Displaying items by tag: historic home

A fire has gutted much of Clandon Park, the Palladian house near Guildford in the south east of England. Many of the country house’s rooms and its magnificent great hall are feared destroyed by a blaze that started in the basement yesterday afternoon, April 29, and soon spread throughout the building despite the efforts of more than 80 firefighters, who were hampered in their efforts by low water pressure. The National Trust, which owns the house, describes the building, designed by Giacomo Leoni in the 1720s, as one of the country’s most complete examples of a Palladian building.

Some of the Grade 1 listed house’s contents, including paintings and furniture, are reported to have been saved by staff and firefighters: images posted on social media show objects on the lawn.

Local philanthropist David M. Rubenstein announced Saturday that he is giving $10 million to Montpelier, the historic Orange, Va., home of the nation’s fourth president, James Madison.

The donation comes on the heels of Rubenstein’s gifts of $5 million to the White House Visitor Center in September and $12.3 million to Arlington House, the home of Robert E. Lee, in July.

New York’s Brooklyn Museum has finished renovating two rooms from an historic home in Saratoga Springs, New York. The late 19th-century Parlor and Library of the Colonel Robert J. Milligan House have been conserved and refurbished for the first time since they were installed in the museum in 1953. The Brooklyn Museum acquired the rooms as well as their furnishings in 1940. 

The rooms have been repainted and bold carpeting has been added to the Library’s previously bare wood floors. The museum has also restored and installed the Parlor’s original chandelier by Cornelius and Baker of Philadelphia and decorated the rooms with recently acquired objects and several Victorian furnishings original to the rooms but not previously on view in Brooklyn. Each room illustrates a revival style popular in interior decoration in mid-19th century America -- the Parlor exhibits the Louis XV Revival style while the Library depicts the Gothic Revival style. 

The Milligan House was completed in 1856 and is still standing in Saratoga Springs.

Six 140-year-old Japanese silk paintings by Utagawa Kunitsuru have undergone major restoration thanks to Washington, D.C.-based conservator, Yoshi Nishio. The paintings, which measure about 6 feet tall and 21 ½ feet wide, were previously hung in the Decatur House, a historic home and functioning museum, which serves as the National Center for White House History. The Decatur House is located across Lafayette Square from the White House and was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1976.

The paintings are believed to have been created in 1873 during a time of rich cultural exchange between Japan and the United States. The leading theory suggests that President Ulysses S. Grant acquired the works when he visited Japan in 1879 as part of a world tour. Only one of the six paintings is signed and dated.

The works have hung in the Decatur House for over a century and years of smoke, sunlight, and moisture had left the paintings wrinkled and darkened. Nishio, who received the paintings last year, spent hours cleaning the works with water, solvents, cotton swabs, and bamboo brushes with sable bristles. He worked on particularly delicate portions of the paintings with a scalpel under magnification. The paintings also had to be immersed in water to separate them from the boards they had been glued to.      

The paintings, which feature a geisha, a robed samurai, white cranes, cherry blossoms, and a long-tailed rooster, are expected to return to the Decatur House in June 2013.