historic new england winter-spring 2009

HistoricNEW ENGLAND

WINTER/SPRING 2009WINTER/SPRING 2009

CELEBRATINGKITCHENS

YYeeaarr ooff tthhee KKii ttcchheenn

F R O M T H E C H A I R

The year 2009 is the Year of the Kitchen atHistoric New England. We invite you toview this room as a lens through which to examine family life, women’s roles,domestic service, and architecture, and howthey are impacted by developments in technology, industry, and the media. Allover the region, we are offering scores of programs on kitchen-related topics,along with a traveling exhibition, lectures,and displays at some of the historic proper-ties that depict baking day or preparations for a dinner party. I encourage you to take part in the celebration and to shareyour own kitchen stories on our website,www.AmericasKitchens.org

Also in this issue is a feature story onthe creative process of a team of architectswho developed plans for Boston’s City Hallin the 1960s. The internationally renowned

tural records to the Library and Archives.This gift is a significant addition to ourholdings of drawings by at least four hundred architects and firms, includingworks by Asher Benjamin, AlexanderParris, Gridley J. F. Bryant, Luther Briggs,Ogden Codman, Jr., and McKim, Mead,and White. Comprising more than one million photographs andother visual documents,the Library and Archives’collection is one of thecountry’s most importantrecords of the built envi-ronment.

—Bill Hicks

MAKING FUN OF HISTORY 13Johnny Cakes

SPOTLIGHT 16Year of the Kitchen

LANDSCAPE 18Reclaiming Eden

HANDS ON 20

Faux Food Chef

MUSEUM SHOP 22

Appetizers

CONSERVATION 24

Caring for a Castle

ACQUISITION 26Modern at the Beach

Except where noted, all historic photographs and ephemera are from

Historic New England’s Library and Archives.

Inventing a City Hall 1

Housing the Horseless Carriage 9

V I S I T U S O N L I N E AT w w w. H i s t o r i c N e w E n g l a n d . o r g

HistoricNEW ENGLAND

Winter/Spring 2009Vol. 9, No.3

Historic New England141 Cambridge StreetBoston MA 02114-2702(617) 227-3956

HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND magazine is a benefit of membership.To join Historic New England, please visit our website, HistoricNewEngland.org or call (617) 227-3957, ext.273. Comments? Please callNancy Curtis, editor, at (617) 227-3957, ext.235. Historic NewEngland is presented by the Society for the Preservation of NewEngland Antiquities. It is funded in part by the Institute of Museumand Library Services and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Executive Editor Editor DesignDiane Viera Nancy Curtis DeFrancis Carbone

COVER In 1921, the purchase of this kitchen cabinet, called a Hoosier,madekitchen work easier for Mollie Tucker of Castle Tucker, Wiscasset, Maine.Photo by Peter Harholdt

Dav

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architects Gerhard Kallman and MichaelMcKinnell recently donated their architec-

1Winter/Spring 2009 Historic New England

S P O T L I G H T

Inventing a

City Hall

Drawings of Boston’s City Hall, selected from the recent gift by Gerhard

Kallmann and Michael McKinnell of their firm’s architectural records, are re-

markable documents revealing the genesis of this innovative building.

ABOVE Perspective drawing from the competition’s first stage reveals the bold structure proposed, and the concept for the City

Council Chamber to project beyond the forms of the administrative offices above.The brick base—representing the original

sloping hillside of the site—holds the most heavily visited spaces. McKinnell. 35 1/4" x 35 1/4"

2 Historic New England Winter/Spring 2009

n 1961, Boston embarked on a mission to create a mod-ern city hall at the heart of the 330-year-old city. Inplace of the customary architect-selection process,Mayor John F. Collins announced a nationwide design

competition, the first for an American city hall since that ofSan Francisco in 1906. The idea found inspiration in severalrecent competitions that were drawing international atten-tion: the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Sydney’s Opera House,and the Toronto City Hall. A Boston City Hall competitionand its resulting building would serve, planners hoped, as acatalyst for the city’s rebirth.

The sketches and drawings published here reveal theevolution of the dramatic design, demonstrated in twostages of competition materials and in design developmentstudies. The design responded to the competition’s exactingrequirements: the building’s location was fixed within agiven footprint, and the height was limited so as not toovershadow its historic neighbor below, Faneuil Hall. The proposal had to accommodate a detailed architectural

IABOVE Perspective drawing from

the design development phase

illustrates the design’s evolution,

with concrete frames now brack-

eting the Council Offices to the

left of the Council Chamber, and

paired pre-cast brackets now sepa-

rating the upper level windows.

McKinnell and Gary Larsen. 30" x 45 1/4"


groups was a young team led by Gerhard M. Kallmann andNoel M. (Michael) McKinnell, along with their colleagueEdward F. Knowles.

Kallmann and McKinnell’s drawings for the preliminarystage present a new concept for a municipal governmentbuilding. It departs not only from the symmetrical layoutsand traditional symbolism of historic governmental struc-tures, but also from the pure forms and sleek surfaces thatcharacterized the era’s contemporary architecture. Instead,this design envisions a courtyard structure that expands at itstop and that brings the ceremonial and administrative spacesto the exterior façade and beyond, where they can be seen

and from which their occupants can viewthe city around them.

