Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Collection |
Sites and Structures Reports |
Archive Number |
HPTSSR33 |
Title |
Sites and Structures Report April 2019 |
Description |
Sites & Structures Report, April, 2019: During the 2019 and 2020 restoration season, the Trust will substantially complete multi-year projects on the Mouns Jones and George Douglass houses, returning them to their respective 1716 and 1765 architectural forms, as documented by extensive evidence carefully considered and faithfully executed by our committee and its consultants and the skilled artisans engaged in the restoration campaigns. The most remarkable exterior features to be restored on the principal elevations will include: A.A re-created pent roof and a restored plaster cove cornice across the 1765 Douglass façade; and: B.Symmetrical restoration of windows flanking the vertical axis through the 1716 date-stone above the re-centered doorway in the Mouns Jones house. The doorway and window openings will be spanned for the first time in a century and a half by stone lintels similar to, but proportionately more massive than, the original surviving lintels above the 2d story windows in the opposite eaves wall [Image #1, photo 18, 9/4/18]. During the winter just ending, our project plasterer, Bill Smith, working on his 20th National Register structure, continued the interior work in the George Douglass house, restoring wall integrity in the 2d floor chambers and hallway. Defective or missing lath was replaced or stabilized in-place. Historically authentic lime plaster was employed for the base and finish coatings, reinforced with animal hair as found in the original 1765 plaster composition. Each chamber was warmed to 50 degrees+ throughout the curing period for new plaster. A doorway between the two Douglass northern ("parlor") chambers was determined to be not original to the pre-Revolution period and was closed up with planking and lath [Image #2, photo 6, 10/15/18], and plastered over [Image #3, photo 63, 12/18/18]. Chair railing conforming to the surviving 1765 molded profile was applied across the closed doorway opening. "Blind" partitions, lacking passage doorways and providing privacy in the separated spaces, were installed between the two parlors on the first floor [Image #4, photo 7, 9/30/19, plank partition] and between the kitchen [Image #5, photo 2, 6/18/19, lathed] and front ("store") room on the first floor. Several hundred square feet of stable and intact plasterwork on chamber walls will be cleaned and preserved as a demonstration of undisturbed architectural fabric and un-coated original surface. Laurence Ward, December 2020 |
Date |
April 2019 |
Object Name |
Report |
Catalog Number |
1008.01.77 |
Search Terms |
pent roof HPTSSR sites and structures cove cornice stone lintels lath plaster curing Parlor chamber blind partition plank wall |