/
The Best Laid Plans
January 2021
As with any restoration project, new discoveries may require a change of course. After completing repairs to the roof structure, it was carefully lowered to bear on the brick masonry walls of the west wing. A few days later, the team noticed some splaying in the upper brick courses of the west wall. It appears that the outer and inner wythes* of brick did not appear to be tied to the center concrete block, which was constructed during a 1980s attempt at a historic restoration of the wall. The roof framing was immediately supported from both the outside and inside to ensure the wall would not collapse.
To repair this issue, the existing wall will be taken down entirely and rebuilt as it was historically. The new wall will be constructed of solid brick masonry based upon evidence gleaned from a photograph of the much-altered original wall. The photograph reveals sufficient detail to allow for a historically accurate reconstruction.
Wythe (n) – a continuous vertical section of masonry one unit in thickness