Homeowners often find themselves replacing a deck and fixing a couple of support columns.
But applying historical provenance to Mary Baker Eddy’s North State Street home is quite a different – and far more complex – project. That was the challenge for historical preservation consultant Denis Semprebon. He and Longyear Museum builders Bryan Reed and Gray Carlson navigated the restoration of the home that Baker Eddy lived in from 1889 until 1892. She later moved into the Pleasantview home that she happened upon during one of her daily carriage rides through Concord.
Semprebon said there were issues with the middle Doric column that made the project more complicated. Since the granite footings were down only two feet, the frost heaving caused a sag that went all the way up to the second floor.
But with more than 200 bags of concrete hand-mixed by Carlson and Reed, the center column was lifted and then the pair just had to replace the deck and sand and paint the columns back to the original color when Baker Eddy lived there.
After working the whole summer on the project, the home is nearly finished.