As stated previously on this blog, you can vote daily to help see that Orchard House gets a piece of the Partners in Preservation funding: the link's at http://www.louisamayalcott.org.
You know: even after living in Concord for over 25 years, I never "got" why funding Orchard House for its rehabilitation was so urgent until I was in my 2nd year (was it last year?) on Concord's Community Preservation Committee (CPC).
Another CPC member and I were assigned to look deeper into their application (applicant has a pair of members assigned). During this examination, I had an unexpected epiphany. It made so much sense, and I was so surprised I hadn't realized it before, that I still laugh every time I think of it.
Orchard House isn't just ANY very old house, which would qualify it as needing rehab funds on a periodic basis. Nooooo. And it's not just ANY very old house that gets many zillions more visitors yearly than we would ever expect a normal residence to receive. Nooooooo. There's an entirely Alcott reason for the special problems it has, and its name is BRONSON.
Orchard House was an experiment for Bronson Alcott, who was equal parts utterly brilliant and such a fool you just want to shake some sense into him. It's Bronson's very special treatment of this structure -- treatment that is 100% in keeping with his character and the way his mind and life operated -- that has caused extra special urgency for rehabilitation of the structure.
Bronson wasn't all too keen on the specifics of the physical world. Earning a living so his family would not be destitute -- this didn't seem to worry him much. Nor does it seem that the laws of gravity was of special consideration to him -- they simply were not substantial limitations in his mind.
Therefore, Bronson saw fit to enlarge the rooms in the downstairs of Orchard House by removing inner load-bearing walls and supporting beams without compensating for their absence. He was told he was crazy by carpenters. That his house would not withstand this treatment. He would hear none of it.
Ah ha! I realized: so THIS is why Lousia called the place "Apple Slump" -- even in her lifetime the house was sagging when the inevitable happened. Gravity had its way and the place may have collapsed had not emergency measures been taken periodically since it came into preservationists' hands.
To wit: if you go into the dining room, you will notice between the table and the stairs the casing around a beam is open -- you will see a steel beam inside. This is because Bronson -- in an especially expansive Transcendentalist swell -- had perpendicular, crossing supporting members removed. Hello, Mr. A -- what were you thinking??!
If you look in Marmee's bedroom at the ceiling from the inside, you will see how amazingly the line that should have met the wall straight wiggles instead -- it's hard to believe it has held up. That side of the front of the house was not stabilized until that CPA funding was awarded -- the other side (Louisa's room) was stabilized a couple of decades ago. Note the totally un-square shape of the front window trim from the outside next time you pass by. It's laughable... unless it makes you weep!
And my favorite: have you ever looked inside the little door that is on the casing of the beam above Louisa's writing desk? Ask staff to open it for you next time you visit -- THERE IS NO BEAM INSIDE! The windows and casing alone were holding up that part of the house for decades.
And I've not even mentioned the rot caused by there being absolutely NO foundation under the back part of the house -- another Bronson "fancy" -- that was attended to in the first phase of the house's rehab back a few years. Nor have I mentioned what a vastly sagging structure does to original wall treatments... oh, the pain of it!
Heaven forfend that Bronson do all this to some house built since WWII! And never mind our current building code -- I doubt it would have seemed like something he'd have worried about. What a marvel of workmanship and over-engineering that house was to have withstood its "Bronson-ization" this long!
Staff at Orchard House has done a splendid job of hiding just how fragile parts of the underlying structure have been. Perhaps TOO GOOD a job, because it meant that folks like me didn't understand for far too long what the urgency has been about.
The house is in great hands now, and its needs are going to be met -- but they need your help. Voting continues through the 17th of May. Use the buttons at the top of http://www.louisamayalcott.org to link to the voting page.
You know: even after living in Concord for over 25 years, I never "got" why funding Orchard House for its rehabilitation was so urgent until I was in my 2nd year (was it last year?) on Concord's Community Preservation Committee (CPC).
Another CPC member and I were assigned to look deeper into their application (applicant has a pair of members assigned). During this examination, I had an unexpected epiphany. It made so much sense, and I was so surprised I hadn't realized it before, that I still laugh every time I think of it.Orchard House isn't just ANY very old house, which would qualify it as needing rehab funds on a periodic basis. Nooooo. And it's not just ANY very old house that gets many zillions more visitors yearly than we would ever expect a normal residence to receive. Nooooooo. There's an entirely Alcott reason for the special problems it has, and its name is BRONSON.
Orchard House was an experiment for Bronson Alcott, who was equal parts utterly brilliant and such a fool you just want to shake some sense into him. It's Bronson's very special treatment of this structure -- treatment that is 100% in keeping with his character and the way his mind and life operated -- that has caused extra special urgency for rehabilitation of the structure.
Bronson wasn't all too keen on the specifics of the physical world. Earning a living so his family would not be destitute -- this didn't seem to worry him much. Nor does it seem that the laws of gravity was of special consideration to him -- they simply were not substantial limitations in his mind.
Therefore, Bronson saw fit to enlarge the rooms in the downstairs of Orchard House by removing inner load-bearing walls and supporting beams without compensating for their absence. He was told he was crazy by carpenters. That his house would not withstand this treatment. He would hear none of it.
Ah ha! I realized: so THIS is why Lousia called the place "Apple Slump" -- even in her lifetime the house was sagging when the inevitable happened. Gravity had its way and the place may have collapsed had not emergency measures been taken periodically since it came into preservationists' hands.
To wit: if you go into the dining room, you will notice between the table and the stairs the casing around a beam is open -- you will see a steel beam inside. This is because Bronson -- in an especially expansive Transcendentalist swell -- had perpendicular, crossing supporting members removed. Hello, Mr. A -- what were you thinking??!
If you look in Marmee's bedroom at the ceiling from the inside, you will see how amazingly the line that should have met the wall straight wiggles instead -- it's hard to believe it has held up. That side of the front of the house was not stabilized until that CPA funding was awarded -- the other side (Louisa's room) was stabilized a couple of decades ago. Note the totally un-square shape of the front window trim from the outside next time you pass by. It's laughable... unless it makes you weep!
And my favorite: have you ever looked inside the little door that is on the casing of the beam above Louisa's writing desk? Ask staff to open it for you next time you visit -- THERE IS NO BEAM INSIDE! The windows and casing alone were holding up that part of the house for decades.
And I've not even mentioned the rot caused by there being absolutely NO foundation under the back part of the house -- another Bronson "fancy" -- that was attended to in the first phase of the house's rehab back a few years. Nor have I mentioned what a vastly sagging structure does to original wall treatments... oh, the pain of it!
Heaven forfend that Bronson do all this to some house built since WWII! And never mind our current building code -- I doubt it would have seemed like something he'd have worried about. What a marvel of workmanship and over-engineering that house was to have withstood its "Bronson-ization" this long!
Staff at Orchard House has done a splendid job of hiding just how fragile parts of the underlying structure have been. Perhaps TOO GOOD a job, because it meant that folks like me didn't understand for far too long what the urgency has been about.
The house is in great hands now, and its needs are going to be met -- but they need your help. Voting continues through the 17th of May. Use the buttons at the top of http://www.louisamayalcott.org to link to the voting page.
