BSA Historic Resources Committee Meeting Notes for October 2007
Present: Matthew Bronski, Matt Brown, Gregory Colling, Marilyn Fenollosa, Robert Fulmer, David M. Hart, John Hecker, David Kelman, David King, Amy Cole Ives, Ryan Maciej, Henry Moss, Ivan Myjer, Deborah Robinson, Brian Roche, Deane Rykerson, Susan Schur, Malcolm Smiley, Jonathan Smith, Jane Toland, Eric Ward, Sara Wermiel
1. Strawbery Banke Tour Discussion: Participants expressed appreciation for the fine tour organized by Kim Alexander and David Hart. David mentioned the Peabody Essex Museum's new exhibition, "Samuel McIntire, Carving an American Style" (through Feb. 24, 2008) and Historic Salem's acclaimed house tours, Dec. 1-3, 2007.
2. American Lighthouse Construction - Images from the Library of Congress: Historic Resources Committee Co-Leader and building historian Sara Wermiel presented an abbreviated history of lighthouse construction types based on her recent book, Lighthouses (2006). Lighthouses is the fourth book in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks in Architecture, Design and Engineering series; like all the titles in the series, it features images from the collections of the Prints & Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The books come with a CD containing digital files of all their illustrations.
Sara traced the development of lighthouse structures from the simple, on-shore towers of the early national period through the forms and materials that evolved to meet the demanding conditions of lighting the coasts of the United States. Since all lighthouses prior to the era of automation were manned by one or more keepers, and were usually located at remote sites, light stations contained structures in addition to the light towers, such as dwellings, oil houses, cisterns, boat houses and so on. All these parts comprised a site called a "light station."
The first American lighthouses were land-based and made of wood, stone or brick. A common early form was a circular or octagonal plan made of rubble stone and stucco. But already in the 18th century, John Smeaton used complicated stone shapes interlocked horizontally and vertically to build Britain's Eddystone Light. It wasn't until the mid-19th century that American lighthouse engineers built a similar structure (Minot's Lighthouse, still standing off Cohasset). In the 1850s, a newly constituted Lighthouse Board set out to light the entire coastline, and ordered that primary seacoast lights be visible from as far out to sea as twenty miles. To achieve this, tower heights were increased, and the first really tall towers appeared.
Little River Light, Cutler, ME (old photo; lighthouse replaced 1876); Southwest Pass, LA (1871); Butler Flats Light, New Bedford, MA (1898), "sparkplug" style.
A common early form was the "cottage style" lighthouse - a dwelling with a tower rising through a pitched roof or attached to a side wall. After 1840, iron began to be used, first in the form of cast iron plates; these iron towers had the advantages of being prefabricated and they weighed less than similarly sized masonry tower, so were good for soft, sandy sites. The cast iron plate skins often were lined with brick. Another application of iron was in skeleton pile lighthouses. These open frames with a lighthouse on top were created for water-covered or wave-swept sites on the theory that water would wash through. When built on sandy ground, the foundation piles often had enormous screws on their ends and were drilled into the ground. Large iron skeletons were built beginning around 1850, and some from the 1850s off the coast of Florida still survive, where they have withstood the water and hurricanes, although have not been troubled by the ice that brought down many of the type in the north. A later solution to the problem of building lighthouses in water, where running ice was a problem, was to put them on solid marine foundation - stone and later tubes or caissons filled with concrete. These solid platforms formed the base for various styles of lighthouse, often iron plate but also stone.
Sara noted a period of marked improvement in the architecture of lighthouses when Paul Pelz, a Geman émigré, became chief draftsman for the Lighthouse Board. (See for example the Portland Breakwater Light modeled on the Choragic Monument of Lysikrates when you next visit Maine.) Sara mentioned the introduction of the Fresnel lens from France in the 1840's with its attendant changes in lantern houses. [You can see a Fresnel lens if you visit Boston Light and climb to the interior of the rotating Fresnel optic; it was restored by the U S Coast Guard and Historic Boston in 1990.]
All the images in the book can be seen on the P&P Division's website, as can about half of P&P's huge collection, which includes HABS/HAER documentation: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/pphome.html.
3. The Dainty Dot a.k.a. Auchmuty Building, 120 Kingston St.: A new proposal by the same developer contemplated gutting the building, dismantling both street facades, erecting new tower over an excavated parking story, and reassembling masonry façades facing Essex and Kingston Streets at their current lengths.
4. H. H. Richardson House: David Kelman reported that the new owners have employed an architectural firm from the Washington, DC area to help them restore and adapt the house for their use as a residence.
5. APT International, Bulletin Vol XXXVII, No. 2-3: Henry directed the committee's attention to "New Life for the Chancel Window at Bigelow Chapel, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Massachusetts," by Meg Winslow, Julie Sloan, and committee member Roberto Rosa of Serpentino Stained and Leaded Glass in Needham. The article is masterful, and people should make an effort to visit Mount Auburn Cemetery and see the window in natural light. Ballantine & Allan's 1845 window also profits from two daylight enhancements: first, a sheet of protective glass was replaced with a fine stainless steel mesh, and second, a large and dour Hemlock was removed.
6. Historic New England Modernist House Database: Wendy Price and Sally Zimmerman have begun to create a regional database for Modernist houses and their architects. They intend to consolidate the fragmented (and incomplete) knowledge that historians, archivists, advocacy groups, and historic commissions have garnered and assemble it to aid research into New England's Modern Movement houses. A complementary pilot project is underway at the MHC where Betsy Friedberg and Michael Steinitz are working with architectural historian Judith Hull to identify significant early and mid-20th century houses among the MACRIS entries.
Note: Henry, Sara and Matthew are planning the topics for future meetings. E-mail us with suggestions.
8: 00 a.m., Thursday, November 8, 2007
Featuring
Emerson College: Campus Heritage Survey, Getty Grant Film
The Architects' Building, 52 Broad Street, Boston, Fifth Floor
Henry Moss, Matthew Bronski, and Sara Wermiel co-leaders and scribes