The Florence Griswold House deconstructed

The Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme, Connecticut, was a boardinghouse in the early twentieth century where many American impressionist painters spent time. It has recently been reopened following extensive renovation and reinterpretation (see p. 16 of this issue). Over the course of the last two years curators and consultants have returned this landmark building to the way it looked about 1910. Because the house was built in 1818 by local shipwrights unschooled in the principles and fine points of residential construction, it had to be shored up with steel beams. During the process, environmental controls were installed ensuring that the house and its valuable contents will be preserved for future generations.

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To accomplish the renovation of the interiors, a team of specialists was assembled with each member contributing his expertise to a single aspect of the decoration including wallpapers, carpets, upholstery, lighting fixtures, and paint schemes. In carrying out the research, physical evidence found in each room as well as paintings, photographs, and other pictorial and written sources were consulted. For example, the researchers discovered that the artists residing at the Griswold House in 1910 decided to redecorate parts of the house while Griswold was away on a trip. They painted the trim, installed new wallpaper, and laid new carpeting in the hallway and parlor.

The restoration of the interiors was mostly a local affair, as most of the specialists and suppliers of the materials used are in New England. Once the house was level on its steel beams, plasterers replaced disintegrating sections of walls and smoothed the sagging ceilings. Avalanche Plastering of Uncasville, Connecticut (860-334-4816; www.avalancheplastering.com), performed this task by working on stilts for better access to the hard to reach places. Wallpapers were created by a silk-screen process for the parlor and Florence Griswold's bedroom by Laura McCoy of Laura McCoy Designs in Stratford, Connecticut (203-386-1233; www.lauramccoydesigns.com). The papers were hung by Sonia Barone and Peter Fell of the Great Wall in Old Saybrook, Connecticut (800-767-0992).

Surviving fragments of the sidewall and frieze papers, printed with metallic inks in copper, silver, and green, were found in the restored artist's bedroom (which had been a parlor in the 1880s). Since Griswold was living in reduced circumstances when she opened her boardinghouse, the parlor paper was not removed when the room was converted to a bedroom, and it would have been thirty years old by 1910. Thus the wallpaper was produced in slightly faded colors. For the parlor, a black-and-white period photograph and a painting of the room in 1912 by Woodhull Adams were used as guidelines in the absence of other evidence. This is one of the rooms the artists at the boardinghouse redid in 1910, and the wallpaper they selected, which has now been recreated, resembles a luxurious silk chenille--a look that would have been popular in this period. Grass cloth was selected for the hallway, and a commercially available floral wallpaper was installed in Griswold's bedroom.

The furnishings consultant was Jacquetta M. Haley of Haley Research and Consulting in Ridgefield, Connecticut (203-483-0841). The furniture in the parlor (see illustration above) was for the most part recovered, save for the Gothic revival chair, which retains its original upholstery. The reupholstery was accomplished by Jean Callan King Designs of East Haddam, Connecticut (860-434-8816). The rococo revival sofa and piano stool are covered in fabrics supplied by Brunschwig et Fils of North White Plains, New York (914-872-1100; www.brunschwig.com).

In the restored artist's bedroom (illustrated at right) the carpet is in a pattern called Rococo Tapestry and was based on a document from the early 1880s. It was supplied by J. R. Burrows and Company of Rockland, Massachusetts (800-347-1795; www.burrows.com). Dan Copper at that company consulted on the selection and installation of the carpeting in the house.

Many of the objects in the rooms illustrated on this page (including even the bed linens) have been in the Griswold House since the American impressionists discovered it more than one hundred years ago. Today they are installed in room settings that look very much like they would have at that time.

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COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning