., is the first project of Fine Period Homes, founded by serial restorer Jim Laverdiere to turn his “hobby” of many years into a business.

Every inch of this house on a main street in the old seacoast town needed restoration, repair, or reproduction—from structural members in the roof and basement to fine mouldings. The 12 over 12 windows are new: bench-made and plankframed in mahogany by Architectural Components. Skived cedar clapboards are fastened with forged rosehead nails. Interior walls are plaster over wood lath. Much of the new trim and crown moulding was reproduced using hand planes.

The Kennebec Company kitchen was fitted into an existing addition. opposite: Millwork throughout the house was replicated; paint colors are based on evidence in the house and colors typical of the period.

Fitted into the existing addition, the kitchen has an unusual plan that nevertheless works, as the layout created usage zones. Storage is tucked next to the old hearth, with a cooker opposite and a cleanup area adjacent. A corridor became a practical butler’s pantry next to the dining room; the space terminates in a small powder room. Laverdiere worked closely with The Kennebec Company on the design, asking them to copy the raised-panel profiles from one of the original 18th century doors in the house. (The cabinets are painted in Benjamin Moore’s ‘Alexandria Beige’.) The space includes an abundance of period-appropriate shelving and cupboards. Georgian trim was reproduced for the fireplace surround in the kitchen; another fireplace warms the tiny breakfast room nearby.

Janet and Jim’s previous homes have included an important 1707 house in Massachusetts. They also converted a 1950s Cape Cod house into a period piece, using a dismantled and rebuilt 1690 house as an addition—the small structure thus saved from demolition. The couple also avidly collect late 17th- and early 18th-century decorative arts. Even when they were little, “our kids’ vocabularies included ‘William and Mary highboy’ and ‘English delft’,” Janet laughs.

“When we take on a restoration, we strive to replicate or, in fact, surpass the level of quality the original craftsmen attained,” Jim says. His intention is to bring back antique houses using only time-tested materials and techniques. “I restored a 15,000-square-foot manufactory 15 years ago,” Jim explains; budget constraints had forced him to spec manufactured whitepine windows. “Within five years,” he reports, “their sills had to be replaced because of the poor quality of the pine. That’s true today for many manufactured windows.”

Estimate the number of historic buildings demolished each year because American communities can’t figure out how to use them, and you would—conservatively—reach a number in the hundreds. Internationally, the number is much greater.

“Unlike a picture or a statue, a building must continue to justify itself on more than artistic grounds,” wrote Constance Greiff in Lost America, From the Atlantic to the Mississippi. “It must continue, in some way, to be functional if it is to survive. And, only recently have Americans begun to accept the notion that function might include the provision of visual delight, variety in the townscape, or a sense of place and identity.”

One of several institutions of higher learning to recognize this latter truth is Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, which is working to restore many of its historic buildings, originally designed as residences, and adapt them for educational use. What’s relevant about this project for individual homeowners is decisions the university made about what features to retain, which to rework, and how to accommodate modern systems and codes.

Yale acquired the Skinner-Trowbridge house in 1978. It had been used in various ways through the years, including for classrooms, but had suffered deterioration over time. In 1999, Yale’s governing board decided to use the mansion, which the New Haven Preservation Trust has called “New Haven’s finest Greek Revival house … a priceless heritage,” to accommodate the School of Management’s prestigious International Center for Finance. For restoration of the 14,OOO-square-foot space, Yale turned to Helpern Architects of New York City, a firm known for its educational and preservation work.

The building is located on Hillhouse Avenue, which was developed in 1792 by James Hillhouse, a 1773 Yale graduate and contemporary of Nathan Hale, on his farm in a rural section of New Haven. Senator Hillhouse, who served in Congress during George Washington’s presidency and as Yale’s treasurer for more than fifty years, laid out a road and lined it with elms. He specified that houses must be set back fifty feet from the two-lane street and mandated that homeowners hire a leading architect for residential design. The result of Hillhouse’s plan was a street Charles Dickens called “the most beautiful in America.” All but two of the homes Dickens admired on the upper section of the street have survived, and all are owned by the university. (Ironically, one of the two no longer standing is Hillhouse’s own, demolished in 1942 at the instruction of its owner, who feared it would “fall to decay, or pass into the hands of strangers who have no interest in it.” Local preservationists tried, but failed, to save it.)

Aaron N. Skinner, a Yale-trained lawyer, bought his 100-foot-wide lot for $1,000 in September 1830 and agreed to build a residence costing at least $3,500 in the six-month period beginning May 1, 1834. For his home’s design, Skinner hired architects Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis; Town’s extensive architectural library stood at the lower end of Hillhouse Avenue. It is said that Davis based his design on Decimus Burton’s plans for the 1823 Greenough Villa in Regent’s Park, London.

His Greek Revival design was cruciform with a two-story Ionic-columned portico facing east to the street. Its central core was balanced by two one-story pavilions, which made a graceful transition from the imposing portico to the landscape. The main entry was a Doric-columned porch on the south side. Built of brick, it was veneered in stucco, coursed to imitate stone blocks, and painted a light stone color. According to one historian, Skinner’s house was the model for “at least nine other Town and Davis temple houses within a radius of fifty miles.”

