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Culture & Artsby Ed Gunts12:34 pmOct 8, 20150

At the Baltimore archbishop’s residence, it’s off with the Formstone!

Historic Charles Street structure is being stripped of its 1950’s cladding, once dubbed the “polyester of brick,” and restored to its 1865 appearance

Above: Workers at the Basilica of the Assumption Rectory – undertaking the biggest Formstone removal project ever?

It’s a standard remodeling trope in Baltimore: Rip off the déclassé Formstone, that grayish stone-like material that was a wildly popular technique in the 50s and 60s for covering up the brick on city rowhouses.

Right now, though, “the polyester of brick,” as filmmaker John Waters calls it, is being stripped off one of the largest, fanciest Baltimore buildings that ever had it slapped on – the Rectory of the Basilica of the Assumption Parish.

“It’s a big project. It’s going to look beautiful when it’s done,” said Doug Johnson, project manager for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which is undertaking the $1.5 million job.

Since spring, workers have been clambering around scaffolding on the four-level Charles Street building, the official residence of William Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore.

Formstone-faced houses on a Baltimore street. (Photo by Fern Shen)

Formstone-faced houses on a Baltimore street. (Photo by Fern Shen)

But how did this 1829 landmark, the first archbishop’s residence in the country, get the Formstone treatment in the first place?

It turns out the Basilica Rectory was covered with the faux stone substance in 1952 for pretty much the same reason so many other city structures were. The company that received the patent for the product, Lewis Albert Knight’s Lasting Products Company, was based in Baltimore and worked primarily in this region.

In the birthplace of Formstone, local leaders of the Catholic Church went along with the trend as so many other Baltimoreans did. Over the years, Formstone fell out of favor. In 2012, Baltimore’s planning department even proposed banning Formstone in new construction in its revised zoning code, but later relented.

In the case of the archbishop’s residence, a lot of thought went into the plan to get rid of the Formstone, say church officials, who point out the project wasn’t motivated by changing tastes in design.

Not Aging Well

The basic problem, they said, was pretty much what many homeowners face all around the city: basic deterioration of an aging structure and an urgent need for repairs.

Brick, below stripped-off Formstone. (Photo: Ed Gunts)

Brick, underneath stripped-off Formstone. (Photo: Ed Gunts)

It may have been patented by the Lasting Products Company, but over the years Formstone has proved to be anything but. Among contractors, using it has come to be known as a notoriously poor way to weatherproof a building.

“The ads for it proclaimed that Formstone makes your house the neighborhood showplace,” restoration expert Ron Pilling wrote in a 1982 article for the Old House Journal, entitled “Removing Formstone and Other Indignities.”

“They called it beautiful, long lasting and maintenance free. However, the ads failed to say one important thing: It’s temporary,” Pilling wrote. “In city after city, homeowners have learned this particular lesson the hard way.”

“The system used to attach the Formstone to the building failed and allowed water to penetrate the brick and enter the building,” according to Sean Caine, Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of Communications for the Archdiocese. The result was an estimated $30,000 of damage to interior walls, Caine said.

Caine said the cost of the repair work is being covered with private donations made specifically for this project, so no other Archdiocese programs or projects are affected.

Added over the original stucco and painted different colors to a suggest a variegated stone wall, Formston-ing probably was not the best approach in retrospect, said architect George Holback, of Cho Benn Holback + Associates, which is guiding the design.

Pre-renovation, clad in Formstone, the residence of the Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore on Charles Street. (Image credit: Google StreetView)

Pre-renovation, clad in Formstone, the residence of the Archbishop of Baltimore on Charles Street. (Image credit: Google StreetView)

“I think it was an unfortunate solution,” he said. “It might have seemed like a cure-all, but it just failed over time. When it starts to fail, there’s nothing much you can do.”

Unlike most of the un-Formstoning projects in town, however, this one does not involve simply taking off the Formstone and leaving the bricks underneath exposed.

Back to 1865

Holback said the bricks on the residence were rough, in need of repointing and riddled with nail holes from installation of the Formstone.

What’s more, the design team’s research showed, the residence never had exposed brick but was originally covered with stucco.

The archbishop's residence in 1838, pre-Formstone. (Credit: Historic American Buildings Survey)

The archbishop’s residence in 1938, pre-Formstone. (Credit: Historic American Buildings Survey)

Holback said the design team recommended taking the residence back essentially to the appearance it had in 1865.

To do that, construction workers are using essentially the same approach craftsmen took when the Archbishop’s residence was first built – applying stucco on lathe over the brick, scoring it to look like blocks of stone, and then painting it.

The new exterior is going to be more uniform in color than the mottled look of the Formstone, Holback said.

“That’s the way the original finish was,” he said. “It will have some variations, but it will be more even.”

The newly stuccoed house will be painted a light gray or “dove gray” color similar to the shade it had in the 1800s. The simulated mortar joints, Holback said, will be somewhat lighter in color, essentially off white. The window sashes will be a deep red-brown, their original color.

A long-missing stone balustrade has been replicated and will be installed above an oriel window on the Charles Street façade, and shutters will be added to two “false” windows on the north facade, Johnson said. Work is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The Catholic White House

Removing Formstone from the Archbishop’s residence has been proposed at least twice before – in the 1990s and again in 2004. It was the water damage that prompted the Archdiocese to revisit the idea yet again, Caine said.

The current renovation plan was approved by Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation at the staff level, without a public hearing by the full commission. Representatives say no hearing was required because the Archdiocese is complying fully with the city’s preservation guidelines.

archbishop residence rendering without formstone

Rendering showing what the Archbishop’s residence will look like when work is complete, sans Formstone (Credit: Murphy and Dittenhafer/Cho Benn Holback + Associates)

Designed by William F. Small, who worked for Basilica architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the residence backs up to the Basilica, to which it is connected. Part of the Cathedral Hill Historic District, the residence is steeped in history:

According to Caine, it has been the home of 13 of the 16 Archbishops of Baltimore. Within its walls, the Baltimore Catechism was discussed and written and the decision to open the Catholic University of America was made. Pope John Paul II rested there during his 1995 visit to Baltimore. The building is sometimes referred to as the “Catholic White House.”

Holback said the team has approached the project as a renovation rather than a “hard core restoration,” but it is paying close attention to details of the historic house.

“Correcting the damage” caused by the Formstone process, he said, “is the thing they most wanted to do.”

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