Tom Bailey's room.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. - The Stawbery Banke Museum might present the
only house museum in America that features a year 2000
restoration of a 1797 home to depict its appearance in 1850, as
perceived by Colonial Revival Movement.
The 1797 residence was built by William Stavers and later
acquired by Thomas D. Bailey. From 1849 to 1852, Bailey's
grandson, Thomas Bailey Aldrich spent his teen years living in
the home. Aldrich moved to New York, and began a writing career
in 1855. Upon his death five decades later, Aldrich's widow and
friends planned a museum that recognized his career. On June 30,
1908 they opened this house as the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial
(a period term for museum), Portsmouth's first museum.
Aldrich's formative years in Portsmouth profoundly impacted
American literature. Writing serial installments for a magazine,
he penned a novelette entitled The Story of a Bad Boy. The
then-revolutionary work was a huge success, and it remains in
print today. That book also inspired a friend and fellow writer
to create an account of teen life entitled The Adventures of
Tom Sawyer. In addition to Mark Twain, Aldrich's circle of
friends included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell
Lowell, and William Dean Howells. He was the editor of
Atlantic Monthly magazine from 1881 to 1890. As an adult,
Aldrich had homes in Boston and Milton, Mass.
The Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial was conceived as a
two-building facility. The Bailey house was intended to present
the 1850 setting in which young Tom Aldrich lived. To accurately
present the furnishings and accessories, founders asked Aldrich
family members to donate objects that they owned and which they
believed were from the home. A second building was constructed on
the property to display memorabilia associated with Aldrich's
career and life.
The 1908 restoration of the home was guided by recollections of
the home by the founders and neighbors. However, the founders
were also swept by the influence of the Colonial Revival
Movement. For example, in the kitchen they exposed the large
original fireplace and featured hearth implements from an earlier
period.
Postcard featuring a rear view of the Aldrich gardens.
In designing the year 2000 restoration, Strawbery Banke officials
chose to preserve the 1908 conceptualization of an 1850s home. On
the one hand, this departs from the modern concept of a period
restoration. On the other hand, it captures a unique window into
the Colonial Revival view of restoration. They saw that window as
a unique feature that was important to save. Working with
photographs, postcards, prints, and written accounts, curators
and restoration experts have attempted to present the house
exactly as it was when the museum opened in 1908. They researched
Aldrich's archives at Harvard University.
After a person has read The Story of a Bad Boy, a visit to
the house underscores the autobiographical quality of the story.
Tom's room is precisely as described in the book. The second
floor window that he climbed out to land on Court Street for
nighttime escapades is precisely as described.
Restoration
The restoration project has addressed three types of situations.
Water intrusions into the building initiated the decay and damage
of some building components. It was also necessary to determine
changes introduced by the well-intended staff of the Thomas
Bailey Aldrich Memorial such as paint color changes made since
the 1908 restoration. Strawbery Banke restorers reversed those
changes. A general accumulation of smoke, grime and dust had to
be removed from the surfaces of furnishings and accessories.
Associate curator Carolyn Roy explained the process. "The first
set of issues that needed to be addressed were structural.
Everything in the house had to be moved out, and the house was
turned over to the crew doing structural work. There were
specific localized problems that needed to be addressed, and then
there were also more global issues such as environmental
control."
She then continued, "One of the largest of the localized problems
began with the architectural return from the roofline at the
southeast corner of the building. A properly built return has a
slight outward slope that sheds water. However, on that return
the slant was toward the building rather than away from it. A
shallow pool of water accumulated on return against the sheathing
on the house. Decay progressed and water began leaking into the
interior of the bedroom in that corner. In time the water ran
under the bedroom floor, and some of the water dropped onto the
dining room below. There it damaged some furniture, the carpet,
and the floor. A second stream of water damaged the wallpaper in
the dining room."
She further explained, "Different localized damage can stem from
the same problem. Water from the roofline return eventually
reached the sill of the building, and created an environment that
supported rotting. We have replaced sections of the sill on
either side of this corner. The good sections of the sill were
preserved. The new sections were joined to the original sections
with massive lap joints."
Carolyn Roy noted that global problems have been addressed in a
non-intrusive manner. She explained, "The two most global
problems are light rays and relative humidity. We converted the
light problem to a localized problem by addressing it at every
window. We installed light-absorbing rigid acrylic sheets in each
window. We cut the sheet to exactly fit the inside of the window,
and suspended the sheet from two L hooks at the top. Curtains and
other window treatments often conceal the edges of the sheets,
and visitors are unaware of the sheets are there. The sheets
absorb ultraviolet radiation, but they also capture some visible
and infrared as well."
Ms Roy explained, "The water vapor problem was far more difficult
to attack. We had a problem with water from Court Street pouring
onto this property and then into the earthen floor of the
basement. One measure was to patch cracks in the foundation and
to repair the sidewalk that had been opened by archaeological
researchers.
"Other water still reached the basement. The crew solved that by
digging a trench around the inside of the basement wall (massive
fieldstones), and installing a tube in the trench. Water enters a
tube and is pumped off the premises. Polyethylene film has been
laid over the earthen floor as a low-tech vapor barrier to keep
moisture out of the house."
She then addressed the winter condensation problem. "The museum
is closed during the winter, and there was no heat in the
building during the winter. Of course, when the temperature fell,
the relative humidity rose. That was solved with a hot air
heating system."
