Inaugurations

We are pleased to announce that Lynne Dakin Hastings has joined Montpelier as Vice President for Museum Programs. Prior to coming to Montpelier, Lynne was Curator of Historic Interiors for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, responsible for overseeing the arrangement and preservation of more than 200 historic spaces, as well as consultant for special projects in the Historic Area. She formerly was the Chief Curator and Cultural Resources Specialist for the National Park Service at Hampton National Historic Site, near Baltimore, Maryland for many years, initiating the research, planning and implementation of interiors restoration, collections management, archival collections and library, archaeological surveys, grant funded research and acquisitions, and collaboration with non-profit foundations. As VP for Museum Programs, Lynne will coordinate the Archaeology, Curatorial and Education departments, keeping projects focused, involving the appropriate staff and consultants, and helping the team to reach consensus. We are very excited that she is here!

Inaugurations and Mrs. Smith

Last week, our nation celebrated the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States with all of the pageantry and celebrations reserved for such an occasion. Many people do not realize that 2009 also marks the bicentennial of Madison’s Presidency and the first Inaugural Ball.

The Madison’s Inaugural ball took place at Long’s Hotel, located one block from the Capitol building in Washington. Four hundred tickets were sold, costing $4 a piece. The ball would have been the highlight of the year for Washington’s high society.

Margaret Bayard Smith, one of Dolley Madison’s lifelong friends, attended the ball and described Dolley’s entrance:

“Madison’s March was then played and Mrs. Madison led in by one of the managers and Mrs. [Anna] Cutts and Mr. Madison, she was led to the part of the room where we happened to be, so that I accidently was placed next to her. She looked a queen. She had on a pale buff colored velvet [dress] made plain, with a very long train, but not the least trimming, and beautiful pearl necklace, earrings, and bracelets. Her head dress was a turban of the same coloured velvet and white satin (from Paris) with two superb plumes, the bird of paradise feathers. It would be absolutely impossible for anyone to behave with more perfect propriety than she did. Unassuming dignity, sweetness, grace. It seems to me that such manners would disarm envy itself, and conciliate even enemies”¹

Margaret Bayard Smith’s letters and diaries are an invaluable source of information for scholars who study Washington in the early 19th century. Mrs. Smith’s husband was the editor of the National Intelligencer, the premier Washington D.C., newspaper, so the Smiths knew many of the most important politicians in Washington. The Smiths also visited Montpelier on several occasions; Mrs. Smith’s letters provide valuable clues regarding room use and furniture at Montpelier.

For example, in August of 1809, she described arriving at Montpelier and being ushered into the Dining Room,

“It was near five o’clock when we arrived, we were met at the door by Mr. M who led us in the dining room where some gentlemen were still smoking segars [sic] and drinking wine. Mrs. M. enter’d the moment afterwards, and after embracing me, took my hand, saying with a smile I will take you out of this smoke to a pleasanter room”²

Later in that same passage, Mrs. Smith called Dolley Madison “kindness personified”. The two women were already friends by the time of the 1809 visit, but as First Lady and the mistress of Montpelier, Dolley was a gracious hostess to people she barely knew. The letters written by visitors, especially those like Mrs. Smith, provide us with glimpses of the way the rooms at Montpelier were furnished and used.

¹ Margaret Baryard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society: Portrayed by the Family Letters of Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 61-62.
² Ibid., 81.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the second phase of Montpelier’s restoration and of this blog. The architectural restoration of the Madisons’ home is nearly complete, and now the challenge is to begin refurnishing some of the rooms to the way they would have looked when James and Dolley Madison and James’ mother, Nelly Conway Madison, were in residence in the early 19th century. At present, the Curatorial Department is focused on the rooms about which we have the most information: the Drawing Room (108), the Dining Room (105), Mother Madison’s best room (112), and Mr. Madison’s study (the room in which he spent the final years of his life) (104).

With the shift in focus comes a shift in authorship. Updates will be written by members of the Curatorial Department and consultants working on the refurnishing effort. We hope to tell you about all the aspects of our work, from general research into the cultural context of items to the provenance of specific objects, from reading estate inventories to deciphering plats and plans.

