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Salvaging History
Architectural salvage can save money and environmental impact while providing historical character.
Text by Cathleen McCarthy | Photos by Durston Saylor
Fairfax & Sammons incorporated these French doors opening onto a garden in a New York City project.
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Not long ago, a client of Fairfax & Sammons Architects found some beautiful antique French doors posted on the Internet and drove to a salvage yard in Pennsylvania to pick them up. Complete with original frames and hardware, the doors became a central design element of the rustic-chic apartment in Greenwich Village the architects created for her.
Design professionals are often leery of having clients choose such important components, but in this case, the client's hunting and gathering saved tens of thousands of dollars on reproduction doors. "My client had beautiful taste, a real vision, and a lot of confidence," says architect Ann Fairfax. "It takes trust in both directions to pull off something like that, but the doors really made the project."
Other salvage used in the apartment included antique beams set in the wall above the doors and reclaimed French roofing tile in the floors, bought from Country Floors in Manhattan. "There is a salvage aspect to most renovations we do," says Fairfax. "Sometimes we even salvage plumbing fixtures and fittings. Something like 60 percent of our landfills are filled with debris from renovations, so we try to convince owners to reuse these things whenever possible."
Antique fireplace mantels—among the first things "pickers" remove from old homes scheduled for demolition—provide a strong dose of historical character to a period-style home. John Milner Architects in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, often uses reclaimed Georgian mantelpieces in both farmhouses and town houses. Elegant hand-carved mantelpieces with denticulated cornices and punched work are readily available nearby, some originated in homes that once lined the Delaware River in Philadelphia. "We buy only from reputable dealers who wouldn't tear things out of an existing house," says John Milner's partner Mary Werner DeNadai, FAIA.
Because Milner has been in business for three decades and is known for historic, renovations, the firm often gets calls from people looking to dismantle their barns or empty their attics. Not long ago, someone called looking to sell some old white oak flooring found in the attic of their Quaker meetinghouse. Milner and DeNadai purchased and stored the wood for a future project. "Some of the planks are 18 inches wide," says DeNadai. "They came from oldgrowth trees, probably from the 1700s. Virgin wood had so much more integrity than the new-growth wood available today. It's harder, holds up better, and has less tendency to absorb water and warp."
Milner and DeNadai sometimes use resawed antique timber from old barns, usually purchased from Sylvan Brandt of Lititz, Pennsylvania, "It's sometimes difficult to find good "resawn" flooring," she cautions. "If not stored properly, wide planks can cup, meaning curl up, which can't always be repaired. You have to be very careful about that."
New York architect Gil Schafer III uses wood from old barns to re-create the rustic look of elegant rural farmhouses, but he avoids resawed timber. "When you use recut antique wood, you get the denser, more beautiful grain of trees that were growing for hundreds of years, but you lose all the surface character," says Schafer. "When old wood is cut like new lumber, it has no patina. It's sanded so smooth by a big drum sander that it loses that wonderful rippling effect floors had when they were hand-sanded and—planed. We try to hand-sand each board to maintain that variation in surface so it catches the light in a nice way." Schafer gets much of his salvaged flooring from Antique & Vintage Woods in Pine Plains, New York, and BABA Wood of North Carolina.
Salvaged beams were used over the kitchen to create a loft space. The team also incorporated salvaged windows into the space.
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For ceilings, Schafer also uses barn beams and siding from Conklin's in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. "First and foremost, salvaged wood gives a sense of age to new houses. We try to use it not as an isolated artifact but as an integral component, as with the whole ceiling or floor," Schafer says, adding that there is usually no cost savings. "In fact, it adds cost the way we do it, but it's worth it. Our clients are increasingly interested in sustainability, so it is nice to reuse a building material rather than cut down more trees."
As Fairfax's client proved with her French doors, salvage can reduce costs in some instances. "The Internet has certainly made it a lot easier to find salvage," says Fairfax, who buys much of hers at the Manhattan retail outlet of Olde Good Things, a salvage operation based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. "The problem with using reclaimed materials is in the search. Hiring your architect to do the legwork can get expensive. For example, if I had spent a day traveling to that salvage yard to find the French doors and they had turned out to be rotten or the wrong height, I would have had to charge for those hours."
One way to avoid last-minute wildgoose chases is to stockpile salvaged components for future use. John Milner Architects has been known to buy and store an entire disassembled room, including paneling and fireplace mantels. "If the right client comes along, we show them the material," says DeNadai, "and if they're interested, we design a room to fit those pieces."
Many classical architects draw the line at antique hardware, preferring to use new hardware designed in period styles for the sake of consistency and function. In general, buying from showrooms—where specs, quality, quantity, and shipping are all guaranteed—is hassle-free compared to dealing with salvage yards. But architectural salvage is often much cheaper than custom reproductions. One architect lost a mantelpiece to another bidder for $1,500, but his client insisted on having an exact reproduction made—for $10,500.
The most cost-effective and environmentally friendly salvage comes from recycling materials on-site. In several projects, Schafer has used stone from excavated fieldstone walls in the veneer of homes. "Instead of going out and quarrying more stone, we're using the same indigenous material used to build the original homes in the area," he says.
John Milner Architects recently created an archway over a recessed stone fountain with materials excavated from a field nearby. In his travels, Milner keeps an eye out for interesting salvage. If he comes across something spectacular like a carved marble or limestone mantel in Europe, he contacts clients in the States. If someone is interested, he has the material shipped. While vacationing in France recently, Milner came across some antique French limestone floor pavers and hand-carved seventeenthcentury doors that ended up in a wine cellar he was designing in Pennsylvania. "The cellar's newer components are very contemporary, so the contrast is quite dramatic," says DeNadai. "With this kind of salvage, you're buying priceless, one-of-a-kind things that could never be reproduced. It's not inexpensive, but new material can cost even more."
For many designers of new old homes, salvaged material provides a way to reduce costs and environmental impact while imparting some of the authenticity and craftsmanship of historic homes. "Our clients come to us because they love old houses but want their house to function like a brand-new one," says Schafer. "Materials like antique wood and stone help bring old house character without impacting function."
Cathleen McCarthy is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia.
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