Back to Neutral on Neutra

Last week, the owners of Richard Neutra's Kronish House agreed to give the property a reprieve until October 10. Designed in 1955 the Beverly Hills house was previously on track for demolition. The suspension has given the city a chance to take stock of its architectural and historical treasures. Unlike several nearby municipalities, Beverly Hills, while it does have a Design Review Commission for new construction, it does not have preservation ordinance in place. The City Council hopes to map out a plan for an ordinance as well as a preservation commission at a meeting tomorrow evening. The Friars Club by Sidney Eisenshtat and the Shusett House by John Lautner were both lost in the past year alone. 

The dilemma has sparked a debate in a community where architecture can be upstaged by star power. But even the home where Ira Gershwin, and later Rosemary Clooney, lived was destroyed. 

“The home that Gershwin and Rosemary Clooney lived in was in deplorable condition,” said Beverly Hills Mayor Barry Brucker. “Similarly the Friars Club was not an inspiring building; what was inspiring was the people who went there. The history inside was phenomenal, but was that really worthy of saving architecturally?” 

The mayor argued that neither a building’s age nor star power should be criteria for preservation. “It could be a relatively new house, like a Gehry,” he said, adding, “but do you then save Ozzy Osborne’s house, David Beckham’s, Diane Keaton’s or Tom Cruise’s?”

There are plenty of mid-century architectural historians who would argue that Eisenshtat’s Friars Club was a real contender on both the historic and architectural fronts. And despite his unrestrained opinion, the mayor doesn’t claim to have a historian’s credentials. To that end, he’s already pulling together names of people who do for a historic commission. In an ironic twist, Eisenshtat’s daughter Carol Oken is on the list. The mayor has also tapped lawyer Richard Waldow, who was involved in helping establish Culver City’s preservation program. 

For their part, the new owners of the Kronish House want the property, not the house. It’s just such desires that are fueling house preservation conversations nationwide. Usually, once the demolition permit is granted, as is case here, the owners move in with the wrecking ball. But the current owners have allowed for documentary photography and offered $50,000 toward moving the 6,800 square foot house, though Neutra’s giant concrete slabs make the move highly unlikely. 

“Usually owners plow ahead, and boom—it’s gone,” said Christine French, director of the Modernism + Recent Past Program at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “Sixty days is a fortune in time, and it’s a huge gift. It gives Beverly Hills time to figure out their own [preservation] process.” 

French said that the problem of preserving mid-century homes has grown exponentially as original owners begin to die off. She noted that the house-as-museum model has much to be desired. “Property is always going to be an asset, and the most important houses need to remain valuable as living spaces,” said French. “Preserving them in amber is not effective as you may think.”

While 6,800 square feet may sound like a lot, with two acres to build on Brucker said the average customer would want to build a big square box on the property. Not that Beverly Hills Design Review Commission would let them. Plus, the mayor added, when the Kornish House controversy broke the city council was already in the process of implementing the Mills Act, a statewide tax abatement program for historic properties. Between the Design Review Commission and the Mills Act, the city may have a blueprint for future preservation. But how well Kornish House will fare remains uncertain.  

“A lot of people who hold the house in a level of high regard are outraged. The building represents an ideal of a master architect,” said Adrian Scott Fine, assistant director for community development at the LA Conservancy. “But what it still boils down for a lot of people is that it is private property on prime real estate.”

Rudolph in Ruins

Architect's Newspaper

Passing through the colonial charm of Main Street in Goshen, New York, the last thing you expect to find is a Brutalist masterwork, but there it is: Paul Rudolph’s 1971 Orange County Government Center, a series of long windowless boxes stacked ajar as if blown by the force of the cars whooshing past. From the parking lot, the composition reorganizes—transformer-like—into dozens of glass-fronted boxes still unevenly stacked. Over 80 individual roof planes cover the boxes. They leak. They leaked from day one. On April 5, legislators will vote whether to grind Rudolph’s multilayered concrete composition to dust and build anew.

Needless to say, preservationists are alarmed at the prospect of losing yet another Rudolph building in Orange County, having just lost the battle to save Chorley Elementary School in nearby Middletown. Chorley’s delicately exposed trusses beneath opposing angled rooftops gave that building a birdlike appearance. If Chorley looks as though it were about to take flight, then the monumental effort at the government center seems to convey the gravity of complex decisions being made inside, particularly through the variety of concrete. Several distinct combinations of aggregate and formwork butt up against corduroy split block.