The cross sections illustrate these func-tions floating above the plaza level, wherethe “Heavy Public Traffic” spaces are locatedfor easy access. In fact, the plans and sec-tions demonstrate the architects’ fundamen-tally democratic idea of extending the enor-mous public plaza (a requirement of thecompetition) right through the proposedbuilding, to create lively interactions andalso to reveal open views and a topographicconnection between Cambridge and Tre-mont streets above and Faneuil Hall andQuincy Market below.

These brilliant examples of the now-vanishing art of architectural drawing convincingly adumbrate this structurebefore our eyes, as they did for the jurors.

ABOVE Michael McKinnell and Gerhard Kallmann. 1964.

RIGHT Reverse-reading

photostat of Kallmann

and McKinnell’s original

“First Sketch” for the

new city hall reveals in

cross section their concept

for a building with “trays”

of enclosed space arranged

around a courtyard, above

a plaza running from

Cambridge Street and the

JFK federal tower through

the building and down to

Faneuil Hall. 16 1/4" x 23 3/4"

program: 346,410 square feet of specific functions including,for instance, spaces of “Symbolic Importance,” such as theCity Council Chamber, Council Offices, and the Mayor’sOffice (with eleven offices ranging in size from 108 to 270square feet). In the “Heavy Public Traffic” category, designerswere to provide thirty-six linear feet of public counter, withsix cashier stations for the Collections Division.

Two hundred and fifty-six teams of architects fromaround the country entered the landmark competition. From this enormous field, a distinguished jury culled eightfinalists, each of whom was awarded $5,000 and given threemonths to develop the designs. Among the eight anonymous


BOTTOM First-stage competition site plan depicts the new city hall

among both existing and proposed buildings from I.M. Pei and

Partners’ master plan. (The long, thin structures behind City Hall

and adjacent to Faneuil Hall were not built.) Detail, 22" x 24"

Kallmann’s informative section perspectives provide a senseof realism for the building structure and its systems, whileMcKinnell’s elevation studies and exterior perspectives clearlyarticulate its external form.

For the May 1962 final competition round, the juryincluded four prominent architects along with three businessleaders, from New England Mutual Life, Filene’s, and Stopand Shop. Looking back today, one agrees with the jurors’decision: most of the submittals that they rejected were sim-plified, unarticulated abstract forms that might just as easilyhave been designs for suburban corporate office buildings.By contrast, the winning design, which received the jurors’

RIGHT Page of early concept sketches includes an alterna-

tive sectional idea, in which the irregular forms housing

the proposed city hall’s occupied spaces are supported by

mast-like structures that provide circulation. McKinnell. 21"x 18"

BELOW LEFT Studies—among several on the same sheet—

carefully reveal the form of the Mayor’s stair in the main

lobby. McKinnell. 28 1/2" x 30"

BELOW RIGHT Tracing paper sketches explore the scale and

configuration of elements that break up the large win-

dows of the original municipal library bays (now City

Council Offices). McKinnell. 18" x 42"


BELOW McKinnell’s presen-

tation cross section from

the first stage of the com-

petition looks north

through the proposed

building’s courtyard, with its

large sculpture, and identi-

fies the program spaces

arranged around and

below it. 28 1/2" x 36"

LEFT Kallmann’s complex

sectional perspective

study develops the interior

volume of the Council

Chamber at the same time

that it suggests the pre-cast

structure housing the build-

ing systems and also pro-

poses the chamber as a

stepped, amphitheater-like

form seen from the level

below. 24 1/4" x 36 1/4"


RIGHT Kallmann’s

interior section

perspective shows

the proposed grand

public spaces of the

building’s north

entry hall and the

structural system

of its coffered, skylit

ceiling. The monu-

mental size of this

image typifies the

presentation draw-

ings illustrated here,

notable for hand-

drawn pen and ink

renderings. 24" x 45 1/8"

BELOW Design development south elevation depicts the prominent forms of the

Mayor’s Office suite, looking toward Washington Street and the Old State House,

and the stair cascading down to Congress Street and Faneuil Hall. McKinnell. 29" x 53 1/2"


unanimous support, inventively responded to both itscivic program and its urban site.

It was quickly proclaimed to be “as fine a buildingfor its time and place as Boston has ever produced” by Boston historian Walter Muir Whitehill. HorizonMagazine not only praised the winning entry, but laudedthe competition process itself: “Boston’s jury…hasturned in a decisive verdict that will stand for some timeas a model of responsible civic conduct.”

In 1969, City Hall opened to acclaim as a buildingand as a civic achievement. It immediately became thesymbol of “the New Boston,” a Boston that successfully

LEFT Three key floor plans depict the proposed building’s volumetric concept.

The upper administrative floor forms an open rectangle, defining the build-

ing’s outline; the ceremonial spaces of the middle level are pushed to the

edges of the building, around the south hall; and the main entrance level

shows the open floor plan and the connections to the plaza. 20 1/2" x 18 1/4"

ABOVE Final-stage presentation drawing of the east elevation, showing how light and shadow

articulate the special civic spaces more boldly than the administrative spaces above.The dark

horizontal band represents the platform that was to span Congress Street (not built), which

the competition required. This broad platform provided a major entrance into City Hall from

the east, in addition to the entrances from the other three directions. McKinnell. 27 1/4" x 52 1/4"


ABOVE Shortly after City Hall’s completion, Faneuil Hall market-

place—which previously had been considered for possible demoli-

tion—was dramatically and successfully transformed for new uses.

The new City Hall design and its deliberate alignment with the ori-

reinvented itself after decades of decline. Already in 1991,the Massachusetts Historical Commission determined thatthe building was eligible for the National Register of HistoricPlaces. The new firm of Kallmann, McKinnell and Woodwent on to become one of Boston’s, and the nation’s, pre-eminent architectural practices. It won Boston’s HarlestonParker Award more times than any other architect since theaward was created in 1923, and designed notable structuresaround the world, from the University of Massachusetts/Boston Campus Center and the Newton, Massachusetts,Public Library to Becton Dickinson’s corporate headquartersin New Jersey and the U.S Embassy in Bangkok.

Paradoxically, these fragile original drawings reveal thegenesis of the powerful structure that we know today. It is one that critic Walter McQuaid identified as belonging to a long-standing tradition of architecture in Boston, that of

“emphatic, forceful” masonry buildings dating back toSolomon Willard’s Bunker Hill Monument, AlexanderParris’ Quincy Market, Gridley Bryant’s rugged commercialpalaces, and H.H. Richardson’s robust granite edifices. Pre-served in Historic New England’s Library and Archives, thiscollection records Kallmann and McKinnell’s developingvision, and documents a time when a design competition anda new building for government placed Boston on the inter-national stage.

—Gary Wolf, AIA

Gary Wolf, principal of Gary Wolf Architects in Boston,organized and wrote the text for the exhibition of Kallmann,McKinnell and Knowles’ City Hall drawings at Boston’sWentworth Institute of Technology in 2008.

entation of both Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, contribute to this

memorable urban ensemble,which spans more than two centuries,

from Georgian brick to Greek Revival granite to modern-day brick

and concrete.

© 1

976

Stev

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ose

ntha

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nventors in both Europe and the United States had been tinkering with self-propelled vehicles since the lateeighteenth century, but it wasn’t until the early twentiethcentury that the manufacture of functioning automobiles

began in earnest. Once begun, the fledgling industry developed rapidly, and cars started to replace horse and car-riage transportation. By 1906, New England had severalautomobile manufacturers, including the Electric VehicleCompany and Pope Manufacturing Company in Hartford,Connecticut, and in Massachusetts, the J. Stevens Arms andTool Company in Chicopee Falls, the Knox AutomobileCompany in Springfield, and the Waltham ManufacturingCompany in Waltham.

Of all the changes to the landscape wrought by the auto-mobile, one of the first resulted from its need for housing.Early automobiles represented a significant investment ofmoney (ranging in price from $500 to $1,500) and frequentlylacked roofs, thus compelling owners to seek sheltered stor-age sites. Automobile makers advised that vehicles be pro-tected from inclement weather and cold temperatures toensure good engine performance and keep the parts in goodcondition. A 1911 instruction booklet printed by Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company specifically recommended stor-

A T H O M E

IHousing the Horseless Carriage

THIS PAGE, TOP This early-twentieth century watercolor ren-

dering by Boston architect E. J.Lewis depicts a typical one-bay

garage designed to complement the residence and its

landscape. ABOVE This image from a 1936 Cadillac owner’s

manual reminded car owners to open garage doors prior to

starting the engine to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

ing cars during winter months in a room heated to at leastforty degrees Fahrenheit. Owners kept their cars in barns,stables, and carriage houses, adapting them by removing the


stalls or adding a shed. Those lacking handy outbuildingserected structures at the rear or side of their properties, oftenwith decorative touches like faux hayloft doors and cupolasto make them look like carriage houses. Alternatively, theybuilt small, one-bay, wood-framed, free-standing sheds; thesewere called garages, from the French garer, to store or dock.Pre-fabricated garages, available from companies like Sears,Roebuck, could be put up easily and were often treated asgarden structures and covered by lattice work and vines. Thedoors of these early garages were made of wood with win-dow lights and swung outward on hinges or slid to the sideon tracks. Wealthier homes tended to have more elaborategarages, sometimes with two or more bays and living quar-ters for a chauffeur.

As garage construction increased during the seconddecade of the century, more attention was paid to design

details, so that the structures complemented the style of thehouse, whether Arts and Crafts, Colonial Revival, or Tudorand Spanish Revival. At this time, new types of woodendoors appeared: multi-paneled ones that rolled inside ontracks or folded accordion-style. A few garages featuredoverhead doors that slid up against the ceiling in one or morepanels, but these did not become the standard until afterWorld War II.

In the 1920s, the size of cars increased, necessitatinglarger garages. As automobile ownership became widespread,garage design grew more functional. Plain buildings built offireproof brick or concrete block, with flat or low-pitchedroofs, sometimes with a decorative parapet over the doors,became ubiquitous. In suburban areas with limited lot sizes,garages were set into hillsides or placed directly below thehouse. In urban areas, new apartment complexes included

FACING PAGE A 1923 advertisement for Presto-Up Garages depicts

typical pre-fabricated do-it-yourself garage construction kits popu-

lar in the 1920s and ‘30s. ABOVE A combination garage and carriage

house, typical of large estates, usually included living space for ser-

vants. BELOW LEFT This model home from a 1947 builder's cata-

logue features a modest-sized attached garage. BELOW RIGHT A typ-

ical 1920s concrete garage with a stepped parapet over its doors.

Historic New England Winter/Spring 200912

garages with rows of multiple bays, whilelarge warehouse-style commercial garageswith rental spaces were constructed toserve city dwellers and commuters.

Attached garages did not becomecommon until the 1930s, but by the 1950sthey were standard in new construction.Integrated into the façade of the house,these garages in suburban neighborhoods,with their sequences of blind doors, had adramatic impact on the streetscape. Todaythe garage is almost as important as thekitchen and bathrooms among the ameni-ties sought by homeowners. The quaintbuildings of the early twentieth centuryare quickly being replaced by larger, multi-car garages that in many cases dominatethe designs of new homes.

—Joseph Cornish Senior Stewardship Manager

ABOVE This mid-1960s house in Waltham, Massa-

chusetts, incorporates a garage at its cellar level

into its design. BELOW In this recent develop-

ment of condominium townhouses in Belmont,

Massachusetts, closed garage doors projecting

forward toward the street are the façades’ most

prominent feature.


M A K I N G F U N O F H I S T O R Y

Directions1. Mix together cornmeal, salt, and sugar.2. Slowly pour boiling water over dry ingredients. Mixtogether well.3. Over medium heat, melt butter or shortening in the skil-let, then add large spoonfuls of the batter. Cook until the bot-toms of the cakes are golden brown, about 5 minutes, thenflip them over to cook the other side.4. Serve johnny cakes with butter and maple syrup or jam.

—Amy Peters ClarkEducation Program Manager

Ingredients1 cup cornmeal1/2 tsp salt1 tsp sugar1 cup boiling waterButter or shortening

When European settlers came to North America, they learned about corn from the native people they met here. Soon, cornmeal became an important part of theirdiet. A johnny cake is a simple quick bread made from cornmeal that can be cooked over an open hearth. Variations onjohnny cakes appeared in many regions of the country; in New England, theyare associated with Rhode Island,where johnny cake festivals are held in Usquepaugh andJamestown.

Johnny Cakes

What’s in a name?The origin of the name johnny cakes has been lost over the cen-turies. Here are a few theories about its source:

“Shawnee cakes,” after the Native American group.“Journey cakes,” because the cakes are easy to take on a trip.“Joniken,” a Native American word for cornmeal.“Jannockin,” an English word for a simple oatmeal cake.

Sometimes johnny cakes were called hoe cakes because they werecooked on the greased blade of a hoe placed in front of a fire.

Other materialsIron skilletBowlSpoon

David Carmack


This is a tin kitchen or roaster oven, used to roastmeat before an open fire. The meat was skewered ona spit, which could be turned to ensure even cooking,while the tin trapped the heat and sped up the cook-ing process. A small door at the back allowed the cookto baste the roast easily.

M A K I N G F U N O F H I S T O R Y

�

1400sNative Americans cookover outdoor fires inclay pots.

1600sEarly Colonistscook over openfires built in largecooking hearths.

Seventeenth to nineteenth centuries Some families have out-door bake ovens (at left)made of bricks.

1796–98 Benjamin Thompsoninvents the efficientRumford fireplace and roaster.

Can you guess what this was used for?

What’s Cooking?

what is it?

�

Let’s explore the history

Human beings have beencooking their food sinceprehistoric times. Forcenturies, most cookingwas done over an openfire, but technology hasintroduced a wide variety of ways to cook.

of cooking in America—

Aar

on

Ush

er


1840sCast-iron cookstovesbecome common inthe United States.

1930s Easy-to-clean enamelstoves are popular inmodern kitchens.

1946Dr. Percy Spencerinvents the microwaveoven.

��puzzle

did you know?

1963Hasbro introducesthe Easy-BakeOven.

Bake oven

Crane

Hearth

Hook

Kettle

Microwave

Can you find these words related to cooking over the centuries?

Words appear forwards and backwards.

• In some wealthy homes, dogswere used to turn meat roast-ing over an open hearth. Calledturnspit dogs, they ran inside alarge wheel (like a hamsterwheel), which turned the spit.

• Some cast-iron pots, called spi-ders, had legs. The legs made it easy toplace the pot over hot coals in the hearth.

• Brick bake ovens did not have the temperaturecontrols we are used to today. Women became

R D D Q U C X R K T S Q

Y E S B R T E I I O T P

T D T A H T R N F X O P

O B N F S A K M W N V H

P E J A I I Y N L E E P

J H O D T L H E A R T H

K T D C J D T V O M X C

I E H E V A W O R C I M

M E T C C U D E P P O S

N Q H T F Y N K C J S W

N E O T L R I A L E H Z

C X Q U K E U B O L N K

Peel

Pot

Pot lifter

Stove

Tin kitchen

Toaster

experts at regulating and judging theheat. Some of the methods theyused included throwing flourinto the oven to see if it turned

brown or black and waving a wetbroom above the flames to see how

long it took to dry.

• In the nineteenth century, some familiesmoved their cast-iron stoves to outbuildings in thespring and brought them back into the house in thefall. This kept the house from getting too hot in thesummer.

Here are some fun facts—

See page 21 for the answers


e invite you to join us, wherever you are,as Historic New England celebrates theYear of the Kitchen. At our properties(and at other museums as well), on our

website, in New England and beyond, we present a wholeyear of programs that explore the role ofthe kitchen in times past and present.You can read our latest publication,America’s Kitchens (see pages 22–23),visit our traveling exhibition, and takepart in activities relating to foodways,servants’ lives, chimney construction,and cooking on an open hearth or ironcookstove. You’ll have fun looking atold things in new ways, recall childhood memories, and ponderthe meaning of the kitchen in your own life.

