|
Art House By Ned Depew
|
 |
|
|
When
is a house not a house? When it is a piece of art. This amazing transformation, from humble farm dwelling to museum-quality exhibit, is currently being undergone by an antique Dutch house from the first half of the 18th Century in the town of Bethlehem. The Daniel Peter Winne (pronounced Winnie) House is currently being carefully documented, dismantled and prepared for shipment to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, where it will grace the newly remodeled American Wing, as a fitting background for the Museum's collection of art and objects from the period. |
||
|
The transformation began through a series of serendipitous circumstances more than a year ago, when an excavating contractor in the Bethlehem area bought an old farm in a mixed industrial zone of the town. There was a dilapidated dwelling on the property that was rented out to a tenant and the contractor, who wanted the property to house his machinery and store landscaping materials, was trying to decide whether to try to renovate it or just tear it down. He recognized that it was an interesting and somewhat unusual building. He asked his lawyer to come and take a look at the place. By coincidence, his lawyer was also the lawyer for J.M. Kelley, Ltd., a company that specializes in restoring, repairing, dismantling and reconstructing antique buildings. The lawyer had been on some of the Kelley job sites over the years. When he saw the interior of the Winne house, he told the owner to hold off on making any decision until he had had a chance to ask Mike Kelley - J.M. Kelley, Ltd.'s president - to take a look at it. Kelley came down and looked, and was bowled over by what he saw. The interior of the first floor was a perfectly preserved example of 18th Century Dutch design and construction. Almost miraculously, over the course of two-and-a-half centuries (the house is thought to date from about 1730-40), in spite of numerous additions to the building and remodeling, most of the original structure was intact, and in its original form. Most impressively, the interior finish was largely in place, and the highly polished board ceiling and its massive support beams had never been painted. Kelley knew the building was something special. But what to do with it? Located near a busy highway in an area that is becoming increasingly an industrial corridor, it was unlikely that anyone would want to buy it and restore it as a residence. The Bethlehem Historical Society had information on the building and was interested in it. But they didn't have a use for the structure, nor the resources to restore it.
Kelley had done some work a short time earlier for a well-known
antiques dealer in Ulster County, Jonathan Trace - restoring an
early Dutch Colonial house of a similar period as a private
residence. He knew that Trace was a specialist in the period, and
had a wide circle of acquaintances in the community of antiquarians
of all kinds who share that interest. Kelley called him on the phone
and told him about the house. |
||
|
|
Another coincidence: among Trace's circle are the curators of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with whom he has frequently consulted about his area of expertise, and for whom he has provided art and objects from the period for their collection. He spoke to Peter Kenney, Curator of the American Wings, about the house. Yet another coincidence: his call came at a time when the Museum was in the early stages of planning a significant program of changes and improvements to the wing. Kenney was intrigued by the description of the house. One of the Museum's deficiencies, he had felt, was a suitable background for some of its collection of art and objects from the more than century- long period of Dutch primacy in the New World, and in New York in particular. There was already a tradition at the Met of using period architectural settings to provide context for the collections. "Starting in 1924," Peter Kenney says, "the Museum began to |
|
install a series
of rooms that would follow the chronological and stylistic histories
of interiors. We set up a series of interiors depicting the settings
in which middle-to-upper-class Americans lived." Many of those already in place had been constructed from bits and pieces, carefully researched and fitted together into an authentic design that accurately reflected period styles. The Winne House, however and if it could be used, would be a whole integrated unit: floors, framing, woodwork and ceilings that would be the most complete single architectural unit the Museum had yet installed. There was flurry of activity - visits back and forth between Kelley and Kenney, and by the Museum's consultants, architects and engineers. In fairly short order the significance of the find was officially confirmed, and a determination to find a way to use as many elements of the structure as possible in the Museum was made. The first stages of the "how to" were made infinitely simpler by Mike Kelley's long experience with antique structures. His understanding of the building process gave him insight into the probable construction details of concealed elements and his years of practice at the careful and systematic dismantling of such structures made his company the right one for the work. Moreover, his familiarity with the meticulous documentation demanded, using photographic records, measurements and drawings, careful tagging and labeling of all the physical elements and the shipping and reconstruction of such material, fitted him perfectly to do the whole job, without the need to involve additional outside consultants and experts. Kelley's first task was to separate the wheat from the chaff - to dismantle and discard the many additions and changes that had been made to the building over the years and strip it down to the essential period elements - to see exactly what they had. Here he received a very pleasant surprise. In gutting an early 20th Century two story addition that had been attached to the east side of the house, he discovered that it had enclosed the original sidewall of the building. Wood siding, because of its vulnerable position on the exterior walls of the building, rarely survives for any length of time. Over the years it becomes damaged or deteriorates, is removed and replaced. But in the Winne House, one entire wall of original board siding, vertically-sawn boards 18" and wider, attached with handforged nails, had been encapsulated in the interior wall of the addition. What was more, the original hand-molded trim around what had been the front door of the structure was similarly saved. Kelley was excited, and so was Kenney. In
addition to the wonderful interior they already knew they were
getting, this rare - almost unique - find was icing on the cake. And
in examining the now-exposed siding, it was with a special sense of
connection with the building's original occupants that Kelley
discovered the initials, D.W. for Daniel Winne, neatly carved in one
of the siding boards during what must have been a rare idle moment
some two hundred and fifty years ago. Continue to next page |
|
| services | articles | bio | portfolio | videos | contact | home |
 |
|
|