AA SPECIAL SECTION HISTORIC HOMES

RESTORATION

CC/JAR

RESTORATION

Story and Photos

By David Kendall

GLASTONBURY, CONN. – It’s no secret that craftsmen of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries did their best work by hand, slowly, deliberately. Time was not of the essence, and labor intensive wasn’t a concept to be avoided.

It’s also no secret that the most adroit architectural restorers and preservationists of the Twentieth Century take a similar tack when it comes to preserving the achievements of their forebearers. Sandblasting may be a quick way to remove centuries of paint from antique dentil moldings, but in the end the final results can be ruinous.

So restorer/preserver Steve Bielitz of Glastonbury Restoration Co. takes a slow, analytical approach to his assignments for some of the most discerning private clients and historical societies in the Northeast, and his work shows it.

Just fronting the green in Old Wethersfield, Conn., stands the Captains Charles Bulkeley House. Because it was the home of one of Wethersfield’s founding families, the present owners – Cynthia Clancy and Douglas Ovian – call the property “Founder’s Farm.”

The house itself is the first residence built on the green, a handsome gambrel of exquisite proportions and Georgian symmetry. It retains a host of venerable details that the Glastonbury Restorations team might easily have unintentionally destroyed in their efforts to strip the clapboards to bare wood and refinish the house.

But applying some new mechanical stripping techniques, Bielitz and his crew have actually uncovered details that need to be enhanced and protected. They also have managed to comply with state lead paint abatement regulations by painstakingly tarping the entire site, thorough accumulation of all removed debris, even vacuuming of the entire area each evening when the day’s work is done.

On one corner of the house, Bielitz pointed out a short length of pilaster that had been replaced many years before. The adjacent, original board had been beaded at its edge, a typical decorative element in the Seventeenth Century, Bielitz said. While it would have been simpler, and no less “correct” to have left the piece unbeaded as it was found, Steve planned to carefully match the decorative work.

In the northwestern Connecticut village of Sherman, another Glastonbury work crew was detailing the vernacular farmhouse that is the Sherman Historical Society’s headquarters.

While extensive work, is still on-going, inside and out, one of the little details that “made” the job had recently been completed.

Flanking the front door and surmounting it, are delicately detailed window lights with wood-and-plaster filigree work in a head-of-wheat pattern. To have refurbished them in a ham-handed fashion would have been to destroy their spidery tracery. Each was almost surgically repaired where necessary, and then stripped for refinishing with details crisp and clear. Sometimes, Bielitz feels, these tiny elements have more impact on how the total job is perceived by client and observers than major structural work.

Just a stone’s throw from the oldest operating ferry on the Connecticut River stands a simple, Seventeenth Century country dwelling. Bielitz says that most of the drivers who daily speed past probably fail to mark the crisp lines and correct colors of this structure, elegant in its simplicity. But long hours of painstaking work went into stripping and refinishing, as well as restoration of the front door – a study in architectural elegance.

Working from old photos and with great knowledge of architectural design from the period, Steve Bielitz and his crafts-people rebuilt the dilapidated front door surround with its double-door elements, pilasters and Greek Revival pediment.

When a modern-day owner wants to add structure that never existed to a historic house, on the other hand, Bielitz turns his talents toward the creative with an acknowledgement of the past.

In Canton, the restorers were asked to build a family kitchen as it would have been done had the elements existed when the Seventeenth Century house had been first built.

Not content merely to use “antique” materials, though most of  the wood and much of the glass were recycled from dismantled structures of the period, Bielitz created “period” panelled cabinets, windows with the proper number of lights, and finished them with paints of an authentic hue.

Sometimes the architectural elements all come together to create a restoration so right in every aspect that it serves as a landmark effort.

One of Glastonbury Restoration Co.’s ultimate triumphs has been an incredible Greek Revival in a northwestern corner of the Nutmeg state. Originally the home of a prosperous country squire, the house stands amid stately trees beside a millpond, surrounded by stone walls and park-like grounds.

While the doors, windows, even the Palladian windows, excite admiration and delight for their symmetry and design, it is the delicacy and crispness of the decorative moldings that gives this large, substantial house its fineness.

There seems to be no limit to Steve Bielitz’ s love for architectural minutia, ranging from shape to form to color. His attention to the most inconspicuous  details has brought him several awards from the prestigious Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

But even more important than awards, this caring has earned him the trust of knowledgeable and demanding clients. They return again and again to take advantage of his sense of honesty and craftsmanship that seems to embody the best elements of the historic structures we all seek to preserve for another generation.