Category: Preservation
Categories
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Abyssinian Meetinghouse listed as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Properties
Last week, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced it’s list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Properties. The Abyssinian Meetinghouse had the dubious distinction of making it on the list. Inclusion on the list indicates the importance of the third-oldest standing African-American meetinghouse in our nation’s history, but also sheds light upon the lack of…
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Marrett House: Magic and a Time Machine
Last week we assembled Marrett House‘s 15 foot frame and panel wall and installed it. The day felt like a mini-crane day, with shoulders instead of cranes, and a mini-rush of adrenaline. When the day was over, and we’d reversed the effects of last April’s drunken car crash, I realized that time machines are not made…
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Guest Post by Lee Hoagland: Castine’s First Parish Church, its History and Restoration
On the northeastern side of Penobscot Bay in downeast Maine sits the town of Castine, an elegant town with a rich history. Our crew was called into town because some structural issues had been detected in its First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church. Having never visited before I was struck by the town’s wealth of early…
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Marrett House Panels Cope with Dismantling
Yesterday we began the dismantling the Marrett House panels in order to repair the broken stiles and rails. Above, Shawn shows his method for extracting the pins. He drills a tiny hole through the center of the pin, then threads a screw into the hole until it just bites, and then uses a hammer claw…
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Marrett House Survives the Insults of a Drunken Car Thief
A year ago last April, just after rush hour, a man stole a Suburu in Cape Elizabeth, drunk-drove it to Standish, crossed two lanes of traffic, surfed a lawn and crashed into the Marrett House, coming to rest in its historic parlor. The stout framing members were fractured and the frame and panel wainscot splintered,…
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Langlais Restoration in Maine Sunday Telegram
On Sunday, the restoration of Bernard Langlais’ wooden sculptures was covered in a full page spread of the Maine Sunday Telegram. It was a pleasure to talk with Bob Keyes, and Shawn Ouellette, of the Portland Press Herald, and to meet the with the folks who raised the money to make this restoration possible. The…
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Freedom Mill on MPBN’s Maine Watch
Tony Grassi, owner of the Mill at Freedom Falls, will be discussing its rehabilitation with Jennifer Rooks on MPBN’s Maine Watch this week. The show airs Thursday, December 13 at 8 pm, Friday at 9 pm and Sunday at 5 pm. It will also be on the radio on Friday at 12:30 pm. Read more…
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A Marriage of Traditional Joinery and Modern Engineering
On Wednesday, the crew down at iFarm raised a new timber-framed kitchen ell. The modified English frame is based closely on joinery found in the late-18th century house. We based the size and location of the addition on evidence found in the house frame of an original, and now demolished, ell. Like the house frame,…
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Where were we?
At PTF, we have a passion for preservation. It’s been joked that Arron, our boss, wants to save every old barn and church steeple in New England, and that isn’t so far from the truth. This passion brings PTF to projects large and small, far and wide. Using the “my maps” function in Google Maps,…
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Demeritt-O’Kane Notebook XIII: Historic Home Available for Purchase
FOR SALE – The Israel Demeritt House is a two-story, center-chimney, timber-frame dwelling, 40’ x 32’ with attached cape ell, 40’ x 21’. NH state historian, Jim Garvin, reports that it “is the best example so far identified in Durham of a two-story, center chimney house in the federal style.” Out of seven original fireplaces, three…