Skinner, who was admitted to the bar in 1829, founded an exclusive school for boys in the house, served four terms in the Connecticut legislature, and, as mayor of New Haven from 1850-54, took an interest in the city’s parks and streetscape. In 1858 he sold the house to Judge W.W. Boardman, who had it remodeled in a more eclectic style, possibly by Henry Austin, who designed New Haven’s City Hall. The roof parapet was removed and a second story was added to both flanking wings. The upper windows of these additions were outlined with round-headed gouged frames popular in the Victorian period. Inside, the front hall received a new staircase and carved deep-relief crown moldings with chevronesque banding.

In 1907 another new owner, Rutherford Trowbridge, scion of a wealthy New Haven shipping family, expanded the mansion. He added a large dining room featuring a semicircular bay with leaded windows on its north side and an open porch and two-story kitchen/service addition on the west.

For Yale’s restoration, project architect Margaret Castillo took her lead from the building’s architectural pedigree and from historic sources, such as Davis’s diaries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. The intent of the changes was to be consistent with the character of the house and its anticipated use.

Outdoors, sections of original cast-iron fence, found in an outbuilding, were reproduced, and a parterre garden, a buffer between house and rear parking lot, was recreated from plans by Marian Coffin, dating to 1926. The grade behind the house and the basement slab were lowered, permitting the basement to be used for office and administrative space. The basement was also expanded under the west porch, with a scored stucco facing that matches the adjacent foundation. Landscaping and a system of outdoor paths integrate the house with the School of Management complex.

Inside, twelve-foot-seven-inch ceilings on the first floor and ten-foot-seven-inch ceilings on the second floor were retained. The original room configuration was also kept, with a few exceptions. The southwest comer room was subdivided to create space for an elevator, pantry and recycling areas, and an office on each floor. For the elevator, a mezzanine was added off the main stair landing. The rear wing was redesigned to accommodate a staircase and offices. The mansion now houses about twenty administrative and faculty offices, a computer center, a library with desk space for visiting scholars and dignitaries, and a reception/gathering room in the 1907 dining room.

Interior finishes were as important as space design. In the front hall, missing sections of circa 1858 crown molding were meticulously copied—and redone when installation revealed they did not perfectly imitate the originals. The entry’s glass tracery was restored and the sweeping staircase was retained, as were all five of the mansion’s fireplaces. Double-hung replacement windows with true divided lights and wooden muntins were custom-made using insulated glass; new weights carry their heavier bulk. In the library, use of the original interior pocket shutters was revived. Where Greek Revival period curtains once divided rooms, custom-made wooden doors were installed; on the second floor they function as smoke doors off the open stairhall. Inlaid oak and mahogany floors were restored and laid with area rugs instead of institutional wall-to-wall carpeting. The rear staircase has brass handrails and unfading green slate flooring similar to the material used for the outdoor paths—prettier and quieter than metal stairs. In the historic rooms, incandescent chandeliers and lamps replaced fluorescent lighting.

The result of thoughtful planning and careful craftsmanship is a building that meets current codes and standards but minimizes their visual impact. The architects declined to eliminate small sliding panels under the oversized windows, designed to allow the windows to open as doors onto the terrace, to install HVAC units. Instead, they kept the panels and installed discreet brass floor grates under the windows to channel forced hot air heat up from the basement; air conditioning is ducted in the attic through equally discreet ceiling grilles. In the front hall, the required fire command panel is just one foot square; a larger panel is located in the basement. A new rear entry convenient to the parking lot and other School of Management buildings provides access for the disabled, rather than exterior ramps.

At present, the future of the Skinner-Trowbridge house seems assured. Perhaps it is not just a building that has “learned” to function in a new way, but one that has something to teach future architects, international business people, and other communities.

In keeping with the building’s use, work focused on restoring the gracious residential character of the house. The main entrance’s beveled-glass-panel door, sidelights, and flat-arched fanlight with leaded tracery offer a graceful introduction to the interior. Sections of the deeply carved, chevronesque banding on the ceiling’s crown moldings were reproduced.

The grand staircase, once closed off because of water damage to the second floor, was reopened, with the aid of rear fire stairs, sprinklers, and smoke detectors. Here, as throughout the house, incandescent chandeliers and wall sconces were preferred over more institutional fluorescent lighting. Wall decorations include a permanent exhibition of international bond certificates in reproduction frames.

In the lounge/seminar room, added as a dining room in 1907, the clear and rippled leaded-glass bay windows were fully restored, as was the room’s oak wall paneling and fireplace, which is surmounted by the Trowbridge family crest. The joist design of the Colonial Revival ceiling was emphasized, and incandescent light fixtures replaced fluorescent ones.

Restoration Standards

The U.S. Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, drawn from Stewart Brand’s 1994 book, How Buildings Learn:

1. A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.

2. The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.

3. Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements taken from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.

4. Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.

5. Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a historic property shall be preserved.

6. Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.

7. Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to the historic materials shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.

8. Significant archaeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.

9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.

10. New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

Windows manufactured by:
Architectural Components Inc.
26 North Leverett Road
Montague, Massachusetts 01351
413-367-9441 Fax 413-367-9461

Photographs by John Crispin

Making Period Doors From Plank to Paint

When Richard Pieper began restoring his vernacular farmhouse, he knew he would be re-creating parts lost over two centuries of architectural changes. Erected in a rural valley east of Albany, New York, around 1790, the house was slowly losing key structural members in the Dutch timber frame. Plus, an 1830s makeover had updated the exterior with Greek Revival details, and in 1990 remodelers rearranged walls and rooms on the first floor. And then there were those doors.

After he bought the house in 1992, Richard assumed the original front door was long gone—that is, until he opened walls in the attic. There, nailed across studs as a brace, and plastered with newspapers, were three boards spanning nearly a yard in width. When he wasn’t spending weekends restoring the house with brother Robert and friend Hugo Corrigan, Richard was in the field as Director of Preservation for a New York City architectural firm. He recognized the boards as the classic pattern of an 18th-century three-board batten door—most likely his door.

What Defines A Door?

Exterior doors must withstand tremendous seasonal forces. In winter, they’re dry and warm on the interior side, wet and cold on the exterior. In summer the conditions are nearly reversed. All these changes in moisture and temperature contribute to wood expansion and contraction that would quickly warp a door made from a single board. The solution in traditional joinery is to construct the door with multiple boards in ways that counteract these forces.

BATTEN DOORS

To create a relatively stable door, batten doors simply run battens (horizontal boards) across a set of vertical boards. Beyond the usual edge-matching of boards, there is no joinery in a batten door, so it must rely on fasteners (screws or nails) to hold it together. Traditional batten doors are clinch-nailed, a method where the carpenter drives the nail through the door once, then bends the shank over so it penetrates the wood again. Traditionally, handmade wrought nails were the best for clinching. Since the metal grain runs with the length of the nail, they are less likely to break. Cut nails, on the other hand, tend to snap because the metal grain runs perpendicular to the length of the nail.

FRAME-AND-PANEL DOORS

A more stable method for making a door is to fashion a frame of stiles and rails. This frame holds panels in such a way that they are free to move with seasonal changes. The number and pattern of panels in any door (as well as their decoration) may vary widely, but the construction remains principally the same. Traditional panel door frames are held together with mortise and tenon joints, secured with pegs through the sides of the tenon, or wedges on the end. If the joints in a frame-and-panel door do not remain tight all year round, the door will sag. A particular concern is compression set. This is a phenomenon where wood in a confined joint expands to the point the fibers become compressed, never to regain their original dimensions. To avoid the problems of compression set, doormakers never use tenons over a certain size.

Carpenters of the 18th century often made doors with three exterior boards because they could ioln them with a standard bead-and-bevel joint (see drawing).

Later, Richard discovered equally revealing evidence about a side door added in the 1830s. Working with Chuck Bellinger of Architectural Components Inc. he turned this promising evidence into museum quality reproductions. The steps they used provide a quick education in not only what doors of the 1790s and the 1840s look like, but also how they can be constructed.

BATTEN DOOR BEGINNINGS

Once Richard pried his lucky find out of the attic, it was clear he had uncovered a fully battened exterior door. Unlike a two- or three-batten door, which uses a minimum of boards to span the back, a fully battened door runs boards horizontally (or diagonally) the full length of the door. This method of construction, while still not as sophisticated as a panel door, is common for exterior doors because it creates a thicker—hence warmer—door than the two-batten method. A fully battened door also offers far more security than a thinner version.

Richard carefully measured all the details so that Chuck could reproduce them in the shop. The outer vertical finish boards are mated in a “feather edge” joint much used in the 18th century for interior paneling as well as doors. Here, both edges of the middle board are planed into bevels so they fit into grooves on both the large outer boards, which are moulded at their edges. On the backside, however, the horizontal battens are matched in a shiplap joint finished with a flattened thumbnail bead. Each of these methods adds weather-blocking integrity to board junctions, while disguising joints with decorative shadow lines. Like the original, Richard chose to make the new door from eastern white pine, an easy-to-work species often used for exterior trim. The outside boards are 7/8″ thick; inside boards measure up to 3/4″.

Though all the joinery on the original door would have been cut with hand planes, Chuck’s shop used a modern power-driven shaper and stock feeder to make all moulded and beveled edges on the door boards, as well as the thumbnail profile in the door battens. In this tool, the shaper motor in the base powers the patterned knives that rotate above the table. Wheels in the bottom of the feeder, positioned on top of the table, feed the stock, making for a smoother finished product than feeding by hand. Having the feeder wheels on top not only protects the user, it maintains a constant back-to-front thickness dimension in critical parts, such as panels. Since the feather edge bevel is a common pattern in Chuck’s business, the knives are always in the shop. However, the flattened thumbnail pattern that Richard specified for the battens had to be copied from the original door and then custom ground.

