RESTORING THE MANSION
Victoria Mansion is dedicated to preserving the building and collections, and restoring them to their original appearance during the Morse era. A recently-completed capital campaign has allowed the museum to address such critical issues as drainage around the building and electrical wiring, as well as to restore the magnificent stained glass skylight and conserve the furniture and chestnut wood paneling in the dining room. And, though more than 90% of the original contents are already in the house, original objects are still added to the collection on occasion. Funding from many sources, including foundations and individuals, allows the museum to continue to preserve and restore the house for future generations to visit, study, and enjoy.

TOWER PROJECT
Victoria Mansion's brownstone exterior has shown signs of deterioration since the early twentieth century. Nowhere was this deterioration more evident -- and more alarming -- than on the tower. The Getty Brownstone Study, conducted by Ann Beha Architects of Boston in 2000, indicated that the stone on the tower was deteriorating rapidly and required immediate attention. Left unaddressed, the decay of the stone would have undermined the tower's structural integrity, imperiled the priceless interiors within, and posed a safety hazard to entering visitors. In September 2001 Victoria Mansion received news that it had been awarded a $400,000 Save America's Treasures grant for structural repair and brownstone conservation on the tower. This highly prestigious grant was the largest single contribution in the Mansion's history and, indeed, the largest federal preservation grant ever awarded in the State of Maine. An additional major grant from the Getty Grant Program, along with generous support from numerous foundations and individuals, allowed the Mansion to press forward with a $1.4 million restoration that would address its most longstanding and daunting challenge.

Over the next year, the museum assembled a talented team to carry the project forward. This included architect David Fixler, AIA, Principal, Einhorn Yaffee Prescott, Boston, Massachusetts and brownstone consultant Ivan Myjer, Building & Monument Conservation, Arlington, Massachusetts. The Mansion contracted with Consigli Construction Company, then of Milford, Massachusetts and now also of Portland, Maine, to carry out major construction, and with architectural conservator Andrew Ladygo, Architectural Conservation Services, Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts, to stabilize and repair plaster on the tower's interior and conserve carved brownstone detail on the exterior.

Construction began in earnest in the spring of 2004. In March, Andy Ladygo oversaw the removal and storage of the tower ceiling. A few weeks later, a massive crane arrived to pluck off the tower's roof. Brownstone was then stripped from the top to the level of the porch roofs. Individual blocks were numbered and set aside for reuse or recycling.

Ultimately, most of the tower's façade was replaced with new stone. However, every effort was made to retain original elements. Indeed, techniques devised to conserve the tower's vermiculated quoins pushed the envelope of available conservation treatments for brownstone, making it possible to reattach delaminating carved elements for the first time ever.

The final stages of the tower project carried over into the winter. Exterior work was completed in December and reinstallation of the plaster ceiling took place in February 2005. All told, the tower project was the most ambitious and expensive restoration project in the Mansion's history. Beyond its obvious impact on visitor safety and the building's overall appearance, it proved beyond a doubt that the challenges posed by the Mansion's deteriorating brownstone could be met head-on and addressed in measured stages.

RESTORING THE SKYLIGHT
When the Mansion was completed in 1860, a 6 x 25-foot stained glass skylight was the crowning glory of the three-story stair hall. Sadly, the skylight was destroyed by the Great Hurricane of 1938. About half the glass survived, however, and was dismantled and carefully stored in the attic for over sixty years. After more than two years of restoration work, involving research to reconstruct the original composition and methods of manufacture, and reproduction of the missing glass, the skylight was installed and unveiled to an eager public in April 2001. The results have transformed the building, bringing it dramatically closer to its appearance in 1860, while also enriching the experience of every visitor.

CONSERVING THE COLLECTIONS
Victoria Mansion was pleased to lend one of its greatest objects, the magnificent reception room cabinet created by Gustave Herter, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City for the 2000-2001 exhibition Art and the Empire City: New York 1825-1860. With grant funding, the Mansion was able to have the cabinet conserved before the loan, restoring one of Gustave Herter’s most exciting creations.

RECENT ACQUISITIONS
In 1999, the museum was delighted to receive a significant gift of original china from a Morse heir. Before the gift of 38 pieces, the Mansion had only four pieces of the red luncheon service, which now offers a dynamic contrast to the green dinner service. The original Morse porcelain, made in France, was the finest available in 1860. Such small objects original to the house lend immediacy to the visitor’s experience of the Mansion as an authentic interior created around 1860.