But after Hurricane Irene swept through last August, the mechanical room flooded and the county’s executive director, Eddie Diana—who had already been proposing a new building—had had enough. The building was vacated and the push to tear it down went into full gear. “I would never ask to take a building down because of what it looks like,” said Diana. “But I would for its effectiveness and the ongoing problems, or concerns for the building’s health and of the workers’ health.”

On March 5, Diana proposed a $75 million replacement of the 153,600-square-foot building in a style that would be more in keeping with the village’s colonial past. At 175,000 square feet, the proposed complex is scaled back from an earlier 330,000-square-foot proposal. That proposal would have brought all county government offices to one locale and closed several satellite buildings at a projected cost of $136 million. But preservationists argued that closing the older buildings would sap village street life, to say nothing of county coffers. Diana said the new plan addresses the concern by allocating $10 million to renovate existing buildings, with the total cost now coming in at $85 million.

Diana also presented two renovation estimates. One from LaBella Associates adds 22,000 square feet to the Rudolph building for $67 million. Another from Holt Construction, without an addition, came in at nearly $77.5 million. Both propose gutting the Rudolph interior and bringing the entire complex up to current energy codes and ADA standards. “The report pandered to Eddie Diana’s cause,” said Sean Khorsandi, co-director of the Paul Rudolph Foundation. “All the numbers for renovation were inflated, and the numbers for a new building are not qualified.”

In a subcommittee, legislator Myrna Kemnitz attempted to allocate $40,000 for another study, but the proposal was tabled until the LaBella report came out. Kemnitz said superficial efforts were made, such as core concrete samples and mold tests, but a true forensic study with recommendations was never completed. Instead, the emphasis was placed on new construction.

Frank Sanchis, director of U.S. Programs at the World Monuments Fund, gave LaBella the benefit of the doubt. “They don’t appear to be incompetent, but they just don’t understand the building,” he said. During a February 27 hearing, Kemintz said she had asked LeBella reps if they ever went to see other nearby Rudolph buildings, such as IBM or Yale, to better understand Rudolph’s significance and dwindling legacy. The answer was no.

Rethinking Orchard Beach

June 26, 2012 Architect's Newspaper

On June 18, the Parks Department held a pre-planning meeting on City Island to reimagine year-round use of the crumbling colonnade fronted bathhouse at Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park. The building was completed in 1936 at the behest of Robert Moses in a show of what architectural historian Kenneth Frampton described as “benevolent power.” The building, designed by architect Amar Embury II, evokes a concrete and terracotta riff on the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. But alkali-silica reaction (ASR), a kind cement cancer caused by salt erosion, has undermined the concrete. The meeting was called to reap ideas from a small invitation only crowd instructed to dream big and no ideas, including demolition, were to be left off the table.

Most pre-scoping projects are not carried out unless money is allocated from the Park’s Capital Projects Division, but funding for this study, more than $983,000, was made available through the Office of Management and Budget. The study places the project on track to be lobbied for by Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte before the clock on the Bloomberg Administration runs out next year. But the proposal could also be added to the long list of failed plans for the pavillion that go back as far as the 1980s.
 
After decades of neglect and erosion, the beach itself was finally replenished with more than 250,000 cubic yards of sand just last year. That project was funded in part with federal dollars obtained by Congressman José E. Serrano and Congressmen Joseph Crowley. Crowley’s district encompasses solidly middle class sections of northern Queens and eastern sections of the Bronx.  Congressman Serrano represents a relatively revived yet still struggling South Bronx. As Orchard Beach is the only public beach in the Bronx, many of the 40,000 beachgoers who go there on an average summertime afternoon come from the Congressman Serrano’s district. Indeed, many at the City Island meeting said they avoid the beach during the crowded summer season.

While there may be additional visioning sessions after the design proposals are finished, the listening phase was completed with little input from the summertime constituency. While some might argue that residents from all over the city use the beach, the fact that the majority of the beachgoers get there by bus, tells a more local story.
 
Urbahn Architects is carrying out the study under the supervision of John Krawchuk, Parks director of historic preservation. But Krawchuk warned that even the most idealistic preservation scenario, funding included, might not be enough to save the building. Urbahn’s primary objective then is to gage how much damage the building has sustained. Adaptive reuse was has been mentioned by several officials at Parks, and it would not be the first Embury building to be revamped. The Queens Museum, originally designed by Embury as the New York City pavilion for the 1939 Worlds Fair, is currently undergoing a $37 million overhaul by Grimshaw.