Although it seemed contradictory that heat would control
moisture, Roy responded, "In the museums with gallery spaces,
there is minute control of relative humidity. Objects in a house
museum cannot be given as precise humidity control. The heating
system in this house is activated by a humidistat rather than a
thermostat. It attempts to maintain a range of relative humidity.
The effect of raising temperature is to lower the relative
humidity."
Perhaps the most pervasive changes during the Thomas Bailey
Aldrich Memorial years were painting of the walls and trim. Paint
analysis specialist Susan Buck utilized paint chip analysis to
identify the 1908 colors. The oddity of this project is that she
was not searching for the original colors, but for a middle layer
that denoted the first Colonial Revival layer. She then advised
the museum of today's commercially paints that were a close match
to those 1908 colors. The paint was applied with brushes, as it
would have been in 1908.
The most significant problem of the restoration project is the
overall accumulation of smoke, grime, and dust on all the
furnishings and accessories in the house. Carolyn Roy explained,
"The hooked rugs are a great example of proper cleaning. They
came with the house, and probably they had been in use for
seventy years. They were uniformly gray. We regularly vacuumed
them, and that helped a little. As part of the house-wide
restoration, we sent the rugs out to Mary Anne Senatro, the
textile conservator in Bedford, N.H. She was supposed to wash and
stabilize them, and I expected they might be a little brighter
when they came back. When the rugs returned, I could not believe
how bright they were. She did a great job. We all marvel at the
change."
Overview of Strawbery Banke
Settlers arrived in today's Portsmouth in 1630, and immediately
named their community Strawbery Banke in recognition of the
abundant fruit. In 1690 commercial growth accelerated along the
waterfront with dock construction along a sheltered cove. The
shipping district became known as the Puddle Dock neighborhood
and that name has persisted to this day. In a blow to poetic
expression, the municipality of Strawbery Banke was renamed
Portsmouth.
Slowly, Portsmouth's commercial district edged up the adjacent
hill to the area now known as Downtown. As shipping subsided, the
Puddle Dock neighborhood slipped into disrepair. Urban renewal
experts planned to demolish a group of seedy structures that
covered a ten-acre parcel. A handful of local citizens countered
with a proposal for a museum featuring the long-forgotten history
of the community. The victorious grassroots effort incorporated a
museum in 1958 and took possession ten-acre site with 38
buildings.
Dining Room, May 2000.
At a first glance, Strawberry Banke Museum is a community museum
similar to Historic Williamsburg or Old Sturbridge Village, but
there are two significant differences. The buildings at Strawbery
Banke were constructed on the ten-acre site, and most occupy
their period location. Each building on the site has each been
restored to a specific year in its life. For example, the Aldrich
House demonstrates its use in 1908, while the Wheelwright has
been restored to depict its use in 1780. A museum visitor has the
opportunity to experience the longitudinal sweep of neighborhood
life from the Seventeenth Century to the mid-Twentieth Century.
Visitors to Strawbery Banke will want to allocate plenty of time
to stroll the adjacent Prescott Park. That long waterfront parcel
is an ideal setting for a picnic overlooking the harbor. Repeat
visitors enjoy interspersing visits to museum houses with strolls
in the park. Here children can run and play, before returning to
the more restricted museum setting. Contemporary floral gardens
in the park and period gardens in the museum have both won
national awards.
The Puddle Dock neighborhood extends far beyond museum grounds,
and those who appreciate New England architecture will want to
stroll the area. The museum was an impetus that stimulated
individuals to purchase and restore most buildings in the area.
Sometimes when a visitor stops to admire a house, the owner comes
out to discuss his restoration project. Drawing upon the
experiences and contacts of Strawbery Banke, homeowners located
architects, carpenters, masons, and other artisans who share
their interest in historic preservation. They have also been able
to utilize the archival accounts, prints, and photographs that
museum curators have located and evaluated.
The museum season is from mid May until the end of October, but
some special events are staged during the off season. A Brewer's
Festival in October will feature New Hampshire microbreweries.
Two weekends in December feature a unique Candlelight Stroll. The
uniqueness of this stroll is that at each home along the way,
winter holidays are depicted with a celebration in the period
manner of that particular house.
Aldrich house gardens have been restored to the period when
Aldrich was living in the house. His writings, particularly the
poetry, mention specific species of flowers. Curators have
attempted to locate period varieties of those flowers, and they
have been skillfully planted in the gardens at the rear (south
facing) side of the property.
Win Carter, The Early Ambassador
For many members of the antiques trade, Win Carter provided an
introduction to Strawbery Banke. Carter was a scholar-dealer with
great enthusiasm for antiques. His catalog on decoys by George
Boyd of Seabrook, N.H. remains the definitive work on the
subject. His research on English pewter helped many American
museums properly identify and classify their pewter collections.
The woodworking tool exhibit that he mounted at Strawbery Banke
greatly stimulated collecting interest in the field.
As much as the trade admired the soft-spoken Carter, in the
mid-1970s there was extensive skepticism that Strawbery Banke
would become much of a museum. Other dealers listened politely as
Win dreamed about his vision for the museum's future. He was
affectionately called The Ambassador from Strawbery Banke. It
seemed hopeless that the man could see only the good, and did not
recognize the pale cast by the downtrodden, dangerous surrounding
Puddle Dock neighborhood.
Well, times have changed. Win passed away over a decade ago, but
Strawbery Banke has grown to equal and exceed his dreams. The
rundown neighborhood has recovered to become one of the most
beautifully restored displays of American architecture from 1700
to 1840. Puddle Dock exudes vitality and pride. The curatorial
offices are housed in the Winfred Carter Building, named in honor
of its donor.
