History!
While our experts do a lot of furniture restoration, we rarely get to work on a piece that is almost 150 years old! We were recently entrusted by the Archives Coordinator of the City of Quincy’s Thomas Crane Library to restore a table that was built at the same time as the library itself, in 1882. It was done in old growth Southern Yellow Pine, and it was in really bad shape. The top was severely warped and the ornate balls on the bottom of the legs were flattened by over a century of use. It was a challenge, to put it mildly.
We assigned the project to James, one of our woodworkers and a restoration specialist. Since the top was too big to run through the planer or sander, he decided to rip the top along the joint lines, and plane each individual board, then glue them up as they were. He attached hidden steel rods under the tabletop, to keep it from warping. The round leg bottoms were more of a problem. They had been worn flat by decades of shoes stomping on them. James re-shaped each one by hand filing and brought back their original round shape. A few ornate spheres on the sides that were missing or severely damaged, were replaced with hand turned reproductions. The original finish was then matched with modern urethanes. and it was ready for delivery! Yeah, so that’s what we can do here; but the real story is the history!
The Thomas Crane Library, named after a wealthy operator of the Quincy Quarries, was designed by H. H. Richardson, widely considered to be one of the three greatest American architects of all time. His style, based on the Romanesque, became “Richardsonian,” and was very recognizable, with its arches and intricate stonework. He also loved his liquor, and was reputed to be quite the ladies’ man; but that’s another story…
In the 1970’s, my hobby was American architectural history, and I was drawn toward the “Shingle Style,” spearheaded by Richardson. I learned about his local works, then visiting Trinity Church in Boston, the Crane Library, and the superb buildings he created for the Ames family in N. Easton. I drove all over New England to see the work of the Shingle Style masters, notably that of William Ralph Emerson- my favorite.
Once Emerson became regarded as a premier architect of the Boston “in crowd”, his services were sought by scores of the wealthiest Bostonians to create their mansions and summer “cottages,” and outdo each other!) Milton is blessed with a number of them, including Emerson’s own house; the Augustus Hemenway house- which I am proud to have restored and owned for many years; and the incomparable William Ellery Channing Eustis house, an 80-acre estate forever preserved as a museum. I was privileged to have been invited to dinner there by Frederick (“Freddy”) Eustis, and remember seeing an antique wooden crate on display, stamped, “DYNAMITE – EUSTIS MINES..” The elder Eustis had owned copper mines in the American west, Virginia, and Canada, and evidently did quite well at it. Hemenway was a shipping magnate, sending his clipper ships “around the horn” to Chile.
I am always delighted to see architectural treasures restored and preserved! Boston’s Back Bay and Beacon Hill neighborhoods will remain forever unmolested, thanks to the almost fanatical stewardship of their respective architectural commissions. I wasn’t thrilled with their absolute control when I was restoring and converting townhouses there into condos in the 1970’s, although totally in agreement with their mission.
This is supposed to be a blog about Barney & Carey, and I have digressed! Still, if you would like to learn more, there are loads of books about these architects, and I highly recommend Vincent Scully’s “The Shingle Style.“. Zeitzevsky’s book on William Raph Emerson also gives info on where his surviving houses are located. Or drive to N. Easton center at night, when the Richardson masterpieces are illuminated: it’s like standing in the Louvre, gazing in awe at one of the French masters!