In Richard’s original batten door, the clinched nails are T-heads—that is, handmade wrought nails with heads flattened on two sides so they resemble the letter T in profile. Richard had a modern blacksmith rehead his nails with this period technique. T-head nails are only 1/8″ or so in width and less conspicuous in the work—finish nails in effect. The blacksmith also annealed (heated and slowly cooled) the reproduction nails, a process that removes the brittleness from the metal so the nails can be clinched. Beyond this, batten door assembly is basically a matter of nailing the intersection of every two boards, while making sure board ends are well attached.

THE PANEL DOOR PROCESS

While investigating the side entrance on the gable end of the house, Richard uncovered a piece of old door stile nailed to the framing—a tantalizing clue to a past appearance. Though only a fragment, the stile provided nearly all the information to deduce the size and proportions of a much earlier door. By looking at the paint ghosts, Richard determined that this was a flat-panel door with square-edge stiles and rails—pretty typical joinery for the 1830s to 1860s. The number and positions of mortises showed there was a single lock rail, which meant the door had four panels. Moreover, the lock rail was wide at 11 1/8″—unusual, but not surprising in a vernacular farmhouse. The doorway itself provided the width dimension. At 76″ tall then, this was once a rather squat door: wide and short.

As the name implies, a panel door is basically a rigid frame of stiles and rails. The remainder of the door is filled with panels that float in grooves in the frame, so they are are free to expand and contract. The frame is secured not with nails, but mortise and tenon joints. After documenting all the door’s dimensions, Richard composed shop drawings for the new door. The one departure was increasing the original 1 1/8″ thickness by 1/4″ to make the door a little more energy efficient. Again, the door would be made from eastern white pine.

When making panel doors of this era, Chuck’s shop uses full mortises (also called through mortises) that extend completely through the stiles. This construction method is traditional, plus it provides the joint with maximum strength. (In a concession to looks, after 1880 door makers started to use half or blind tenons that do not penetrate the stile.)

SHOP SPECIFICS

Once an exacting hand process, mortising door stiles is swift work in the shop with a power hollow-chisel mortiser. Basically a sophisticated drill press, the tool’s heart is a twist bit encased in a square chisel. By lowering the mortiser with a foot pedal, the operator punches several square holes in a row to make a rectangular mortise, moving the stile across the table as he goes. It’s customary to make the mortises in a door the same width as the panels because plowing the groove for the panel also takes away part of the tenon. Since Richard beefed-up the dimensions of his door, both panels and mortises are increased to 5/8″ thick.

No less ingenious is the equipment for making tenons. With the single-end tenoner the stock rides on a carriage through three sets of cutters that 1) shape the top and bottom of the tenon, 2) cope the shoulder so it matches the profile on the door stile, and 3) trim the end of the tenon to length. Depending upon the length of the tenon, making a finished tenon may take two or three passes through the machine. However, this is still only a fraction of the time once required to cut tenons by hand with a backsaw, and considerably more accurate.

Once all the pieces are made, panel doors must be carefully assembled on a large work-table. Starting with a middle rail, the joiner fits pieces together, sliding the panels into ploughs or grooves as he goes. Last to go on are the stiles at each side, followed by pipe clamps that hold the door together temporarily. At this point, the joiner bores 1/4″ or 5/16″ holes in the mortise and tenon joints and secures them with pegs. These pine pegs are made with squared off sides to produce the proverbial “square peg in a round hole” that wedges the peg in a very tight joint.

Chuck also likes to glue his joints with common aliphatic resin carpenter’s glue, a product unavailable to 18th century joiners. Though the glue makes the joints doubly secure, it has a quick set-up time that means assembly must move quickly. Altogether, the door is a very sturdy piece of construction. The big mortise and tenon shoulders, cut to close tolerances on precision equipment, add considerable strength to the system.

However, for the final period touch on doors like Richard’s, Chuck and his shop turn to hand tools. Here they hand-plane all stiles and rails before they’re assembled. This process takes some skill and care to maintain uniform thicknesses of all parts so that there is no difference in the completed joints.

Before the age of steam-powered milling machinery, early joiners used surfacing planes to smooth and reduce the wood to the desired thickness. Workaday woodwork might warrant only a basic “scrub planing”; finish joinery demanded a second round of planing. The cutting irons in these planes are ground to a slight arc, which keeps the edges of the iron from gouging the wood, as would happen with a straight-edged iron. Chuck’s shop shapes their irons in the same way, so the plane produces a characteristic, slightly scalloped appearance in raking light. This look is the hallmark of all handmade joinery and the fitting finish to two newly recreated pre-industrial doors.

Panel Doors in Production

Though adding raised panels and mouldings on the frame dresses up the door, construction remains the same—even when produced with modern millwork machinery: 1) Dave Sylvester slides panels into a door frame of rails and stiles; 2) the shaper/feeder does the work of planes for adding moulded edges and profiles; 3) cutters on the tenoner form both sides of the tenon, then trim it to length; 4) the chisel mortiser punches several holes in a row for one mortise; 5) surface planing by hand adds period finish.

