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Good-bye Summer (thanks for 200 years of hard work!)

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By Danae Peckler, Architectural Historian / HFFI Board Member

Damaged summer beam prior to replacement.

If you have visited the Lewis Store at any point in the past couple of years, you might have caught a glimpse of it. Exposed, sagging, and broken. The building’s old summer beam, that is. Defined by preservation professionals in An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape (Lounsberry 1994), a summer is “a large bearing beam running the length or breadth of a building that provides support for the floor. Summer beams are support by either ground sills or girders and have the ends of common joists set into them at regularly spaced intervals.” Back in 1807, this beam was installed at the Lewis Store to support the addition of the second story to the building.

HFFI began rehabilitating the Lewis Store at the turn of the twenty-first century after it had sat vacant for a time with holes in the roof. Great lengths were taken to preserve what professionals refer to as the historic fabric of the building at all stages of the rehabilitation. This work ranged from simple (sistering damaged framing members to preserve them in place) to fairly complex (enclosing a new truss system within the floor at the second story to allow for office space upstairs), adhering to the Secretary of the Interior’s (SOI) Standards for the Rehabilitation of Historic Properties [https://www.nps.gov/tps/standards/rehabilitation.htm] at all times and gaining approval from staff at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) [https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/].

In recent years, cracks in the plaster ceiling of the first floor drew attention to the aging summer beam above. Following the removal of portions of the circa-2000 ceiling along the beam’s path and thoughtful inspections from no fewer than a dozen different professionals with experience in historic preservation, structural engineering, timber-framing, and general contracting, HFFI crafted a plan to replace the beam using in-kind materials as noted in SOI Standard 6:

New summer beam being installed inside the Lewis Store.

Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.

To make a long story short, HFFI hired licensed timber-framer Allen Anderson and his team to carefully remove a deteriorated portion of the 1807 summer beam that had been left in place during the store’s rehabilitation despite no longer carrying the load of the second floor. The section removed has been saved, while a new beam of the same dimensions and wood species–carefully selected, felled, and cut by Mr. Anderson–was put back in the same place as the original. The Lewis Store’s new summer beam is open for viewing as it dries in place for now—stop by and check it out, if you’re interested. We’ll be plastering the ceiling again soon! 

Reference:

Lounsberry, Carl (editor). 1994. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Historic Bricks and Mortar 

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by Natalie Chavez and Danae Peckler; edited by Linda Billard

The Lewis Store, HFFI’s headquarters, is the embodiment of honest brick construction in a classic Georgian architectural style from the mid-eighteenth century. This mass masonry brick building has multiple wythes, or vertical sections of brick wall, laid in two different bonds. The Lewis Store’s elevation showcases the stylish Flemish bond, while the interior wall of the building showcases the stronger English bond. Most of the building’s brick dates from its original construction in 1749 and added second story in 1808, although some minor repairs were made to damaged areas during its rehabilitation in 1999 and 2006. Contributing to the Lewis Store’s durability is the craftsmanship and skills of its builders and the make-up of its mortar. 

Figure 1: Brick Bonds from Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3, 1911.[1]

All mortars are composed of three main ingredients: a binder or cementing material, an aggregate such as sand, and water. Prior to the late nineteenth century, lime was used as the binding agent. It was created by crushing stone or oyster shells and burning the resulting material to create quick lime that was later mixed with water and sand. Traditional lime mortars are remarkably forgiving of both the weathering of time and the environment, allowing for “some movement in the brickwork without showing signs of cracking under normal seasonal conditions.”[2] This differs greatly from the rigidity of Portland cement, which became commonplace by the early-20th century. Owners of historic brick buildings make a crucial mistake by repairing mortar joints using a Portland-based mortar. While Portland cement has many benefits, its use in historic masonry creates long-term problems, even inducing decay of the bricks themselves. 

Figure 2: Image from Colonial Williamsburg Showing Oyster Shells After Burning.[3]

Experts in the field of preservation advocate for using the gentlest techniques in the maintenance of historic brick. Such work is only needed every 100–150 years and, in most cases, a sensitive repointing with lime mortar will last another 100 years unless the repair is addressing the symptom of a larger problem that has gone unaddressed.

You can find more information about taking care of historic brick buildings on HFFI’s website and review Cristine Lynch’s 2012 National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Lewis Store to learn more about our great building!

Other great resources

Traditional brick construction: https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/traditional-brickwork/traditional-brickwork.htm

Efflorescence https://johnspeweik.com/2011/11/17/efflorescence-of-masonry/

How to identify lime mortar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh0Ad3FKDrE

Importance of lime mortar: https://www.ncptt.nps.gov/blog/podcast-episode-33-andy-degruchy-on-the-historic-uses-of-lime-mortar-and-its-continuing-importance-today/ Finding the right mason for the job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmW8ZvsBUs

[1] The Project Gutenberg EBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition,Volume 4, Part 3. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19699/19699-h/19699-h

[2] Geoff Maybank, “Traditional Brickwork.” https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/traditional-brickwork/traditional-brickwork.htm

[3] Image from Colonial Williamsburg’s Richard Charlton’s Coffeehouse blog: https://research.history.org/Coffeehouse/Blog/index.cfm/2009/3/4/Lime-Burn