If anything, the City Island crowd seemed to underestimate the scale of the project’s potential. The size of the site could accommodate 60,000 to 80,000 square feet. Many of the ideas tossed about, from ice skating rinks to restaurants, were proposed once before. But the architects seemed to encourage a multiuse approach, particularly if concessionaires could be self-sustaining. And while the public/private aspects are to be explored, Parks officials soured at the suggestion of naming rights.

“This is such an important project and its such an iconic building, but at some point we’re going to be asking you to help us get the dollars,” Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte bluntly told the crowd, which included several representatives from the Friends of Pelham Bay Park. He added that Parks is trying to strike a balance between operating the park and preserving the building. “Maybe a solution is to mothball it for a while until the economy comes around.”

State Senator José M. Serrano, son of the congressman, whose district includes the South Bronx was pleased to hear about the year-round proposal, but had reservations. “It's important to keep in mind that Orchard Beach has always been a much-loved and well-attended destination by the residents of my district in the South Bronx,” the senator said in an email. “I'm hopeful that their needs will be taken into account during this process.”

Krawchuk struck a more optimistic note, pointing out that McCarren Park Pool, which was also opened by Moses in the Summer of ’36, was just recently restored and will reopen on June 28 after being closed for 28 years. “I never thought I would see that,” he said.

Breuer Trove

Architect's Newspaper

With the launch of the Marcel Breuer Digital Archive in April, Syracuse University reached the midpoint in digitizing their extensive Breuer collection. While the public and critics debate the merits of Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Hospital in Chicago or Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, the new website will add grist to the mill of Brutalist defenders looking for concrete arguments about the movement’s pedigree. Though Breuer and many of his disciples would likely eschew any stylistic labels, there are finds within the archive that arguably could be viewed as seeds for the Whitney Museum, a Brutalist bellwether on Madison Avenue.

The site delves deep into Breuer’s halcyon furniture-designing days at the Bauhaus and continues up through 1955, when some of his earliest experiments with a sculptural treatment of concrete begin to play out, including the theoretical Garden City of the Future from the mid-1930s and his hyperbolic parabaloids and formwork designs for New York University (NYU) in the early 1950s. All archival materials that could be obtained prior to 1955 are included. As World War II forced Breuer from Dessau to London and finally to Cambridge, Massachusetts, coordinating archival material involved a host of institutions outside of Syracuse, including the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, University of East Anglia, and Harvard University.

But the bulk of Breuer’s later works are still awaiting funds to complete the project. The 1955 cutoff was deemed appropriate as the period represents the time Breuer moved from early residential projects to big government and institutional work. Not yet online are the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and the Whitney, though harbingers of both projects can be found in the NYU file. The even-then-expanding university hired the architect, not once, but twice to design buildings for their Bronx campus then known as NYU Uptown, now home to Bronx Community College.

There is plenty of fresh material to mine. “People haven’t written on the concrete; they tend to focus more on the Bauhaus,” said the website’s project coordinator Teresa Harris. The gems revealed in the NYU file show Breuer’s initial experimentations with hyperbolic paraboloids. But the boomerang gesture of the dormitories on the Uptown campus overlooking the Harlem River is a dead ringer for the UNESCO project.
 
Breuer’s superb NYU lecture halls still astonish, with three huge concrete legs supporting a central hallway uniting the two rooms and Breuer’s intricately designed board-formed patterning. The website’s detail images of the formwork being installed are a delicious hint of things to come. In a 2008 telephone interview, Breuer assistant Robert Gatje recalled, “We used to call it ‘the bird,’” he said. “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know of any precedent or follow up.”

In a statement, Museum of Modern Art’s Barry Bergdoll said that the website would not only open a new generation of Breuer scholarship but could also open a “whole new set of questions about the profile and issues of American modernism from the 1930s through the 1970s.” Breuer’s legacy could be refined, but so too could the definition of Brutalism. “He hated to be called a Bauhaus architect,” explained Gatje. “He never liked the term Brutalism, but it was adopted by the architecture press. Breuer did his own thing.”