The exhibition, titled, like the book, America’s Kitchens(see box on page 17), traces kitchens from the Colonial peri-od to the present and illustrates the room’s history throughsix recreated kitchen vignettes. The eighteenth-centurykitchen at Historic New England’s Coffin House inNewbury, Massachusetts, shows what baking day was likefor the Coffin women in 1759. Another baking day, this one

at a New Mexican ranch in 1850, depicts the courtyard of El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, outside Santa Fe, where anenslaved Navajo cook prepares feast-day foods in an outdooradobe bake oven. The Davis kitchen in Bloomington, Illinois,with its large cookstove, captures a day in 1874, when Mrs.

Davis is making preserves with her Irishcook, Bridget Kelley. The final vignette,a 1957 Westinghouse kitchen fromAndover, Massachusetts, illustrates prepa-rations for a holiday meal by a Greek-American family.

In addition, we are offering manykitchen- and food-related programsthroughout the region. Please visit our

website, www.AmericasKitchens.org, to stay up-to-date onforthcoming events. For example, tours of the Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion and the Rundlet-May House inPortsmouth, New Hampshire, will examine innovations in kitchen design in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At Castle Tucker in Wiscasset, Maine, food histo-rian Sandy Oliver will lecture on historic cooking. AtRoseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut, MuseumHistorian Jennifer Pustz will present her research into the

S P O T L I G H T

WCelebrating Kitchens

Illus

trat

ions

by

Ger

ald

L.Fo

ster


lives of the Bowen family’s servants. At the LymanEstate Greenhouses in Waltham, Massachusetts,Horticulturist Lynn Ackerman will lead a workshopon planting and caring for a kitchen garden.

Meanwhile, in four of our historic house muse-ums, staff is animating the kitchens with specialprops and effects. At the Coffin House, faux food,faux fire, newly arranged furnishings, and an ambi-ent sound track will portray the bustling activity ofthe women in the family as they cook and cleantogether. At Castle Tucker, we will use the cookbookcompiled by Jane A. Tucker and published in 1924 to recreate the cooking and presentation of a summertime meal. At Beauport, Sleeper-McCannHouse, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the kitchenwill illustrate the moment captured in a historicphotograph, when the staff proudly showed off theroast before taking it into the dining room for aparty. At the Gropius House, in Lincoln, Mass-achusetts, faux foods based on Ise Gropius’s recipeswill depict the kind of meal she used to cook in the1940s and ‘50s.

Focusing on the space long considered the sym-bolic center of the home has led us to investigatefamily dynamics, women’s roles, technology, class,and the culture of the world at large. Poring throughletters and personal histories, we have heard vividaccounts of the kitchen as the room where relation-ships are nurtured and traditions handed down, butalso as a place where women toil in drudgery andisolation. We invite you to join us as we explore thekitchen’s many themes and gain a richer under-standing of the currents of history and the culturalunderpinnings of our own lives. •

FACING PAGE A moment of pride and merriment in

the kitchen at Beauport, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

RIGHT Artist’s renderings of three of the kitchens

featured in the exhibition: the hearth kitchen in the

Coffin House, Newbury, Massachusetts, as it might

have appeared in the 1760s; an 1850s kitchen in New

Mexico with outdoor bake ovens, or hornos; and an

1870s kitchen in Bloomington, Illinois, with a built-in

range and copper hot water heater.

The exhibition America’s Kitchens opens June 11 at the New HampshireHistorical Society in Concord, New Hampshire, and will travel to theLong Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages in StonyBrook, New York, the Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich,Massachusetts, and other locations to be announced.


L A N D S C A P E

n Arbor Day 2008, inLincoln, Massachusetts,nearly two hundred certi-fied arborists descended

upon the Codman Estate to donatetheir services—pruning, removing deadand dangerous trees, and planting newones. Sponsored by the Massachusetts

Arborists Association, the project trans-formed the property and kicked off amulti-year plan by Historic New Eng-land to restore and revitalize theestate’s historic landscape.

The Codman Estate was estab-lished in the late 1730s. Originally, itcomprised hundreds of acres of farm-

land; today it consists of sixteenacres surrounding the mainhouse, which is situated on aseries of terraces overlooking apasture known as the Octagon.Trees have always been important

Reclaiming Eden

Ofeatures in the estate’s landscape, whichwas laid out in the English manner as agentleman’s country seat. The groundsnear the house were formal, and treeswere strategically planted to frame and emphasize the views. Picturesque,tree-shaded drives circumnavigate theOctagon and lead to the main house.

Records in the Codman familypapers document the purchase of thir-ty-nine elm trees in the eighteenth cen-tury and of ornamental trees in thenineteenth century. In the 1860s,Ogden Codman, Sr., took over theestate, renaming it The Grange, andmade numerous improvements to thefarms and grounds. The early twenti-eth-century appearance of the estatewas influenced by noted architect anddesigner Ogden Codman, Jr., his sisterDorothy, and their mother, Sarah, withthe addition of a formal garden in the

ABOVE The Octagon pond after

the Arbor Day activities removed

thirty-five dead trees. LEFT This

1872 view shows two Codman

children on their ponies,with elm

trees and the Octagon pond

beyond.

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Bar

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Spra

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BOTTOM LEFT The pond before the removal of

the dead trees. BOTTOM The work crews had

to haul the tree trunks out by hand in order

to prevent damage by heavy vehicles to the

marshy ground.

Italian style and a cottage garden nextto the carriage house.