We hope that you will enjoy reading the blog, and might be inspired to come visit and see Montpelier for yourself. For more information, please visit our website.

This is only temporary….

The Montpelier Restoration Blog is currently on a Holiday hiatus. The blog will return in the new year with a new look, a new managing editor and an exciting new focus on the restoration of the Madison’s interiors and furnishings. It’s been a pleasure updating you all on the restoration’s progress and answering everone’s great comments. I also want to thank you for your support of Montpelier and hope you all check back frequently to follow the progress of interiors’ restoration.

Happy Holidays!

– Gardiner

This is only temporary….

The Montpelier Restoration Blog is currently on a Holiday hiatus. The blog will return in the new year with a new look, a new managing editor and an exciting new focus on the restoration of the Madisons’ interiors and furnishings. It’s been a pleasure updating you all on the restoration’s progress and answering everyone’s great comments. I also want to thank you for your support of Montpelier and hope you all check back frequently to follow the progress of interiors’ restoration.

Happy Holidays!

– Gardiner

Update

Doors

Mac Ward is installing the door jambs in the cellar.

Gene Lyman continues to install door hinges and locks.

Exterior

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana are painting the North Wing’s eastern stoop and stair

Bill Bichell is driving and clenching the wrought nails into the heart-pine lattice that will go under the portico deck. Clenching nails, or hammering the projecting end of a nail back against a piece of wood, is common method of insuring a nail would stay securely in place and has been used for centuries if not longer.

Millwork

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana are getting ready to make the transoms for the wing doorways. The muntins in the transoms are bent into an incredibly complex design and the picture below shows some of the approximately 160 pieces that will make up the shaper templates Blaise is going to use to build the transoms.

Montpelier Restoration Update – 11/26/2008 and 12/3/2008

Doors

Mac Ward continues to hang doors on the second floor.  In the photos above he is trimming the edge of one of the doors prior to installation.  The metal guide helps to ensure the circular saw stays straight through the entire length of the cut.

Gene Lyman continues to install door hinges and locks.  Gene has also installed the pine threshold for the doorway that leads out to the Colonnade deck.  Physical evidence for this very wide (15”) threshold was found on the surviving Madison-era flooring.

Keith Forrey continues to install the doors in the cellar.  In the photos he is installing a wrought-iron “H-L” hinge on the door to a closet in the 1797 cellar.

A latch-lock was also installed on the eastern door in M-109 (South Passage).  This spring-loaded lock is something of an intermediate step between the more common Norfolk latches and the more complex rim locks.  The odd handles, called stirrups or axe-head handles, are based on multiple examples found on surviving locks or archaeologically.  While these handles look unusual when compared to modern knobs, they were actually very common in the 18th and early-19th centuries.

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Exterior

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana are installing the North Wing’s eastern stoop and stair

Montpelier Restoration Update – 11/20/2008

Doors

Mac Ward continues to hang doors on the second floor.

Keith Forry is finishing the repairs to the original Madison doors.

Gene Lyman continues to install mortise locks on the doors and Bill Bichell is installing hinges and the recreated c. 1764 screws for the reproduction c. 1764 H-L hinges.

Windows

Joe Doody continues to install the interior storm windows in the Mansion.

Millwork

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana are painting the North Wing’s eastern stoop and stair, milling transoms and making a 15” threshold for the Colonnade deck door.

Colonnade

Bill Bichell is cutting holes and installing braces for the wrought-iron colonnade deck railings.

Montpelier Restoration Update – 11/12/2008

Doors

Mac Ward continues to install weather stripping on the door frames.

Keith Forry has finished installing the cellar door jambs in the 1797 cellar and has started to install the reconstructed jambs in the c. 1764 cellar.

Gene Lyman continues to install mortise locks on the doors.  He has also re-installed the door to M-206 (Restoration exhibit room) using wrought-iron H-L hinges.  While the name “H-L” may sound strange, it actually relates to the letters formed by the shape of the hinge.

Bill Bichell continues to work on the cellar passage doors.