Desert Showdown

Everyone in Palm Springs agrees that the Desert Fashion Plaza, a mall in the heart of downtown, is a flop. It takes up 15 acres on the site of the former Desert Inn, one of four large hotels that drew Hollywood glitterati during the first half of the 20th century. By 1948 the area was a well-established resort town, and across the street, A. Quincy Jones and Paul R. Williams designed a late modern multi-use residential complex. At the time Architectural Record praised their Town and Country Center for its “flair and flavor.” But by the mid 1960s the Desert Fashion Plaza replaced the Desert Inn, and morphed gradually into an ever larger mall that by the 1990s was largely unoccupied. Meanwhile, Town and Country’s fortunes followed suit turning desolate and dilapidated.

Besides being a commercial failure, the mall obscured the E. Stewart Williams-designed Palm Springs Art Museum, completed in 1976. Now Wessman Development, owner of both the mall and Town and Country, has put forth a plan that would break apart much of the mall, level the Town and Country Center, and create a new traffic corridor connecting the museum and a new shopping/entertainment center to the rest of the city. Making the art museum an anchor, planners are calling the area Museum Market Plaza.

Michael Braun, a senior vice president at Wessman, argues that without the east-west axis of the new corridor, the entire project would not be viable. Unfortunately for Town and Country, it sits in the middle of this axis. Braun said that car traffic patterns and parking dictate pedestrian traffic. “The distance from the parking spot to the first entrance, if its more than 15 feet, it won’t be successful,” he said. “The retailer is the one that decides whether they’re going to rent. I need to provide what the retail wants.”

The proposal puts the art museum in a tricky position. There is the opportunity to connect the museum to tourists and residents, expand within the new complex, and gain visibility—literally—from blocks away. On the other hand, they’ll likely incur the wrath of Palm Spring’s vigilant preservationist community. “We are very interested in working with the city and Wessman, but we are by no means endorsing the destruction of Town and Country,” said museum spokesperson Bob Bogard. “The museum is very interested in an east-west corridor.”

Since 2009, the city has held a series of meetings to discuss various redevelopment options for the area,including eminent domain, since tha mall has been sitting empty for more than 15 years. But they also wielded a substantial carrot for Wessman in the form of tax brakes and subsidies. City Manager David Ready said that only the mall was targeted for eminent domain. But he also noted that Town and Country does not have the city’s coveted class one historic designation.

With preservationists gearing up for a pubic hearing on June 15, a desert showdown looms. Any subsidies would increase city sales taxes, and that would require a referendum approval by voters in November. “Apparently the concern about the Desert Fashion Plaza is that it is a white elephant that trumps everything else,” said Peter Moruzzi, president of Palm Springs Modern Committee, a local preservation group. “I’m not convinced that the general public is willing to sacrifice the Town and Country Center to get this project done.”

"Moruzzi noted that a substantial east-west corridor could be freed up a mere half block north by reconfiguring East Andreas Road. But doing that would reduce the boulevard sight line to the museum by an entire city block. Ron Marshall, president of the Palm Springs Preservation Foundation finds the vista blocking argument lacking: “I came from Washington and I know something about grand boulevards. The fact is that the museum is intentionally built to blend in with the landscape, it’s not the Washington Monument. The museum is an impressive architectural asset, but the Town and Country Center is also impressive. They should be bookends.

Preserving Architectural History

The Wall Street Journal

Last year’s shuttering of St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Greenwich Village sparked enormous controversy about health care in the city.
 
What was largely overshadowed was a debate about the fate of one of the most distinctive buildings in the complex: the O'Toole Building. Preservationists battled to save the 1963 building designed by Albert C. Ledner for the National Maritime Union during the city’s post-Beat-early-Pop period.
 
But many—including some involved in the decision making process-- felt it would be no great loss to demolish the hulking five-story structure and replace it with a contemporary tower designed by Pei Cobb Freed.  Its connection with the Maritime Union long severed, Mr. Ledner’s cutout design that was meant to evoke steamship portholes is lost on many passers-by.
 
“Unwelcoming, ugly and unpleasant,” was how Chelsea resident Jarda Pacanovsky described it last week.
 
“It looks like the building is encircled by giant false teeth,” said Mitch Rein of Greenwich Village.
 
In the end the decision was made to save the O’Toole Building as part of the plan worked out in bankruptcy court on how to dispose of St. Vincent’s valuable property. The best known feature of the plan will involve the Rudin family building housing where the closed hospital now stands.
 