SPECIAL THANKS to Richard Pieper (Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, New York, NY) and Chuck Bellinger (Architectural Components,. 26 North Leverett Rd. Montague, MA 01351; 413-367-9441)

Always intrigued by eighteenth-century architecture, Mark Harbold designed a New England saltbox house as a mechanical drafting project when he was a senior in high school. Twenty-two years later he and his wife, Lorraine, built it. It looks like a Connecticut original, down to the weathered brown paint and faded red door and window sashes—except it stands about 400 miles south of its authentic counterparts, in a housing development just west of Baltimore.

The house the Harbolds built is a fortuitous combination of research, planning, timing, and connections. Compromises were made to suit a modern family’s lifestyle, but aesthetically the house remains true to its eighteenth-century inspirations.

Although born and raised in Maryland, Mark has an affinity for New England style, developed early and honed as an architecture major in college and later as owner of a shop specializing in eighteenth-century New England reproductions. To find new craftsmen and vendors, he made frequent trips north. After he and Lorraine married, he closed the shop and moved himself and the remaining inventory into her house. Still the New England trips continued, though less frequently. Lorraine also liked antiques, favoring Victoriana. As she traveled with Mark to antiques shows and traditional crafts shows, she grew to appreciate the earlier styles.

Once they decided to build, they spent three years researching and refining the design and collecting architectural elements. They toured New England house museums and old neighborhoods, filling albums with snapshots. “We’d even be out at night measuring things,” Lorraine remembers, “taking pictures of historic house interiors through windows, figuring proportions. What we found was that they varied very little, even from town to town.” Their house has the typical dimensions and classic facade of a Connecticut saltbox—a gable overhang; a thirty-eight-foot, three-bay front with a center chimney; a transom of bull’s-eye glass over the nine-panel front door; twelve-over-twelve windows. Because it was built new, the Harbolds were able to incorporate all the eighteenth-century architectural details they liked in a single structure.

Inside, the house recreates the evolution of an authentic saltbox. Its rooms flow chronologically from a circa 1700 hall, with exposed hand-hewn beams, simple beaded paneling, and a large cooking fireplace, to the 1760’s lean-to that forms the saltbox profile and encloses the kitchen and keeping room. “This is as accurate a floor plan as could be modernly made,” Mark says. “I don’t think they’ve improved on the eighteenth-century floor plan for traffic flow and ambiance. It’s really very practical and functional. I saw no reason to alter it.”

They did alter it, of course, making it work in the twentieth century. It has bathrooms, a modem kitchen, closets, an ell with a family room, and a screened porch. The initial compromises, Mark says, were not moving to New England to restore an old house and not transporting one to Maryland and rebuilding it (though they considered it). Structurally, they chose a conventional frame over a traditional timber frame because the cost to do it right would have been exorbitant. They also eliminated the traditional center dogleg front staircase; since it would not have met fire codes, a back staircase was mandatory. The staircase’s absence yielded a walk-in closet in their daughter’s bedroom and a half-height linen closet in the upstairs hallway. Mark designed the interior around the antique two-panel doors he and Lorraine found in Connecticut; they enclose closets, bathrooms, the basement, and the attic. Others had to be reproduced to meet fire codes for width and height.

Mark’s position with a company that salvages and remills old lumber for new flooring gave him advantages: he had first choice of room-length antique floor boards, and, as part of a company bid, he removed nearly 400 pounds of glass panes from an 1840’s Quaker house. He sent the glass to a glazier in Massachusetts, who installed it in new sashes, enough for all twenty-three of the home’s windows: twelve-over-twelve, twelve-over-eight, nine-over-nine, six-over-six. The Harbolds had to buy radial-sawn spruce siding even before they applied for their construction loan because the Vermont manufacturer ran it only once a year. Mark stored it—along with the windows and floor boards—in his company’s warehouse.

With each trip to New England, they made new contacts. A Connecticut antiques dealer introduced them to a dairy farmer who stored pieces of old houses in two-hundred-foot chicken bams, where the Harbolds found thumb latches and eight of their twenty antique doors. Answering an ad in the Newtown Bee led them to a state trooper who salvaged and sold architectural elements; he recommended they see “the young guy down the road.” Cabinetmaker Bill Treiss, who had just started his own business, became a primary source. His price for interior paneling, an extra they had planned to add later, was too good to pass up. Treiss also made the paneled doors for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets, installed over inexpensive boxes made by a local carpenter. Reproduction furnishings and accessories left from Mark’s store, along with antiques (mainly chairs) the Harbolds have collected, fill the house.

There were no decisions without financial ramifications, Mark says, but the couple’s advance planning and some lucky connections allowed them to stay very close to their initial budget. “If you can pay $125 a square foot for high-quality custom work you’re doing well,and that’s without windows,” he says. “Ours cost under $100 a square foot. It’s a matter of doing your homework.”