In 1938, the great hurricane blewdown ninety-six trees at the CodmanEstate. Afterwards the family allowedvolunteer trees to grow and renew theshade cover, but without any planningor real grooming. Historic NewEngland recently inventoried the treeson the property, which totaled morethan four hundred and fifty, and wasfaced with a backlog of tree mainte-nance before it could begin to restorethe landscape. Fortunately, the Massa-chusetts Arborists Association came tothe rescue with an offer to make theCodman Estate the focus of their annualvolunteer work day. Bringing heavyequipment, cherry pickers, chippers,chain saws, ladders, and lots of energyand muscle, teams of arborists per-formed a Herculean task, removingover one hundred dead and dangeroustrees and recapturing long lost viewsand spaces. At the end of the day, they

had donated approximately $300,000worth of labor.

Now that the landscape has beenopened up, Historic New England’sLandscape Committee, a group oflandscape historians and professionals,will analyze the site and the historicrecord to determine which trees arehistorically appropriate to use forreplanting and where they should go.In addition, extensive drainage workcarried out over the past two years has stabilized the pond and improvedthe appearance of the Octagon; thenext phase will focus on restoring the ha-ha wall and renewing the plant-ings around the pond.

Meanwhile, in the formal ItalianGarden, the historic terracotta pots arebeing reproduced and will be on dis-play this spring, and we are seekingfunding to reproduce the statue ofFlora and restore the dolphin fountain.In Dorothy’s Garden, the planting bedswere recently restored to their original

The grounds of the Codman Estate are openyear round from dawn to dusk. The house isopen from June 13 to October 10 on the secondand fourth Saturday of the month, 11 am to 5pm, tours on the hour, last tour begins at 4 pm.

configuration, and the plant palettecontinues to explore Dorothy’s practiceof experimenting with perennials. Weurge you to visit the Codman Estate thisyear and savor this historic landscape—truly one of New England’s choicesttreasures—as it returns to its earlytwentieth-century appearance.

—Ben HaavikTeam Leader, Property Care

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itchens and dining roomsin historic houses can bedressed like stage sets todepict a particular moment

in time, and few things are more popu-lar with visitors than a glimpse ofcooking underway or an abundance of food ready to be eaten. But addingreal food to a museum installation can be problematic because of deter-ioration, contamination, and pests.Conservators and curators have had tobe creative and become faux food chefs.

You might think it would be easyto fill a house museum with faux cakes,meats, and breads, but it isn’t asstraightforward as one would like.Commercially made faux foods, pro-duced for restaurant and store dis-plays, are often not period appropriateand can be too large, the wrong style,color, or shape. Further, they can contain materials, like some plastics,

that are harmful to museum objects;polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, forexample, will corrode metals.

To make faux food for a historichouse or museum setting, you need touse conservation-friendly materials—foams made out of polyethylene, plas-tic films made out of clean polyester,acid-free papers and cardboard, acrylicor watercolor paints, and acrylic spack-les and varnishes. These can be pur-chased at art supply or craft stores orfrom archival catalogues and suppliers.

To successfully replicate a historicfood, it is important to understand itstrue proportions, including color andtexture. If you are trying to replicatethe appearance of a particular recipe,the best place to begin is by preparingit yourself so you can accurately repro-duce what it looks like. If no authenticrecipe is available, look for a goodvisual source like a still life painting

H A N D S O N

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fauxfood Chef

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change over time and appear from dif-ferent angles and in varying light. Thefaux melon was made by the samemethod as the tea cakes, except on alarger scale and with a lot more spack-le. I will admit that I thoroughly enjoybeing challenged to create stable, fauxfood to enliven our historic house instal-lations, but would never have guessed,when I was a student of conservation,that I’d become a skilled faker of deli-cious-looking, but inedible, food.

—Julie SolzTeam Leader, Collections Services

3

from the appropriate period. The fauxtea cakes shown on the facing page,part of the dessert course in the OtisHouse dining room in Boston, arecopied from a still life painting byRaphael Peale. For these cakes I carvedsmall flat-bottomed ovals out of poly-ethylene foam, coated them with sever-al layers of water-based acrylic spackle,sanded and smoothed the surfaces withfine abrasives and solvents, paintedthem with washes of acrylic paint, andstenciled the tops with crushed coloredchalks to imitate the sugar decoration.

For the faux cantaloupe, shown inthe kitchen at Beauport, Sleeper-McCann House in Gloucester,Massachusetts, I began with a realmelon and carved small balls out of theflesh to understand their texture andshape and to see how the color andsheen of the melon’s interior would

4

Sources for conservation products include: Gaylord Brothers, www.gaylord.comTalas, Inc., www.talasonline.comUniversity Products, www.universityproducts.com

How to make faux tea cakes:

1. Trace the shape of the tea cake on a 1/2 inch thick

piece of polyethylene foam and cut with sharp scis-

sors or a serrated knife.

2. Coat top and sides of cake with a medium

weight acrylic spackle using a micro spatula (multi-

ple applications are needed to cover foam and

dome top); smooth dried surface with fine sandpa-

per and water.

3. Paint cake with light washes of yellow ochre,

burnt sienna, and raw umber acrylic or watercolor

paints to achieve golden color.

4. Thin spackle with water to imitate icing and

apply to top of cake with micro spatula; while icing

is damp dust surface with finely ground pastels to

imitate sugar decoration; set pigments when dry

with an acrylic spray fixative.

