Refreshing a twentieth-century mansion

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2004 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

Glens Falls, New York, is a small city in eastern New York State near Lake George and the Hudson River. It is also the unlikely site of a museum in the style of a Florentine Renaissance palazzo that houses an impressive art collection. The gold-ground Italian Renaissance paintings, European old master paintings, and American impressionist canvases were collected by Charlotte Pruyn and Louis Fiske Hyde, who commissioned Henry Forbes Bigelow to design their palazzo, which was completed in 1912. Louis Hyde managed the Pruyn family paper mill and amassed a substantial fortune, which enabled the couple to embark on a lifelong collecting odyssey in search of the European art and antiques with which they filled their house. In 1963, following Charlotte's death and in accordance with her wishes, the house was opened as a museum named the Hyde Collection.

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Four decades later, the museum's administrators determined that the interiors had to be refurbished and deteriorating stucco on the exterior restored. This complex undertaking involved the advice of many specialists, consultants, and fabric manufacturers. For the interiors, the museum evaluated the condition of the furniture, window curtains, carpets, and upholstery and undertook a study of the original paint colors in each room. Many of the textiles had nearly disintegrated over the decades, and all had faded badly.

The refurbishing plan was completed after four years of evaluation by the following experts: Elizabeth Lahikainen (978-741-7560), upholstery conservator in association with the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Alex Carlisle (413-458-2147), of A. M. Carlisle Art Conservation in Williamstown, Massachusetts; Gwen Spicer (518-765-2142), of Spicer Art Conservation LLC in Delmar, New York; Ronald Ducharme (518-399-1246), independent furniture conservator, Ballston Lake, New York; Nina Gray (212-496-1594), independent scholar and researcher, New York City; Paul Himmelstein (212-666-4630), conservator and lighting consultant. New York City; and Susan L. Buck, independent historic paint analyst.

Buck's paint analysis determined that there were five layers on the walls, with one of the earliest dating to 1936--the year Charlotte Hyde hired Anton Sattler of New York City to paint canvas he had affixed to the walls. Sattler's colors were selected, because they were the only ones dating from Mrs. Hyde's residence in the house.

The furnishing plan identified forty pieces of furniture that needed attention. Three matching French chairs of 1794-1799 in the downstairs bedroom (see upper left, at far right) needed their original silk lampas seats rewoven. Scalamandre (212-980-3888) was selected to reproduce this beautiful fabric with its complementary trim (see lower left), and the upholstery work was carried out by Lahikainen. Also in this bedroom were three pairs of early nineteenth-century French toile curtains with ball fringe. Rather than reproduce these exactly, the museum looked into the offerings of Brunschwig et Fils (212-838-7878), which has a wide selection of toiles. One of these, called Le Kakatoes, was dyed to match the color of the original curtains. The ball fringe was fabricated and dyed by Classic Revivals (617-574-9030) and sewn onto the curtains by Lisa Hammerquist Hall (518-644-3728) of Bolton Landing, New York.

Prelle (212-683-2081), which has been weaving fabrics in Lyon, France, for centuries, created a reproduction of the brocatelle curtain in the stairwell (see the illustration at right) and a lampas for a piano stool in the music room. It also provided a number of other fabrics and trims for upholstered pieces of furniture from its inventory.

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In Mrs. Hyde's bedroom (shown above) the damask used to create the curtains was supplied by Classic Revivals, and the elegant trim was made by Thistle Hill Weavers (866-384-2729).

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