Howard Hall Farm is
not only a farm under restoration but a team of highly skilled
craftsman who work on period houses in the Hudson River Valley as well
as in New York City. An emphasis on lime mortar and plaster, as well as
green finishes and materials has been the focus of our work. This year
we have worked on an 1812 Federal Mansion in Athens where we have
restored a floating federal staircase and most of the structural
elements using lime plaster and traditional lime wash. Nora Johnson,
one of the partners at Howard Hall Farm, has just completed a mural for
this house which can be seen in the recent New York Times article
on the blog.
Due to the number of Victorian Houses in the area, we have become
restoration specialists in this vernacular and have several of these
projects underway. We are currently planning the restoration and green
updating of a brownstone in Brooklyn, where we are challenged by the
economy to do it for a low square foot cost while still greening the
building. We have a varied and exciting series of work shops lining up
for 2009 which will be posted within the next few weeks. As well as our
regular lime mortar and plaster classes we will be hosting a bee hive
oven building class and lime technology in concert with Virginia Lime
works.
In addition, we offer workshops related to period paint and decorative
finishing techniques such as graining, lime washing, and stenciling.
Reading the period house and hearth cooking will all be back, and Bee
keeping will also be an exciting addition.
Progess Captured in Pictures
A
Year Ago
Today
Coming to the End of 2008; Our 3rd Year of
Work This has been one long and productive year at
Howard Hall Farm. We are in the last stage of getting our C of O
on the building, turning it from a construction site into a home.
After two years of winters with wind blowing through the building we
have finally restored all the windows and put them back in. The
chimneys are blowing smoke and Blossom is happily next to the
fire. The plastering is literally in its final days after tons of
lime and sand, and many hours of mixing, dating, aging, and schlepping
buckets.
The project became much bigger than we hoped or dreamed, and we made it
through this phase with the help and support of both family and
friends. We now brace ourselves for the howling winds of winter,
the price we pay for these fantastic views.
We had some great classes this year and look forward to many new faces
teaching this coming year, as well as welcoming back all the familiar
ones. Luckily with a house this huge and complex we still have
lots of space and projects to use a hands-on approach as a learning
laboratory. We will branch out this year on other sites as well,
and these classes will be announced in January, when we have the time
to define and organize the details. Please do check back for an
update on these.
Here are some great shots of a year ago, and this week. We have
tons of technical progress photos which we will add to the room-by-room
archive this winter. Please do come and see us, and partake in
history remade and in the making, here at Howard Hall Farm.
We're currently exploring the possibility of
using
solar energy in conjunction with our historic restoration to make the
house as green as possible. In the process of all this research,
we weren't able to find a site that had all the information we were
looking for. So, as we go through the process of learning everything we
need to know to make the best possible decision, we are compiling a
database with all the relevant information. The goal here is to make
the whole process easier for others to encourage people to go green. CLICK HERE TO FIND
EVERYTHING
YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SOLAR ENERGY.
OR FOLLOW ALONG ON OUR BLOG
AS WE GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS.
Howard Hall Farm in 3-D:
RECENT EVENT:
Traditional Sheep Shearing Workshop at Howard
Hall Farm
The video features: Fred DePaul
milking and shearing a sheep, gender issues in sheep shearing history,
where lanolin comes from, and woolly tales of danger and woe.
info@howardhallfarm.com