To make the faux Madeira on the facing page, color

a stable, non-yellowing epoxy with a transparent

dye. Carefully mix to avoid bubbles and cast in

reproduction glasses. Some beverages, like tea, can

be replicated by inserting a disk of polyester film,

tinted with dye washes, into a porcelain cup.

Answers to puzzle on page 15.

R D D Q U C X R K T S Q

Y E S B R T E I I O T P

T D T A H T R N F X O P

O B N F S A K M W N V H

P E J A I I Y N L E E P

J H O D T L H E A R T H

K T D C J D T V O M X C

I E H E V A W O R C I M

M E T C C U D E P P O S

N Q H T F Y N K C J S W

N E O T L R I A L E H Z

C X Q U K E U B O L N K


M U S E U M S H O P

o whet your appetite for Historic New England’s Year of the Kitchen, here are a few excerpts from this wonderful book. Crammed with colorful images,the book surveys the social, architectural, and technological history of kitchensacross the country. It will enrich your understanding of how kitchens developed

to the designs we see in our own homes today and enhance your enjoyment of the manykitchen-themed programs all over the region this year. Buy a copy for yourself for enter-taining reading, give it to your friends, and be sure to participate in our year-long celebration. —Carl R. Nold, President and CEO

.Appetizers,Selections from historic New England’s latest publication, America’s Kitchens

T

Kitchen Memories

Some women did not take readily to their role in the kitchen. In 1878 Hetty Morrison ofIndianapolis wrote: “Not of my own free will did Ienter upon a career of broiling, roasting, and bak-ing.” She complained, “I wish to say that I thinktwo-thirds of cook book makers should be hangedwithout benefit of clergy.” Morrison blamed menfor demanding elaborate meals, commenting thatleft to their own devices, most women would beperfectly happy “with a few chocolate caramels andan occasional cup of tea.”

The Cookstove

The initial impetus behind the development of thecookstove was not to improve the cooking processbut to achieve greater fuel efficiency…The cook-stove served notice that the technological advancesof the Industrial Revolution were now entering thehome. This was a labor-saving device; it allowedbetter regulation of the heat and raised the worksurface to a more comfortable height. Becausestoves consumed less fuel than hearths, less timewould be spent cutting and hauling wood. [How-ever] its care resulted in new chores. Good house-keepers cleaned and blacked their stoves at leastonce a week; if they did not, the dust from the ashesquickly competed with emerging rust on the sur-face. With some regularity stoves would suddenlybegin to smoke badly, which meant the stovepipeneeded cleaning.


Order copies of America’s Kitchen online atwww.HistoricNewEngland.org or call (617) 227-3956.Member price $31.45; nonmember price $34.95 (plusapplicable tax, shipping, and handling).

The Hearth

Housewives generally rose early to rekindle the fireon the kitchen hearth, using bellows to coax a flamefrom embers hidden under banked ashes the nightbefore. Building and managing fires was secondnature. A fire that was not well supplied with air orfuel was in danger of going out, in which case some-one would have to ignite some tinder with a sparkfrom a flint and steel or go to a neighbor’s house toborrow live coals. Most women had a comfort andfamiliarity with fire that allowed them to worksafely around the hearth. Clothes in this periodwere usually made of wool and linen rather thanmore flammable cotton, so if women’s clothing didcatch a spark, it smoldered rather than flared.

Servants

“The complaints made of Irish girls are numerousand loud…yet, in arrest of judgment…let us imag-ine our own daughters between the ages of sixteenand twenty-four, untaught and inexperienced indomestic affairs, shipped to a foreign shore to seekservice in families. It may be questioned whether, asa whole, they would do much better. [These Irish]girls…are often the age of our own daughters,standing for themselves without mothers to guidethem, in a foreign country, not only bravely sup-porting themselves, but sending home in every shipremittances to impoverished friends left behind. Ifour daughters did as much for us, would we not beproud of their energy and heroism?” – CatharineBeecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The AmericanWoman’s Home, 1869

Designing Kitchens for Efficiency

The Hoosier cabinet appeared at the turn of thetwentieth century and soon became an emblem ofthe mass-marketed efficient kitchen. In a competi-tive field, the Hoosier was the most recognizedbrand; two million cabinets were in use by 1920. At a time when few households could afford servants, the Hoosier was advertised as, “thekitchen cabinet that saves miles of steps.” [It] was a bridge between the old kitchen, with separatepantries, closets, and tables, and the modernkitchen, with integrated cabinets, counters, sink,stove, and refrigerator.

“The fireplace was deep, and there was a ‘settle’ inthe chimney corner, where three of us youngest girlscould sit together and toast our toes on theandirons…while we looked up the chimney into asquare of blue sky, and sometimes caught a snow-flake on our foreheads.” –Lucy Larcom, A NewEngland Girlhood, 1889

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he imposing 1807 mansionCastle Tucker in Wiscasset,Maine, occupies a com-manding position on a bluff

overlooking a tidal inlet far below. Itsfashionable Victorian interiors consti-tute a rare survival of nineteenth-cen-tury furnishings without additions orrestorations. The property’s exposed siteand dramatic two-story glassed-in“piazza,” however, have made it vul-nerable to winter winds and dampness,which have taken their toll over theyears on the furnishings and interiorsurfaces. Following a condition surveycarried out by a team of staff and outsideconservators, the Institute of Museumand Library Services awarded HistoricNew England a two-year grant to cor-rect environmental problems in thebuilding and to treat many of theobjects.

C O N S E R V A T I O N

TCaring for a Castle

For the past several years, HistoricNew England has made extensiveimprovements to the environment insidethe house and carefully conserved thecollections and interior finishes. TheProperty Care staff installed UV light fil-ters on windows, repaired areas wheremoisture was penetrating, and installednew heaters and dehumidifiers in thebasement, which help to controlthe temperature and humiditythroughout the house. Meanwhile,staff and contract conservatorsfocused on the collections andinteriors. The suite of parlorfurniture, which still has itsoriginal upholstery fromthe 1850s, was treated toprotect the fabric and reducesome of the appearance ofwear. The plaster busts of nota-bles such as Daniel Webster, JohnC. Calhoun, and Henry Clay were

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conserved to treat flaking paint. All in all,more than one hundred different objectsfrom the house were conserved.

After the environmental issues atthe house had been addressed and theobjects treated, a team of conservatorsarrived to work on the interior wood-work and wallpaper. One area thatdemanded their attention was the oakgrain painting on the staircase anddoor frames in the central hall, whichhad begun to crack and flake off. Theconservators re-adhered loose and flak-ing paint with a synthetic water-solubleresin, then inpainted the voids with drypigments and acrylic emulsion paints.

The team also treated the hall’shandsome diamond-patterned mahog-any and maple parquet floor. Age andwear have muted the woods’ contrastingcolors. Dirt, as well as layers of wax andfinish, had long ago obscured even thesemuted colors. Using an environmentallyfriendly solvent, the team removed theold wax and degraded finish and thencleaned the wood with a biodegradable,neutral pH cleaner. Finally, they applieda water-based polyurethane varnish topreserve the muted original colors andprotect the floor.

The conservation team also workedon the parlor wallpaper, which hadbeen hung in the 1880s. The paste hadfailed, and the paper was coming off


the walls. Using long polyethylenespatulas, the conservators separatedthe paper from the walls in continuoussheets. They then placed the sheets onwork tables and lined them with tintedJapanese tissue paper, using wheatstarch paste. This part of the treatmentrequired the utmost delicacy to keepthe front of the paper from getting wet,because the wallpaper pigments werewater soluble; if moisture penetrated tothe front, the design could easily smear.Next, the conservators lined the plasterwalls with a layer of Japanese tissue.When both wallpaper and walls werecompletely dry, the team applied pasteto the walls, misted the back of thewallpaper with water, and using trans-parent polyester sheets to handle thepaper without touching its surface,positioned it on the wall and secured itby pressing it against the wall withlong wallpaper brushes. Lastly, theconservators used acrylic emulsionpaints to tone down the liner in placeswhere the wallpaper was missing, mak-ing the losses virtually disappear. Thissummer, conservators will treat twomore walls in the parlor; in the mean-time, they have stabilized loose sec-tions with stainless steel push pins (asillustrated in the winter 2008 issue ofHistoric New England magazine).

The work of the conservationteam has helped Castle Tucker lookonce more the way it did when Mollyand Captain Richard Tucker still livedthere. Watch for another article onCastle Tucker in the next issue of themagazine, and plan your visit to see itstransformation and learn the interest-ing story of the Tucker family.

—John ChildsConservator

FACING PAGE, TOP Castle Tucker, Wiscasset, Maine. BOTTOM Plaster

bust of John C. Calhoun, before and after consolidation of flaking

paint. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Faux oak grain painting from

the central staircase, before and after consolidation and inpainting.

Associate Conservator Michaela Neiro and Preservation Mainten-

ance Coordinator Josh Wright line original wallpaper with Japanese

tissue to consolidate and strengthen it. Conservator John Childs

removes original wallpaper from the parlor walls. Parlor chair with

original 1850s upholstery, before and after conservation.

141 Cambridge StreetBoston MA 02114-2702

Non-Profit OrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDBoston, Massachusetts

Permit No. 58621

tical and creative man, who hadtrained as an architect and owned aconstruction company. Dapper, hand-some, mischievous, and brimming withstyle, he intended his summer house tobe a departure from the formality of

city life. The primary familyhome, which he also de-signed and built, had mod-ern elements in its exteriorand stylish innovations in-side, like curved cove ceil-ings with recessed lightingin the living room, but waslargely furnished with tradi-tional, formal “brown fur-niture.”

I imagine that for thefamily’s summer getaway,he was drawn to the thenradical innovations whichthe LCW chair represented.Adapted from technologydeveloped by Charles Eames

y grandfather, Jacob Schultz,purchased this Eames LCW(Lounge Chair Wood) chair

as part of the furnishings for the mod-ern beach house he designed and builtfor his family in 1955. He was a prac-

A C Q U I S I T I O N S

Modern at the Beach

during the Second World War to makemolded plywood splints for woundedsoldiers, the LCW chair rejected histor-ical revival style in favor of practicality,comfort, and organic beauty. With itsbentwood seat and flexible back, thechair responded to the movements ofthe sitter. It was mass produced,affordable, stylish, and sculptural—asuitable perch on which my grandfa-ther relaxed and enjoyed the pleasuresof summer life while savoring the lastword in modern design.

—Andrew Spindler-Roesle

Andrew Spindler-Roesle, who recentlydonated the chair to Historic NewEngland, is the owner of AndrewSpindler Antiques in Essex, Massachu-setts.

LEFT LCW chair, designed in 1945–46 by the husband

and wife design team Charles and Ray Eames.

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historic new england winter-spring 2009

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