Windows

Joe Doody is installing the interior storm windows in the Mansion.  The storm windows, which were manufactured by Allied Window, Inc, are primarily intended to make maintaining the climate in the Mansion easier and keep condensation from forming on the historic window sashes.  However, the storm windows will also help to reduce the amount of ultraviolet light that enters the mansion.  UV light can cause fabrics and furniture to fade and even deteriorate over time, so it is vital for historic house museums to keep as much UV light out of their houses as possible.  To control UV light at Montpelier, we elected to use laminated glass in our interior storm windows.  By using the laminated glass (two thin sheets held together with a thin layer of plastic), we will be able to block 99% of transmitted UV light from entering the Mansion.  Eventually, when furnishings are placed in the Mansion, we will also install tinted window film on the windows to reduce the amount of light and heat that is transmitted through the windows.  The heat and light energy found in sunlight also degrades fabrics and furnishings and having the films will be a vital tool for protecting the collections.

Thin magnetic strips mounted to the window stops are used to hold the storm windows in place.  Each storm window is custom made to fit the subtle variations found in the windows throughout the mansion.  A tool called a glass-cup is being used to mount the windows in the frames.  The glass-cups are basically two suction cuts mounted to a handle that allow the windows to be carefully placed into the frame.

Garrett

Keith has also started building a cowl or hood for the lunette window.  The cowl is needed to keep rain from blowing into the garret when the window is opened in the summer to ventilate the attic.  When the window is open it will lean against the cowl to form a watertight seal.  The interior of the cowl will also be coated with epoxy and then caulked and painted to keep it water tight.

Millwork

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana have finished milling and assembling the stairs and stoop for the North Wing’s eastern exterior door.  They are currently painting the stairs and stoop and will hopefully be installing it next week.

Montpelier Restoration Update – 11/5/2008

Doors

Mac Ward is installing weather stripping around the door stops. We are using a non-invasive weather stripping that does not require us to damage or cut into the historic door frames. To install the weather stripping Mac cuts a piece of white rubber tubing to the length needed. After cleaning the tube and the door frame to ensure a secure bond, he then runs a bead of industrial-strength silicon caulking at the junction of the door frame and the door stop. Next Mac beds the tube into the silicon bead and finally he runs a disk roller over the tube to ensure that it has been firmly seated.

Keith Forry has started to install the cellar door jambs. The above photo shows Keith installing one of the jambs in M-003 (Storage) in the 1797 section of the cellar. Keith has also started to hang the cellar doors, including the original Madison doors recovered during the restoration.

Gene Lyman continues to install mortise locks on the doors.

Windows

Mark Gooch has cut the eccentrically shaped glass panes for the cellar kitchen windows. To cut the panes he carefully outlines the shape of pane on a larger piece of glass laid over the sash. Next he scores the outline with a glass cutter. Finally, he breaks off the excess glass by gently tapping near the score lines.

Millwork

Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana have finished making all of the doors for the cellars as well as the gates for the West Yard fence.

Montpelier Restoration Update – 10/29/2008

Doors

Mac Ward continues to install door sweeps and is currently working on the second floor, exterior doors.

Keith Forry has finished restoring the Madison-era door that will be hung between M-001 (North Kitchen) and M-002 (North Cellar Passage).  Keith is also repairing a circa 1764 door in the cellar between rooms M-004 (Secure Storage) and M-005 (Storage under the Passage).  A small portion of one of the lower corners was missing from the door and Keith has shaped piece of heart pine to serve as a dutchman.  The door does not appear to have ever been removed and so Keith is repairing it in place rather than taking it off the hinges.

Gene Lyman continues to install mortise locks on the doors.  He has also installed a brass-strike plate on the sheathing in the South Wing Stair enclosure.  The strike plate is needed because of the narrowness of the doorway which results in the lock’s bolt rubbing against the sheathing.  While these strike plates were not common in the early-19th century, examples have been found at other historic sites.

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Millwork

The wing-cellar window sashes have been delivered and Bill Bichell is currently fitting them to the window openings.  Below is a video of Blaise Gaston and Paul Pyzyana assembling one of the window sashes.  The sash frame and straight muntins are made out of heart pine while the curved muntins are made from white oak.  Madison’s carpenters, John Dinsmore and John Neilson, also used these two different woods in the original c. 1809 windows with curved muntins.