For the Harbolds, doing their homework paid tangible dividends.

EXTERIOR SIDING
Ward Clapboard Mill
P.O. Box 1030
Waitsfield, VT 05673
802-496-3581

REPRODUCTION WINDOWS AND EXTERIOR DOORS
Chuck Bellinger
Architectural Components
26 North Leverett Road
Montague, MA 01351
413-367-9441

ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK, PANELING, INTERIOR DOORS, AND CABINETRY
Bill Treiss
Lost Art Joinery
811 Waterman Road
Lebanon, CT 06249
860-887-3215

ANTIQUE WOOD FLOORING AND BEAMS
Vintage Lumber Company
1 Council Drive
P.O. Box 104
Woodsboro, MD 21798
800-499-7859

ANTIQUE DOORS, PANELING, AND HARDWARE
Brooklyn Restoration Supply
12 Gorman Road
Brooklyn, CT 06234
860-774-6759

STAIR BANISTER AND BALUSTERS
Ken Heiser
Yellow Breeches Box Company
1000 Sandbank Road
P.O. Box 127
Mount Holly Springs, PA 17065
717-486-4058

REPRODUCTION IRON HARDWARE
John Tyler, Blacksmith
1917 Walnut Bottom Road
Carlisle, PA 17013
717-243-9971

ELECTRIC CHANDELIERS AND SCONCES
Lighting by Hammerworks
6 Fremont Street
Worcester, MA 01603
508-755-3434

INTERIOR WOODWORK PAINT
Stulb’s Old Village Paint
P.O. Box 1030
Fort Washington, PA 19034
215-654-1770

BLUEPRINTS OF SALTBOX AVAILABLE FROM
Mark Harbold
P.O. Box 104
Woodsboro, MD 21798
800-499-7859

Completed in early January 1993, Weld Hall looks now as it did when it was originally built in 1870. Brick and sandstone were cleaned and fire escapes were removed, replaced by fire code compliant interior stairs.

The new wood sash installed as part of a comprehensive dormitory improvement program at Harvard University feature true-divided-lites and insulating glass.

Harvard freshmen may be the smartest of the lot. But they are not necessarily kinder or gentler than their colleagues at other schools around the country. So, when the University began a five year restoration program of the 16 freshman dorms on the storied Harvard Yard, the durability of the materials and the quality of the skills that the manufacturers and contractors could provide was paramount. But while the school would have liked the buildings in the Yard, which is a National Register Historic District, to endure indefinitely, budget constraints and a tight construction schedule precluded an iron-clad restoration. What they did manage to pull-off, however, bears testament to the fact that compromise is not always one step down from perfection; sometimes it’s better. Particularly when it comes to windows.

Dorms on the Yard had been painted white since the early 1920s. While this single palette had been an enduring part of Harvard’s image, the architects felt each building should be painted in colors dating to its period of construction. above.

3 BUILDINGS, 2 CONTRACTORS, MANY WINDOWS

This ambitious project—part renovation and part restoration—began in late 1991, nearly thirty years after Benjamin Thompson and his firm, The Architect’s Collaborative (TAC), completed a similar project on the Yard. TAC’s approach, stripping back much of the early or original finishes and exposing brick walls, lent a distinctly modern tone to what were then a complex of worn and stodgy dorms. But, by the late eighties, the stark white finishes had begun to gray and the sealer that coated the brick walls had darkened. While the interior was bad, the exteriors were worse. The dorms had reached a state where a simple coat of paint and a good scrubbing were far from adequate to reverse the decay. The roofs leaked, the paint wouldn’t stay on the trim, and replacement windows and storm sash were broken. Handicapped accessibility and the capacity of the existing mechanical and electrical systems were also pressing issues that pointed the school toward a comprehensive renovation plan.

Goody Clancy & Associates, a Boston-based architectural firm, handled the renovation of three of the sixteen dorms on the Yard. This article looks at two of these buildings, Weld and Hollis Halls. The third, Stoughton Hall, is similar to Hollis. Because the time scheduled for these projects was short, general contractors were brought on board before design work was completed to work in collaboration with the architect and the owner. Contracts for construction were let to two firms; Beacon Construction for Weld Hall and Shawmut Design and Construction for Hollis and Stoughton. The general contractors bid the subcontracts competitively and eventually selected two window manufacturers to supply the new sash: Architectural Components, a small shop in Montague, Massachusetts, was awarded the contract for the windows at Weld and KSD Custom Windows, another small shop in Tilton, New Hampshire, was awarded the contract for Hollis and Stoughton. While each of the projects required different windows—the number of lites and the muntin profiles of the sash differed slightly from one building to the next—performance and durability standards were exacting and universal.

WORKING VACATION

Weld Hall, built in 1870 to designs by the Boston-based architectural firm Ware and Van Brunt, was one of the first of the 16 dorms to be renovated. Because the University had limited overflow space for the first year class—they had determined the minimum number of beds it could have available at anyone time during the five year project—renovation of each building was kept to an extremely stringent schedule. Weld was one of several consecutive projects for which the University had scheduled a seven month period for construction—demolition could begin after commencement in June and had to be completed by New Year’s Day.

