Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1285517
PHOTOGRAPHY: WALTER BEEBE-CENTER PROJECT: Alvah Kittredge House, Roxbury, MA (before) BUILDER: Essex Restoration AWARD: 2015 MA Historical Commission, Preservation Award for adaptive reuse, rehabilitation and restoration. Also, 2015 Boston Preservation Alliance, Preservation Achievement Award (before) Old Mansion gets new life as affordable housing. This huge Greek Revival mansion was built by Alvah Kittredge, a wealthy merchant in his day. "Every (old building) story starts with a wealthy merchant ...," says Walter Beebe-Center. It was built in Roxbury just up the road from what is now Roxbury Community College. Vacant for more than a decade, the building had fallen into severe disrepair. Historic Boston, Inc. hired Essex Restoration to tackle the exterior restoration. The Essex team restored and re-installed the windows and doors. Only two of the existing Ionic columns were able to be preserved, so the other four were fabricated from mahogany by a large shop in Washington state, trucked to the site and installed. They used a mold of the existing Ionic capital to create six new capitals made of resin and turned the 18"x36" diameter bases out of mahogany. The team restored the entire front façade, which Walter Beebe- Center is proud to acknowledge, "looks gorgeous." That's a far cry from what it looked like upon arrival. Walter recounts his first day on the job, when climbing the scaffolding to inspect the front-facing columns, he came face to face with a peeved squatter. "It was the largest raccoon I had ever seen. I was taking the escalator up, and he the escalator down, and we met in the middle." Fortunately, our hero won the standoff. Restoring the capitals for the columns in Essex Restoration's Millwork Shop by longtime Essex Restoration craftsman Jon Folsom New capitals and bases The restored columns arrive at the jobsite with Bjorn Nillson impersonating Slim Pickens! Project Manager Matt Hudson puts the final touches on the column installation. BOSTON.BUILDERARCHITECT.COM Builder+Architect GREATER BOSTON, CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS | 2 1