As for the O’Toole Building, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Care System is slated to take it over and spend $110 million to convert it into a modern health-care center, preserving much of the Ledner design. Perkins Eastman will oversee the renovations and tomorrow the plan will have a public hearing at Landmarks Preservation Commission.
 
This was the correct decision. While the O’Toole Building may not be immediately loved like other Manhattan landmarks, it’s an important piece of the city’s architectural history.
 
The muscular overhangs punched with half-portholes suggest Kerouac swagger tempered by Lichtenstein zing. In an interview last week, Mr. Ledner admitted “in a sense” to being influenced by Pop art, but said his education at Tulane University took precedence. There, his professors were either clean-lined European modernists or devotees to the organic style of Frank Lloyd Wright. On seeing Wright’s Taliesin West, Mr. Ledner said he veered Wright.
 
“That was the first building I had ever seen of Wright’s and it blew me away,” Mr. Ledner said by phone from New Orleans.
 
Just four years after the master completed the Guggenheim, his disciple set out to create a whitewashed sculpture of his own. The architect divided the three-tiered facade horizontally. The slimmer top two overhangs thrust out toward the avenue, while the much wider lower section recedes slightly back. The entirety cantilevers over a base of two large semicircle glass block walls which converge at the main entrance on Seventh Avenue, like a large boat at berth atop a shimmering base.
 
Ledner designed two more buildings for the Maritime Union on Ninth Avenue and 17th Street, now the Maritime Hotel and the Dream Downtown Hotel. Both of these Chelsea buildings featured the porthole motif, though Downtown Dream was recently re-clad by Handel Architects. As a collection, the three represent the pinnacle of the maritime industry and the dawn of its decline. If Saarinen’s TWA Terminal, completed in 1962, was a harbinger of the future, then the Maritime buildings represented an unwitting death knell for the industry on New York’s piers.
  
To be sure, ideas that fly in one neighborhood might not in another, particularly forty to fifty years on. Today’s Chelsea is an entirely new port of call and many of residents in the Village are just too distracted for poetry.
 
But for an increasingly nostalgic New York, the buildings strike the right note. When asked if he’d care to see the “unpleasant” building demolished, Mr. Pacanovsky didn’t skip a beat.

"No. It’s part of the neighborhood” he said.

Not to Close

In 1883 the General Theological Seminary campus designed by Charles Coolidge Haight was lapped  at its western edge by the waters of the Hudson. Now it will lap more condo owners in luxury.

After selling the buildings on the east end for $10 million to the Brodsky Organization to develop Chelsea Enclave, luxury apartments designed by Polshek Partnership, the seminary still found itself $41 million in the hole. Last winter, it was revealed that Brodsky   continued on page 10  Not?too Close continued from front page  would take over an additional 90,000 square feet, including the seminary’s oldest building, the West Building, built in 1836. The developer retained Beyer, Blinder, Belle (BBB) to design more luxury housing within the historic quad, known as the Close. New renderings show a building replacing a tennis court and playground and connected by a glass link to the West Building, also being converted to luxe condos.

BBB principal John Beyer said that the new building’s design refers back to the old campus in the same manner as Polshek’s. With the exception of the West Building, the old campus structures have strong rusticated bases, red brick midsections with pronounced cornice lines and robust turrets and slate clad gables above. The new design mimics that organization, with the same rusticated base, a red brick middle, but with a zinc clad set-back at the top. A steel band course divides base from the midsection with recessed flush bay windows for four stories, before setting back twice to provide balconies for the top two floors. Facing the Close, Beyer said, the generous glass corners at the top defer to the set backs of the original campus. “We wanted to dematerialize that top, to make it soft,” he said.

For the gothic West Building, the firm plans to clear away the ivy that is eating away the Manhattan schist façade and otherwise restore the exterior. The garden will be restored as well by Andrew Moore of Quennell Rothschild Partners. Moore said that with the exception of one crabapple tree, all of the large trees would be left untouched and the hodgepodge of paving stones will be restored to the original bluestone. “We’ve been looking at the historical development of the Close and the character is primarily grass and trees in the center,” said Moore, noting that a child’s play area will be relocated and adults provided with a barbeque area in place of the tennis court.