HANDICAPPED ACCESS
It has long been the goal of the museum to make the Mansion's glorious interiors accessible to individuals with impaired mobility, an aspiration that speaks directly to our mission to use the building and its collections to engage the broadest possible audience. The path to achieving this goal has been long and difficult, as it involved a host of issues that must be considered whenever the original appearance and fabric of the building is altered. An elegant solution was devised that places the lift in the footprint Mansion's side ell porch, which was constructed during the 1970s on the footprint of an earlier porch and could therefore be altered without fear of harming original materials. In order to mask the lift from view of the street, a new staircase was created at the end of the porch where physical evidence indicated that there was a stair originally. Victoria Mansion's handicapped access project thus provided a dual opportunity to restore the original appearance of the exterior and to make the interiors accessible to all.

FRONT STAIRS
Victoria Mansion's grand front staircase, designed by Henry Austin and constructed from Portland, CT, brownstone about 1860, provided a graceful point of entry for visitors until deterioration led to its gradual disassembly through the twentieth century. By the 1980s only the shifted and flaking stair treads remained, anchored by decayed pedestals that had once supported elaborately carved urns filled with clusters of fruit. In their deteriorated state, the stairs both marred the overall aesthetic of the Mansion's front façade and posed a safety risk to entering visitors. Victoria Mansion contracted again with Consigli Construction Company, who restored the tower in 2004-2005, to rebuild the front stair The initial phase of the project was completed in the spring of 2007 and involved the demolition and rebuilding of the stair foundations, extensive repairs to the original treads, re-setting of the original treads along with one new one, and the creation of new pedestals and elegant curved balustrades, the new stonework all fabricated of new Portland brownstone. The massive curved handrails were created by stone carver Christoph Henning using a combination of traditional and modern techniques to replicate the originals, which are now stored in the Mansion's basement. The original carved finials still must be replicated to provide a finishing flourish to a highly visible restoration project.

TURKISH SMOKING ROOM
Victoria Mansion's Turkish Smoking Room is remarkable as both the earliest known smoking room in an American private residence and the earliest substantial example of Islamic décor that still survives in the United States. With the help of major gifts from The Richard C. von Hess Foundation and from Linda L. Bean and Diana B. Bean, a thorough program of restoration is now bringing the Smoking Room back to its c. 1860 appearance. French firms Manufacture Prelle and Verrier Père et Fils recreated elaborate fabric, tassels and trims, modeling their work on surviving examples in the Mansion's collections. New curtains were cut, sewn, and hung by historic textile consultant Natalie Larson and furniture was reupholstered by textile conservator Gwen Spicer. The Turkish Smoking Room's painted walls and ceilings, marred by tobacco smoke, coal dust, and paint loss, were cleaned and restored by a team of specialists under the direction of Gianfranco Pocobene, head conservator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Massachusetts. Completed in September 2008, the restored Turkish Smoking room now introduces modern visitors to the opulent and exotic vision conceived by Gustave Herter over 150 years ago.

STAIR HALL CARPET
Installed in the spring of 2006, Victoria Mansion's reproduction stair hall carpet is the culmination of research that has spanned more than fifteen years. The original Stair Hall carpet, removed in the 19-teens while the Libby family was living in the house, is known only through early black and white photographs of the Mansion's interiors. Jacqueline Field, textile historian, conducted a search of archival resources related to James Templeton & Company, manufacturer of the original carpet in Glasgow, Scotland, but failed to turn up an exact pattern. Historic photographs became the key resource, allowing researchers to develop a close approximation of the original design. A small piece of the original carpet, color patterns from the surviving original Templeton carpets in the Reception Room and Parlor, and the overall decoration of the Mansion's interiors provided clues about appropriate colors. To help us refine the palette, we enlisted the services of Honour Mack, Associate Professor of painting at the Maine College of Art and an independent color consultant for architectural firms. Thanks to the professional connections of Candice Thornton Lee, Chair of the Collections Committee, we learned that a custom-designed, hooked carpet of superb quality could be made by the firm of Hubbard Mills in Lisbon Falls, Maine and in the fall of 2005 they were commissioned to recreate the stair hall carpet. Dan Cyr, lead designer for Hubbard Mills, developed a final design for the carpet in consultation with the Collections Committee and Arlene Palmer Schwind, Curator. The new carpet brings the jewel-like colors of the skylight, three stories above, down to ground level, completing the transformation of the hall space begun by the skylight restoration in 2001.