Goody Clancy’s first contact with the University was in November 1991; the scope of the project was discussed and access to the structure was scheduled during a portion of the winter break—from the day after Christmas to New Year’s Day—to conduct investigations and draft preliminary design drawings. Architectural contracts were awarded in December 1991 and construction documents were completed by March 1992.

A MATERIAL THING

Goody Clancy retained the consulting firm Preservation Technology Associates (PTA) to assist in the investigation of the building exterior and prepare recommendations for the repair of the windows and roof, and the repair, cleaning, and conservation of the brick and sandstone facades. After considerable forensic and archival work, Goody Clancy and PTA provided the University with recommendations for the exterior conservation work and a package describing an architecturally sensitive, yet cost efficient and thermally effective, solution of the windows. Several options were presented; single-glazed true-divided wood sash with exterior storm windows, the same sash with a single interior storm panel, and true-divided wood sash with insulating glass. To avoid the maintenance headaches that had plagued the buildings with wood sash over the years, the University insisted that aluminum units also be considered.

A full section of the sash at Weld reveals the similarity of this and the sash used at Hollis Hall. Note, however, that the brick mould, muntin profile, and the number of lites in each sash is different. Fiberglass screens were installed on each window, as much to keep students and their popers in the buildings as insects and other unwanted guests out. An applied molded-wood stop was used to secure the insulating glass units from the interior. This puttyless glazing detail was used in an effort t0 reduce maintenance costs and improve durability. It also conveniently eliminated the need to resolve compatibility problems between the seal on the insulating glass and glazing putty.

Harvard had worked hard to build a strong relationship with the community, particularly the Cambridge Historical Commission, and made sure they were brought into the decision process. And, in fact, the Commission’s experience with other projects in which aluminum windows had not performed as specified was central to the sash selection. The savings the school expected from reducing the need for periodic painting were lost when it noted that the existing trim—cornices, doors, mullions, and dormers—would continue to need painting and that when the finish on the aluminum failed, costs associated with repairing the windows would be considerably higher. The building team and Commission also expressed a concern about the historical accuracy of the new sash; the aluminum sash required a metal subframe, that would either reduce the sight lines (by making the frame wider) or require removal or modification of the existing wood frame. Removing the existing frame was not feasible. The loss of that much historic fabric was unacceptable and it would have been nearly impossible to remove the frames without destroying the existing masonry surrounding the window openings. Lastly, the Commission and the University also wanted to see mockups of the windows. The long lead times for both the fabrication of the mock-up and manufacture of the aluminum windows led the building team, including the school, to reach a joint decision to pursue wood sash options.

MOCKING UP

Three mock-ups were installed and tested. A true-divided lite sash, with insulating glass was selected as the most durable and maintenance free of the mock-ups—single glazed sash with exterior storms were too dependent on the user for their thermal performance, and the sash with interior storm panels were considered problematic from a maintenance and safety standpoint. Because the applied glazing is flush with the interior face of the sash, there is a tendency for people to hit the glass while attempting to open the window by pushing on the meeting rail. In fact, the glass in the mock-up was broken within a week of being installed.

Because the Yard is part of the Old Cambridge Historic District, the Commission required that work on the exterior the buildings meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards. At Weld, where the lites in the sash are quite large, this mandate meant the glazing had to appear hand-blown. A local manufacturer built the glass units by hand; standard mechanical fabrication would not have kept the aluminum dividing strip between the panes within the 3/8- to 5/16-inch sightlines of the reproduction windows. (Industry standard is 1/2 inch.) The exterior sheet of each unit is restoration glass made in Germany that is separated from a sheet of standard float glass by a dual seal of poly-isobutalene and silicone.

SPEEDY DELIVERY

Once the University had been convinced that the wood sash were the most appropriate choice, the real work began. Windows were ordered as the selection meeting was disbanding; the manufacturers needed as great a lead time as possible and the architects had little time to spare.

As the work of preparing the existing frames got underway, it became apparent that the amount of repair was more extensive than the subcontractor had anticipated. Goody Clancy and PTA worked as a team with Beacon and the subcontractor to establish procedures and standards for scraping, selecting areas for dutchman repair, and epoxy consolidation.

Despite the incredible pace of the project, the building team had done its homework thoroughly, and discoveries and disputes over standards were few. The cooperative environment that had been established at the outset of the project set the tone for the few problems that did arise, which were quickly resolved and had little effect on the tight delivery schedule. The job, new windows and all, was delivered as promised on January first.

Although Hollis, shown here, and Stoughton appear to be twins, Hollis was built in 1763 in the Georgian style and Stoughton, designed 40 years later by Charles Bulfinch, in the Federal style.

