Dear Linda and Jack, Nancy and Fred, and Columns & Coffee participants, and friends of Traditional Architecture:
What a lovely time everyone had last Saturday morning! Linda and Jack were quite generous with their hospitality and as someone remarked, “It was like wandering the halls of Europe!” or at least a visit to The Frick or The Met or the Isabella Stewart Gardner mansion. The variety of antiques, art and tapestries, and ancient reclaimed building materials (300-year old plank flooring and hand-hewn beams…both from France) were just too abundant to enumerate here, but many were used in the most creative manner (the decorative tiles embedded in the plaster above the doors upstairs and carved panels set into thick custom walnut doors). Not to mention the myriad of sinks, wonderful furniture and lampstands, and wrought iron…ah, the wrought iron!
Thank you, too, Linda and Jack, for displaying the Fisher and Fisher blueprints and accompanying photo albums (my favorites were the elevation details for the front door surround!), sharing colorful stories about your adventures in renovation and collecting, and for taking care of all the details, from the booties to parking arrangements next door. A big thank you, too, to Nancy and Fred Wolfe for coordinating the tour with our generous hosts.
Linda and Jack, at the 11th hour you and others literally saved this house from certain destruction for which we commend you. And oh yes, wouldn’t Fisher and Fisher and the original owners be proud of what you have done with their legacy?!
L to R: Fred and Nancy Wolfe, Linda and Jack Keenan
The next C&C tour will be the Brinkerhoff mansion on November 19, led by architect Don Ruggles, who will preface the tour with a talk entitled “The 9-Square Plan”.
The annual ICAA publication, The Classicist No. 13, is now out. You may read a review in Garden & Gun here.
Regarding education, the ICAA recently released a short video about the annual “Summer Studio” narrated by national president Mark Ferguson.
Sincerely,
Tom M.
ICAA-RM 2016 Events chair
Photos from the Tour:
