Home Stretch

Posted on October 14, 2010 by in FDR Suite

This window treatment for a "portiere" or French door, is very similar to what's intended for the study.

This window treatment for a "portiere" or French door from Paine's 1898 catalogue, is very similar to what's intended for the study.

“They write me from Jordan and Marsh that the curtains are to be put up in your rooms today, so I hope you will be in order by tomorrow.” Sara to FDR October 6, 1900

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We’re entering the home stretch of the renovation, and we need your help. Our immediate goal is to raise 6K for the room textiles: draperies, door swags, mantel cover, etc. We know they were there, because we have both written evidence from Sara, and physical evidence in Suite itself: we can see the attachment holes! Victorian rooms aren’t complete without fabric, and this is a remarkable opportunity to recreate a real bit of history, as we actually have, thanks to the Baker Business Library Collections, a period Paine’s catalogue (the supplier of  some of FDR’s furniture) to base our designs from.

For all of you who have not contributed (and that’s about 90% of you reading this post, ahem) please consider supporting us. For those of you who already have, October is the time to renew your annual memberships. Won’t you consider an additional donation to help us meet this important milestone? I will keep you posted on progress.

BTW: our adopt an antique program still has many homeless children!

Contributions may be sent to:

The FDR Suite Foundation, Inc.
Adams House, 29 Plympton Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

The FDR Suite Restoration Project at Adams House, Harvard College is funded entirely through your contributions to the FDR Suite Foundation Inc, a public 501(c)3 charity set up to create the only living memorial to FDR at Harvard, as well as a museum of 19th century Harvard student life. We do not receive funds from the University to support this endeavor, and we need your help!

Lathrop’s Desk

Posted on September 23, 2010 by in Articles, FDR Suite

lathrops-desk

“The rooms look as if struck by sheet lightning, the sitting-room having the chairs and tables but no curtains or carpets. The bed is in place in my room and it looks inhabitable.” FDR to Sara, 9/25/1900

“Also tell me if you have your two big rugs, blue and red and the small rugs I ordered. I have a bill from Paine for only the large red room rug, and Lathrop’s spring (without the mattress or covering). I enclose a card showing a desk which might suit Lathrop if he has not bought his.” She then goes on to correct his grammar: “*One does not say “inhabitable.” Sara to FDR 9/30/1900

For over a year, we’ve been looking for two desks: a small roll-top for FDR, and a gentleman’s desk for Lathrop. The latter, I’m delighted to say, is finally in hand. I found this wonderful piece half-forgotten in a barn in New Hampshire, and was able, by a margin of a quarter inch, to fit it into my car and get it home. Desks like these are extremely rare these days, as the demands of modern electronics generally mandate far larger surfaces. (As I write this, I sit at a desk 9.5′ long, which is almost buried under phones, monitors, scanners, printers and other paraphernalia of the electronic office.) But this little gem harks back to a gentler age. Dating to about 1895, it measures just 40″ across and is made of solid black walnut, with a black leather top. Stylistically the piece is quite interesting, sitting exactly on the cusp of two ages: the bat-wing handles on the drawers are very much Victorian, but the turned spindles of the legs, and the overall simplicity of the work  suggest the beginnings of a new design aesthetic, one that would ultimately be known as Colonial Revival. And what a location beside these glorious windows! Who wouldn’t want to pen a line or two here? On top the desk, another prize: a 12-piece solid brass desk set I found recently (also very rare, as it’s complete) along with a green-shaded Alladin desk lamp. Add a nice leather blotter, a calendar, a black walnut chair and some gentleman’s calling cards, and the desk of Mr. Lathrop Brown will soon be ready for occupancy.

FDR’s desk, however, still remains at large…

And of course, it goes without saying that these items (ahem, ahem!) are all up for adoption: the desk at $500, the lamp at $100, and the desk set at $300. More homeless antiques can be found HERE.

Also, if any of you have period volumes you might be willing to donate to help fill our book cases, we would be most grateful to accept them. FDR was quite the bibliophile, and avidly collected rare volumes. Leather or cloth bound fiction or non fiction, with decorative covers & published before 1904, would be most welcome!

As always, we thank you for your interest and support.

Adopt an Antique!