At the Community Board 4 meeting held on June 1, Save Chelsea, who in the past has been an outspoken critic of the Brodsky plan, referred reporters to one lone voice against the plan. Architect and Chelsea resident David Holowka argued the new building design “cynically imitates” Polshek’s as “a strategy to get it through landmarks.” Noting that even the original master planner “took pains to take a hands-off approach to the West Building, to leave it to its own time, symmetry and materials,” he complained that with the glass link, “it’s no longer a self-contained free standing symmetrical building.”

Prentice Reprive

With the stay of execution for Prentice Hospital extended through the end of June, Landmarks Illinois released a reuse study for the threatened clover-like structure designed in 1974 by Bertrand Goldberg. Considered by many to be a hallmark of sculptural modernism, the building sits within a research corridor of Northwestern University, the building’s owner. Northwestern says it needs the space to expand and would like to double the space, an amount allowed by zoning.

Three architects worked pro bono on the reuse study, but out of concern for offending Northwestern, a potential client, two did not want to discuss the project. The third, Vinci/ Hamp, specializes in historic preservation.

Jim Peters, president of Landmarks Illinois said that the building has about 350,000 square feet of space, though the group is unsure how much is actually usable. He added that the unique cantilever supports an open floor plan that could work well for laboratory uses. The study also explored office and residential options, uses that the University said do not fit its needs. Other options include shaving off a non-original fifth floor addition from the building’s base and replacing it with a green roof that would nicely accentuate the thrust of the cantilevered quatrefoil. The reuse plan also suggests replacing dark glass with a translucent wrap curtain wall.

Peters said that the building provides visual relief on a corridor dominated by big block architecture. And while aficionados think of the building as a landmark, “It’s not landmarked,” said Al Cubbage, vice president of university relations. Cubbage pointed out that the university has a “stellar record” of adaptive reuse and maintenance of their buildings and noted that Northwestern spent $20 million to restore Harris Hall, considered one of the most iconic buildings on campus. “I don’t know enough about the [landmarking] process,” he said. “But we’re looking to fulfill our mission, which is providing research and education. We’ll certainly take a good look at their material, but we’re trying to maximize the use of the land in that area, which is limited.”

Grandeur Revisited

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The approach evokes the dream home: a thicket of pines along a winding drive, obscuring a 19th-century mansion tucked along Wissahickon Avenue in West Mount Airy. 

The call of cicadas drowns out the sound of gravel crunching under the car's tires. As the car moves around the drive's last bend, the manse reveals itself in all its gothic glory. Ahhh ... home.

It's easy to understand why George Clifford Thomas and his wife, Caroline, rarely left this estate during the late 1800s. Instead, the couple tended their 23 acres with the help of a small staff.

But now, years of tree growth hide a large part of Thomas Mansion. A swath of lawn, a reflecting pool filled with water lilies, and a large conservatory long ago succumbed to wind, rain, and tree roots. Much of the house's grandeur has long since faded. 

This week, a new kind of tenant will move in. The Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust, a not-for-profit that manages and restores properties throughout the park, will move its headquarters into the house. The relocation represents the trust's third occupation/restoration project. 

Namesake Thomas, a prominent investor and businessman, retired at 40. He held 11 mortgages, and at his death in 1907 he left his entire estate to the City of Philadelphia, which eventually absorbed it into Fairmount Park.

Much of the former estate took on parts of the benefactor's name: The house became Thomas Mansion, the surrounding estate became Clifford Park, and the hill on the northwest side of the house was called Tommy's Hill, considered for generations one of the best sledding hills in the city. 

Despite Thomas' wish that his estate remain open to the public, by the late 1920s a park administrator had co-opted it for use as his personal fiefdom. Similarly, in the mid-1970s an investigation by the Philadelphia Daily News found city employees living rent-free in several park houses, including Thomas Mansion. By 1987, public outcry stopped yet another park administrator from an extravagant renovation of the house for use as a luxurious office.

"The trust was formed as a means to deal with underutilized, abandoned, and quite possibly falling-down buildings in the park, of which there were many," said Hanley Bodek, president of the trust's board.

The trust began after then-Councilman Michael Nutter introduced legislation in 1993 to create a new management system for the park's historic houses. More than 30 properties were falling into disrepair. Bidding rules had hindered swift action on repairs, and bylaws had prevented the city from entering into long-term leases with tenants who could pay rent and maintain the properties at no cost to the taxpayer.