While the work at Weld had focused on finding an appropriate replacement sash and minor repairs to the frame, at Hollis and Stoughton the windows had suffered greater abuse. So, while the overall scope of the project on these buildings was not as wide as it had been at Weld—there was considerably less structural work here—repairing the wood window frames that had been damaged less than twenty years earlier when aluminum windows were installed was a considerable task. And, with a two and one-half month slot to complete the renovation (work was to be completed during the summer intersession, between June and August 31) there was a lot to do in a little time.

TEARING OUT THE TIN

Because the schedule on this project was so short, and the building was occupied, access for investigations was limited to a few representative areas. Only a single aluminum replacement window and its panning systems was removed to document the existing and original conditions. When the aluminum windows had been installed, the contractors had torn-off the blind stops, much of the moulding, and several of the outermost edges of the sills. Despite the damage, PTA and Goody Clancy uncovered evidence of the original sash thickness and weight pockets that had been cut out from the solid 3 by 5 inch frame sections. The original sash was approximately 15/16 inches thick and had broad flat muntins. These sash were replaced during a renovation in the early nineteenth century with sash that had a narrower muntin, similar to those originally used in Stoughton Hall. Information on the size and profile of this later muntin was available both in HABS documentation for Hollis and in a single surviving example of the Stoughton muntin, which was on display in the dormitory. The design of the muntins, which was based on the archival evidence, and several variations to accommodate the thicker glass were reviewed and revised with the input of both window manufacturers—to ensure strength and durability—and the Cambridge Historical Commission—to ensure historical appropriateness. Eventually, a slightly narrower and much deeper muntin was selected to accommodate the insulating glass and the durability performance requirements.

Detail drawings of the sash show construction of the wood glazing stop that holds the insulating glass and the different waterproofing details between the wood window frame and masonry. At Hollis and Stoughton, both pieces of glass in the insulating units are standard float glass. While restoration glass would have been more appropriate, the University decided that the smaller lites in these sash would not reveal the irregularity in the more expensive glass.

MATCHING NEW BITS WITH OLD

Paint was stripped from the existing frame material and soft spots and checks were repaired with epoxy consolidants and fillers. Dutchmen for portions of several sills and dozens of blindstops were milled from white pine and mahogany before they were fitted to the frames. To ensure that the repair would be durable, the dutchmen were custom cut to fit the straight and square rabbets and mortises that the mechanics from Colony Architectural, the window subcontractor, had pared out of the jagged edges of the damaged frames. Colony’s mechanics used galvanized nails and waterproof glue to secure the dutchmen. Once the frame repair was done, they hung the new mahogany sash using brass pulleys, locks, and lifts and copper sash chains.

LOOKING OUT ON THE YARD

After more than a year of service, the restored and renovated dorms have been well received by students and the University. The historically accurate paint palettes on the window frames and the substantial wood sash have brought a rich variety of architectural detail back to the Yard and have met, or exceeded, the University’s performance expectations. In the end, it seems the thoughtful debate about windows and the cooperative working relationships developed during the project have left Harvard with a physical plant that matches its academic reputation.

Technical information for this article was supplied by Judith Selwyn, John Clancy, Susan Pranger, and Seth Ravitz.

Project: Hollis, Stoughton, and Weld Halls, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Owner: President & Fellows of Harvard College

Client: Weld: Harvard Real Estate (Peter Riley, proj. manager). Hollis & Stoughton: Faculty of Arts & Sciences (Alana Knuff, proj. manager)

Architect: Goody Clancy & Associates, Boston, MA (John Clancy, partner-in-charge; Susan Pranger, proj. manager; James Norris, Victor Ortale, Randi Holland, and Martin Deluga, proj. architects)

Architecturol Conservation: Preservation Technology Associates (Judith Selwyn, principal; William Finch, associate)

Contractor, Weld Hall: Beacon Construction (Seth Ravitz, proj. manager)

Contractor, Hollis Hall: Shawmut Design & Const. (Michele Murphy, proj. manager) Painting Subcontractor, Weld Hall: Soep Painting Corporation

Window Controctor: Colony Architectural. Cost: Weld, $5m; Hollis & Stoughton $5.4m

Building Materials: Slate, Weld: Buckingham Slate. Slate, Hollis & Stoughton: Pethryn Purple (Wales). Copper: Revere Copper Products. PVC membrane: Sarnalil. Windows, Weld: Architectural Components. Windows, Hollis & Stoughton: KSD Custom Windows. Glass (Weld Hall, only): SA Bendheim. Windows, Hollis & Stoughton: KSD Custom Wood Products. Paint, exterior: Hancock and Conlux. Paint, interior, Benjamin Moore. Epoxy consolidants and lillers: Abatron.

Photos: PTA, unless otherwise noted.

Architect
Goody, Clancy & Associates
334 Boylston Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02116
617-262-2760

Architectural Conservation
Preservation Technology Associates, Inc.
One Washington Mall
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
617-227-0900

Contractor (Weld Hall)
Beacon Construction Company
Three Center Plaza
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
617-742-8800

Contractor (Hollis and Stoughton Halls)
Shawmut Design & Construction
173 B Norfolk Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02119
617-427-4700