Posted on September 12, 2010 by in FDR Suite

I’m just back from the Brimfield Antiques Fair, the largest in the country. Held three times a year, it’s a truly amazing event, spread out along three miles of bucolic road in Brimfield Massachusetts, with thousands of vendors filling acres of open fields with tents. This year, I was able to find some really wonderful pieces for the Restoration, and it was my first thought to show you a few of them here. But then it occurred to me, rather than just share pictures, why not give you, our supporters, the chance to participate directly in completing the Restoration?  (We really need your help, our coffers are near empty again!) So an idea was born: from now on, I’ll regularly post notices of new acquisitions here on the blog.  These pieces will then move to a new section on our website, “Adopt an Antique” where they will wait exspectantly until some kind soul takes them under their wing. Once they find “a home,” their generous sponsor will be permanently memorialized on our website, as well as in a bound printed book that will reside in the Suite. It’s a great way for you to help us out, and have some fun at the same time. And what a nice present or commemoration for a friend or loved one! Best of all, you can keep coming back for more!

So here are our first batch of “children,” wide-eyed and waiting for your attentions!

chair

ITEM: CORNER CHAIR
DATE: LATE 19TH CENTURY
MATERIAL: WOOD AND BAMBOO
PROVENANCE: NEW YORK
LOCATION IN SUITE: FDR’S BEDROOM
SIZE: APPROX. 36″ TALL

ADOPTION PRICE: $250

This is a spectacular piece, quite rare, in the Oriental ball and stick style so popular in the late 19th century. Called a corner chair, its name is something of a misnomer: it’s armless design was originally inspired not to fit the architecture, but rather so that gentlemen wearing a sword – on either side – could sit down without taking it off.  Nonetheless, these chairs became popular features for odd nooks, and we have just such a one in FDR’s bedroom.

•••

birds

ITEM: CHROMO-LITHOGRAPH
DATE: LATE 19TH CENTURY
MATERIAL: WOOD (ORIGINAL FRAME), PRINT ON CONTOURED CARDBOARD
PROVENANCE: NEW YORK CITY
LOCATION IN SUITE: FDR’S BEDROOM
SIZE: 22 X 38″

ADOPTION PRICE: $300

Now, I’m hoping that someone is going to love this as much as I do. I realize this picture of a brace of pheasant is not exactly to modern taste, but I’m guessing that it would have been exactly to FDR’s, given  his love of ornithology. (Remember our president-resident was an avid hunter and taxidermist since he was a boy. Birds were his passion) What’s really interesting about this piece, and what you can’t see in the picture, is that the image is three dimensional – the chromo-lithograph has been bonded to pressed cardboard, in a way I’ve never seen before: the feathers are raised and articulated, the berries rounded, you can even see mock brush strokes to emulate a fine oil painting. The dealer I purchased this from had four others depicting fishing and hunting scenes, and said these were the only ones he had ever seen in two decades in the biz.

•••

clubs

ITEM: SET OF FIVE PERIOD GOLF CLUBS
DATE: CA 1900
MATERIAL: WOOD, METAL, LEATHER
PROVENANCE: GENERAL
LOCATION IN SUITE: LATHROP’S BEDROOM
SIZE: CA 3′

ADOPTION PRICE: $220

Now here’s something that should tickle the cleats of the golf fans among you. We found an retired pro golfer to put together this basic set of early 1900’s clubs for us. Both Lathrop and FDR golfed (FDR badly, according to LB) and Lathrop especially would have had a set with him in Cambridge: his mother was the first woman amateur national champion, in 1895. The entire Brown family golfed together, and we have several pictures in the Suite of them on the links. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a case in good enough condition. If anyone has a golf bag in canvas or leather with a 4″ opening (common to that period) that they would like to donate, please let me know!

•••

football

ITEM: FOOTBALL
DATE: PRE-1905
MATERIAL: LEATHER
PROVENANCE: CONNECTICUT
LOCATION IN SUITE: STUDY
SIZE: 9″

ADOPTION PRICE: $400

Oh, what a beauty! This is an INCREDIBLE rarity, as very few footballs survive from this period. According to David Patterson, in his excellent article How the NFL Football Got Its Shape, “the football’s nickname of pigskin explains a lot of its history. In the early days, before Charles Goodyear made better use of rubber, balls for early rugby, then football games were made from inflated pig bladders. They were relatively round, durable and in plentiful supply. Later versions covered them in a leather skin, stitched together by laces. Those laces are still on today’s balls, even though they’re not needed for closure. Players use the laces to better grip the ball.Even when pigs were spared in favor of rubber versions in the late 1800s, the early versions were difficult to blow up manually. Their ultimate shape varied from game to game as the bladders were inflated. Moving into the new century, the quality control improved, but the watermelon shape was retained. Over the years, as production methods matured, the ends of the ball became even more pronounced. With all leagues promoting the forward pass, being able to grip the ball with one hand, as well as throw a spiral pass, has ensured the current shape will be retained.”

The forward pass, by the way, is how we can date the ball: the pass was part of an intercollegiate agreement signed in 1905 which attempted to reduce fatalities on the field, and rounded balls like this one quickly became outdated. (Pointed balls better facilitated the newly permitted pass.) Interestingly, another idea to decrease football injuries was to increase the side of the field, on the theory that more room meant fewer deadly collisions. This plan was vetoed by Harvard, who had just, in 1903, completed a fixed-width ferro-concrete stadium, one of the first in the country, and was not about to rebuild. The field has been the same size ever since.

We acquired this rare and costly item for two reasons: it recalls, like nothing else, the football mania that gripped Harvard during FDR’s tenure, as well as the fact that Lathrop, huge fan, managed both the Freshman and Varsity teams, and received a varsity “H” for his efforts.

•••

stein1ITEM: BEER STEIN
DATE: PREWAR
MATERIAL: CERAMIC AND METAL
PROVENANCE: GERMANY
LOCATION IN SUITE: STUDY
SIZE: CA 10″

ADOPTION PRICE: $75

This is the first in an odd half dozen or so steins we plan to acquire. Steins were a common feature in almost every room,  inevitably hung beneath the mantle for use on “beer nights.” This is a particularly nice prewar example from Germany with classic detailing.

•••

stein-2

ITEM: BEER STEIN
DATE: CA 1905
MATERIAL: CERAMIC
PROVENANCE: BOSTON
LOCATION IN SUITE: STUDY
SIZE: CA 10″

ADOPTION PRICE: $75

Another stein, this time one of the sub-genera of advertising steins common at the turn of the century. The Boston firm, Murray Co, produced soda waters, which is not as curious as it sounds: businesses of all types commonly used the ubiquitous stein to get out their advertising message.

•••

shelf

ITEM: FOLDING SHELF & DRUG TIN
DATE: CA 1900
MATERIAL: (shelf) WOOD; TIN
PROVENANCE: USA
LOCATION IN SUITE: BATHROOM
SIZE: CA 15″

ADOPTION PRICE: (shelf) $100 (tin) $25
These little ball and stick shelves are surprisingly rare, especially folding ones like ours. (The shelves pop out, and the sides fold flat for storage. Very handy for a student!)  This great piece will be mounted over the tub, and house a collection of period patent medicines and other period drugs. (Note to Administration: all benign!) A 1901 tin of “Fresh Seidlitz Powders” begins our collection.

•••

hook

ITEM: FOLDING GARMENT HOOKS
DATE: CA 1880
MATERIAL: IRON, WOOD
PROVENANCE: USA
LOCATION IN SUITE: BATHROOM
SIZE: CA 36″

ADOPTION PRICE: $100

This clever item will allow guests to hang towels or clothes in a bathroom from an age before towel racks. Very intelligently designed, the hooks fold flat in an ornamental pattern when not in use, ideal for the space we have in mind behind the door. While this piece, with its Eastlake styling, predates the Suite by a few decades, it’s so handy that I’m thinking it’s one of those essentials Sara insisted FDR take from Springwood: “Franklin, don’t forget those interlocking hooks for your bathroom; I notice there was nothing installed in Westmorly Court, and you wouldn’t want to damage your linens!”

•••

shay-engraving

ITEM: SHAY ETCHING
DATE: ?
MATERIAL: PAPER
PROVENANCE: GLOUCESTER
LOCATION IN SUITE: FDR’S BEDROOM
SIZE: 6″ X 5″

ADOPTION PRICE: $85
This little gem I found for $10. It’s signed Albert Shay; the back has a framing label from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Stylistically, it’s very much of the period, and the subject matter is spot-on for an enthusiast of all things nautical like FDR. The adoption cost includes a new mat and frame to restore this little beauty to its rightful pride of place.

•••

penfield-print

ITEM: ORIGINAL PRINT
DATE: 1905
MATERIAL: PAPER
PROVENANCE: NEW YORK
LOCATION IN SUITE: FDR’S BEDROOM
SIZE: CA 12″ x9

ADOPTION PRICE: $100

OK, so technically this was copyrighted in 1905, but I’m invoking president’s privilege here; who’s to say it wasn’t drawn in 1904? Here’s why I’m willing to fudge: it’s an original William Penfield from Colliers, the same Penfield who painted the murals in the Randolph breakfast room in 1897. Highly collectible, it’s a beautiful image, very much in Gilded Age style. Adoption cost includes framing.

•••

linens

ITEM: PERIOD FURNITURE LINENS
DATE: CA 1880-1910
MATERIAL: LINEN
PROVENANCE: VARIOUS
LOCATION IN SUITE: BEDROOMS
SIZE: VARIOUS

ADOPTION PRICE: $75
I found a wonderfully knowledgeable vendor at Brimfield who will be helping us select period linens for the tables, mantels, beds etc. These are all hand-stitched pieces, mind-bogglingly detailed. A huge find, and critical to Victorian decor.

•••

SO THEN, have I whet your appetite to help us? I hope so!

If so, leave me a note below in the comment section (or email) as to what item you’d like to adopt, and I’ll be in touch. We’ll be building the official “Adopt an Antique” pages over the next weeks to register your gifts. First come, first commemorated!

As always, our thanks.

All the King’s Horses…

Posted on August 6, 2010 by in Articles, FDR Suite

Who said you couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together again? Several day’s worth  of hard work later, the Suite has emerged with its new coat of paper, remarkably transformed, looking for the first time in over a century very nearly like a Victorian room:

The study looking south

The study looking south

Our piano, festooned with period tunes. That's Johnny the bobcat, by the way, our mascot; beneath his sharp claws poor old Eli is down for the count

Our piano, festooned with period tunes. That's Johnny the bobcat, by the way, our mascot; beneath his sharp claws poor old Eli the quail is down for the count

The study looking north; FDR's bedroom on the left, Lathrop's center. You can just glimpse "George" Lathrop's 8 point buck through the door frame

The study looking north; FDR's bedroom on the left, Lathrop's center. You can just glimpse "George," Lathrop's eight-point buck through the door, named by Judith Palfrey, our master, after our Foundation's dear Father George. "The white collar says it all." Amen to that.

FDR slept here...

FDR slept here...

Lest we forgot: the Suite this past February, and this afternoon, August 6, 2010.

Lest we forget: the Suite this past February, and the same view this afternoon, August 6, 2010.

What’s next? Window treatments, and – hopefully – more generous contributions from our friends and supporters, as our coffers are again growing bare…

Wallpaper At Last!

Posted on August 4, 2010 by in FDR Suite

An epic campaign ended today as the first rolls of  historic wallpaper were applied to the walls of the FDR Suite study. You may remember all the trials and tribulations we had in piecing together the pattern from fragments I discovered last summer behind the large radiator. Then Kari Pei, Head of Design at Wolf-Gordon in NYC (and wife to Li-Chung Pei. Adams, ’72) who had generously offered to recreate the paper, began an almost year-long process of back and forth design and redesign, trying to replicate a period look and feel using the latest digital techniques. A thousand problems along the way – wrong color palettes, wiggly lines, fuzzy digitals – were eventually overcome, and today, thanks to the Peis’ marvelous generosity in donating both the design labor plus the cost of the paper, we at last have a good estimation of the pattern that graced the walls during FDR’s tenure at Westmorly Court.

Here are two very quick progress shots, taken this afternoon as the workman prepared paste and paper. (Keep in mind these are snaps, taken with flash, and the actual colors are considerably deeper in real life.) The first shows all the furniture crowded into the center of the room, and the newly papered walls. The effect of the narrow pattern is surprisingly cloth-like, and quite masculine in feel. Note too how the ornate period radiator (recently restored) and new light fixtures suddenly come to life against the patterned  background.

wallpaper11

And here’s another shot, showing a section of wall we had temporarily painted, and the newly papered wall in comparison. It’s amazing how much richer the papered surface appears than the flat paint. We’re finally getting the feel of a real Victorian room!

wallpaper10

Now all we have to do is put everything back in place! Updated higher quality photos to follow…

Once again, we at the Foundation and everyone at Adams House would like to express our heartiest thanks to the Pei’s for the extremely generous donation of time, effort and funds to complete this project!