"The ultimate goal is for us to move out," Bodek said of the new headquarters.

 The trust's first office at 16th and Walnut Streets was well outside the park. Its previous two headquarters, Sedgley Estate and Ridgeland Mansion, both found new occupants.

The trust moved onto the Sedgley Estate in the late 1990s and restored the old porters house. In 2001, the keys were handed over to Outward Bound, a nonprofit educational organization.

Staff then moved into the old sheep barn located near Ridgeland Mansion. That property was added to the Wellness Community's growing campus this year. The community, a cancer-support organization, matched a $500,000 grant from the state to renovate more than 6,000 square feet of the barn for reuse for research, meetings, and mind/body programs.

The trust expects to restore Thomas Mansion for $1.2 million raised through grants and donations, considerably less than one outside estimate that came in at $4.5 million 

With park budgets slashed and a large stock of architectural treasures in constant danger of falling into disrepair, trust officials have a growing sense of urgency.

"We want our buildings to be self-sufficient," said Lucy Strackhouse, the trust's executive director. "With the economic conditions, our program is even more important now than in the 1990s."

 Built in 1869, Thomas Mansion represents one of the very few High Victorian houses in trust. The peaked gables and Wissahickon schist give the house enough gravitas that it was once short-listed for use as mayoral mansion. But Philadelphians have historically frowned on imperial trappings for their executive.

"We work on so many late- 18th-early-19th-century buildings that we are all so happy to be working on a Victorian with interesting finishes and possibilities," said Jessica Baumert, the trust's senior conservator. "There's just a little more drama."

The house feels almost comical in its eccentricities. A huge, cantilevered porch hood juts out 13 feet from the entrance and protects an intricate marble mosaic floor. Carved roping introduces itself there and later weaves throughout the interior. Affectations of an English hunting lodge nudged their way into the design. Original carved wooden fox heads will be recast in plaster and returned to their place of honor at the peak and base of the hood.

Inside the 17-room mansion, the faint smell of mildew mixes with latex paint and fresh plaster. There, the carved roping joins coffered ceilings and wainscoting. Alternating two-inch strips of light and dark wood flow throughout the main floor, providing a modern twist.

A second kitchen, added in 1889, has a cathedral ceiling pierced with triangular windows finished in etched glass.

Another cathedral ceiling graces the library, with original shelving. The marble fireplace supports a plain cross, one of many found throughout the house that hint at Thomas' religiosity. An inglenook fireplace outside the "new" kitchen bears the inscription "Give us this day/ Our daily bread/ Want not waste not."

No one knows for sure who the architect was, though conservators suspect it was either Frank Furness or Samuel Sloan. The trust has announced a contest awarding $100 to anyone who figures it out.

Sara Rogers, an intern from the University of Pennsylvania's Historic Preservation Program, spent three months researching the house at 15 area libraries and archives. She compiled a thorough history, but still couldn't definitively identify the architect.

"It's such an interesting, significant house, you'd think there'd be more on it," she said by phone.

Rogers conducted paint analysis with her classmates that revealed beautiful sage greens and brick reds on exterior windows, which were formerly covered in what Strackhouse dubbed "asylum gray." 

"I learned a lot about theory, conservation, and lab work at school," Rogers said. "But this is a really good opportunity to apply those things and get the practical experience." 

"If the city was in charge of this it would be hard to imagine them coordinating interns, too," Bodek said of the educational programs.

As in their previous occupation/restoration projects, trust apprentices have set up a workshop on the Thomas property.

Elsewhere, the trust is in negotiations to lease Glen Fern, the 1747 Colonial once owned by miller/mogul Thomas Livezey.

Outside Strawberry Mansion sits the trust's latest charge: Horace Trumbauer's Strawberry Mansion Music Pavilion. The red-brick ruin is one of a series of pergolas built by the architect. The medley of crumbling arches overgrown with vegetation and open to the elements suggests a Fairmount version of Tintern Abbey.

Thomas Mansion remains structurally sound, although it has sustained substantial water damage. The history of its reclusive owner and his architect has yet to be fully researched. A future tenant needs to be identified.

But for now, outside the kitchen, a single window restored by Rogers and her classmates inspires the trust's senior conservator. "Even if it's just restoring one window, it's nice to see the impact you're making," Baumert said. "It gives a vision to everybody of what it will look like. Hopefully, that will help get the whole building restored."