The Florence Griswold House deconstructed.

The Florence Griswold House in Old Lyme, Connecticut, was a boardinghouse in the early twentieth century where many American impressionist painters spent time. It has recently been reopened following extensive renovation and reinterpretation (see p. 16 of this issue). Over the course of the last two years curators and consultants have returned this landmark building to the way it looked about 1910. Because the house was built in 1818 by local shipwrights unschooled in the principles and fine points of residential construction, it had to be shored up with steel beams. During the process, environmental controls were installed ensuring that the house and its valuable contents will be preserved for future generations.

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To accomplish the renovation of the interiors, a team of specialists was assembled with each member contributing his expertise to a single aspect of the decoration including wallpapers, carpets, upholstery, lighting fixtures, and paint schemes. In carrying out the research, physical evidence found in each room as well as paintings, photographs, and other pictorial and written sources were consulted. For example, the researchers discovered that the artists residing at the Griswold House in 1910 decided to redecorate parts of the house while Griswold was away on a trip. They painted the trim, installed new wallpaper, and laid new carpeting in the hallway and parlor.

The restoration of the interiors was mostly a local affair, as most of the specialists and suppliers of the materials used are in New England. Once the house was level on its steel beams, plasterers replaced disintegrating sections of walls and smoothed the sagging ceilings. Avalanche Plastering of Uncasville, Connecticut (860-334-4816; www.avalancheplastering.com), performed this task by working on stilts for better access to the hard to reach places. Wallpapers were created by a silk-screen process for the parlor and Florence Griswold's bedroom by Laura McCoy of Laura McCoy Designs in Stratford, Connecticut (203-386-1233; www.lauramccoydesigns.com). The papers were hung by Sonia Barone and Peter Fell of the Great Wall in Old Saybrook, Connecticut (800-767-0992).

Surviving fragments of the ...