Project Lathrop Brown

Posted on June 22, 2010 by in Articles, FDR Suite

I was sitting in the Suite a few weeks ago, looking around, and I must admit to being quite impressed. With furniture mostly in place, pictures on the walls, mementos scattered everywhere, the place is really starting to become a real Victorian room with personality. This last is truly the key, because our quest is not so much to create a period interior (although that’s interesting in itself) but rather to create a period interior that reflects two very specific men: FDR and Lathrop Brown. Fortunately for FDR’s posterity, our president’s past is extremely well documented. The FDR Library and Museum at Hyde Park in the person of Bob Clark, chief archivist, has been extremely helpful in providing us with images that make FDR’s personal space come alive: pictures of the family at play, views of Springwood, images of the Half Moon at full sail. Not so for Lathrop Brown – his early life was mostly a blank to us beyond the wonderful later-life pics Pam Grossman, Lathrop’s granddaughter, and her husband Elmer dug up for us  – at least until last month. Exactly as I was lamenting the lack of detailed information and photos of Lathrop’s family, I received an email from Teresa Izzo, friend and fellow history detective to Dan L’Engle Davis, who turned out to be Lathrop’s sister Lucy’s grandson. (Got that?) Teresa had found us through the website, and wanted to let me know that Dan had “quite a collection” of Brown family memorabilia.

Was I interested?

Is the Pope Catholic? How soon can you get here?!!

“Quite a collection” turned out to be a tremendous understatement: an unbelievable collection of numerous photo albums, stuffed with over a century of Brown family history from the 1860’s to about 1910. Here at last were the insights into Lathrop and his family we had lacked: their travels, their childhood pictures, their homes, all in a remarkable state of preservation. Some examples:

LucyNevinsBarnes

Lathrop’s mother, the former Lucy Nevins Barnes, about 1878, just before she married Charles Stelle Brown, who was then in the process of building a real estate empire in New York City. (Brown’s firm sold the land to build the Brooklyn Bridge, as just one example.) Later in life, Lucy Barnes Brown would go on to become the first ever woman’s amateur golf champion.

Here she is, ready for the links in 1895:

lucy barnes brown

Lathrop’s Father, Charles Stelle Brown: (this pic courtesy the Grossman’s)

Charles Stelle Brown

And the children:

brother

Lathrop’s siblings in 1893. From left to right: Charles S Brown Jr, ’08, Lathrop Brown ’04, Lucy Brown, and Archibald Manning Brown ’03. Charlie, as he was known, went on to head the family’s real estate firm in Manhattan, which still exists today,  by the way – Brown, Harris Stevens; Lathrop (Lapes, (or Lapie) to his family, as we now know thanks to the albums, would soon be congressman and presidential confidante); Lucy, who married artist William L’Engle, became a famous painter; and Archie, who became a well known architect.

The pictures run the gamut from formal portraits to Brownie shots. Below is Lathrop and Miss Lydia Jones, Long Island Sound, summer, 1903. (Lathrop, already with sufficient credits to graduate, would return to Cambridge that fall, his only duty to manage the Varsity Football Squad. FDR, also unofficially matriculated, would occupy himself with his two loves, one old – The Crimson, and one new – Eleanor.) The two hand-held Brownie shots, here restored, are humorously labeled “Before the Sail”:

before the sail

and “After the Sail.”

after the sail

I could go on and on, but you get the general idea: from the clear blue sky has dropped an invaluable collection of close to 1000 pictures that documents the lives of not one, but three distinguished Harvard alums, and that allows us to fill out the Lathrop Brown side of the FDR Suite equation in a way we never thought possible.(Not to mention fulfilling the Foundation’s charter “to preserve and document Harvard student life at the turn of the 20th century.”)

So, short story: we’ve launched Project Lathrop Brown. With the help of our summer intern Justin Roshak, and while we have the kind loan of this material from Dan and Teresa for the summer, it’s our intention to scan and catalog a large percentage of these photos, both for our own eventual use in the Suite, as well to share with the Harvard University Archives and FDR Presidential Library.

And that’s where you come in: after some heady months of donations earlier this year, funding has slowed to a trickle, and we could use your help! Project Lathrop Brown will cost about $2500, mostly in new digital equipment suitable for this kind of intensive photographic preservation and reproduction; in addition, we’re still about 30K out from finishing the Suite. If you haven’t donated before, or if you can find your way to helping us again, now’s the hour!