1/8/10
Today we met the current owners of the mansion, David was extremely helpful and happy to see that we are planning to restore the home vs. building multiple homes on the lot and tearing the home down.
He said that he would check, but believes he has photos of the house when his parents purchased it. He told us his parents purchased it in the early 80's from the Speciale family.
We did another inspection of the property and reviewed the work to be done with Rob the General contractor and our electrician. David let us out into the collapsed back room and they discovered that underneath the floors is the original porch floors from back in the day, they are still existing and hopefully will be salvagable as they have been preserved under the back rooms of the house.
We believe after looking closer that these rooms were the original veranda off the back of the house and they were enclosed at some point before 1956. Depending on the budget we will decide how to deal with this area after we remove the roof, walls and the top flooring covering the old porch.
Because the original molds for the concrete balisters are in the basement, if we can retain the original porch we may create the railings on the porch out of concrete to match the rest of the concrete work on the property as well as the steps at the bottom of the bluff in the park.
Suzy,
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy to hear that you will be restoring "the mansion". I've always been fascinated by its history and by the park itself. My grandmother worked at the mansion for the Speciale (not Especial) family business, Royal Vending, from the late '50s up until they sold the house to the most recent owners. Looking forward to seeing your progress! Best of luck!!!!