Shingle Style · Whole-house restoration

The Winslow House

A 1902 Shingle Style house, largely untouched and therefore largely failing. Two years of quiet, unglamorous repair, and almost nothing you can point at afterwards.

Location: Ruxton, Maryland
Completed: Winter 2022
Architect: In-house, with Hallam Conservation
Scope: Whole-house restoration, 8,100 sq ft

The commission

Houses that have been badly modernised are easier than houses that have been left alone. A bad 1970s kitchen can simply be removed. A hundred and twenty years of slow water is a different matter.

The Winslow House had never been substantially altered, which meant its original fabric was almost entirely intact and almost entirely at the end of its service life. Every gutter had failed. The sleeping porch had dropped two and a half inches. Half the sill plate on the north elevation was gone.

The brief from the family was one sentence long: keep everything you possibly can.

Restored sash windows and cornice on the Winslow House — The east elevationAll original sash retained

A scarfed timber repair in white oak, pegged — Splayed and tabled scarf repairDated in pencil on the hidden face

The fabric

What the north wall was hiding

We opened the north wall expecting rot in the sill and found that the rot had travelled up three studs and into the ends of six floor joists. The repair took eleven weeks and is invisible.

Every replacement piece is white oak, scarfed into sound original timber with a splayed and tabled joint, pegged, and dated in pencil on the hidden face — so that whoever opens this wall in 2140 knows exactly what they are looking at and who to blame.

A sweeping stair with turned balusters under a rooflight — The principal stairOriginal, cleaned and re-waxed

A restored sash seen from inside, light on a deep sill — Sash 41 of 74New cords, weights and parting beads

Drawings

We draw everything, including what is already there. On a restoration the measured survey is the project — every later decision refers back to it.

Second floor plan of the Winslow House after restoration — PlanThe Winslow House

Measured elevation drawn from the hand survey — ElevationThe Winslow House

The best compliment this house has had since we finished is that visitors assume we did very little. Peter Renda, founder

A shingled gable with half-round window and eaves brackets — The north gable, reshingledOld and new blended across the elevation

The making

Eleven thousand shingles

The original shingles were eastern white cedar, quartersawn, with a five-and-a-half inch exposure and a hand-cut curve at the eaves courses. About a third were sound.

We saved every one of those, milled the replacements to match the original taper, and blended old and new across the elevation rather than patching in blocks — so that as the new cedar silvers, the wall greys evenly instead of showing its repairs.

Schedule of materials

Shingles: Quartersawn eastern white cedar, 5½ in. exposure, hand-cut eaves courses.
Structure: White oak splice repairs, splayed and tabled, oak-pegged. No epoxy consolidation.
Windows: All 74 original sash restored; new cords, weights, parting beads and glazing putty.
Rainwater: Half-round copper, hand-formed, on wrought brackets copied from two survivors.
Interior: Original quartersawn oak joinery cleaned and re-waxed. No stripping, no stain.
Plaster: Lime plaster patched in kind; original ceilings retained and reattached with washers.

Seventy-four sash. Eleven thousand shingles. Two years. The family have the house they grew up in, and it should now stand for another century without significant intervention.

Next project Cedar Reach

Modern traditional · New build · Eastern Shore, Maryland

Enquiries

Every house begins with a long conversation.

We take on a small number of projects each year, and we would rather talk early — before the drawings harden — than late. Tell us where you are and what you are hoping to make.

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