Illumination | Spring 2008

And so it will remain, thanks to the tireless efforts of a dedicated cadre of caretakers, preservationists, and restoration-construction experts who are bringing the house back to its early 19th-century luster.

The $1.3-million Hickman house preservation effort is scheduled to be completed this fall, says project leader Gene Garrett, a professor of forestry and the superintendent of MU's Horticulture and Agroforestry Research Center. The restored building, along with a reconstructed summer kitchen, will house period furnishings as well as displays of local archeological, geological and items of historical interest. Gardens and botanical collections will focus on the natural heritage of the Boonslick region, while other exhibits will introduce visitors to the latest in agroforestry research. Future projects will likely include restoring the recently discovered family burial ground, as well as locating and reconstructing the property's slave quarters.

ASTRIDE HISTORY: Ray Glendening, farm manager at the MU Horticulture and Agroforestry Research Center in New Franklin, stands atop tree trunk floor joists exposed during the Hickman house restoration.

"It isn't cheap, it hasn't been easy, but I think it's been well worth it," says Garrett, who spent almost a decade raising funds for the project. "When it's all done we will have saved a part of history that my kids and your kids and their kids can come out here and appreciate."

Not that there aren't already many features to appreciate, Garrett says during a recent visit to the site. Among the more striking, he points out, are the expertly laid courses of hand-made exterior brick, many of them arranged in an intricate Flemish Bond design. "You certainly won't see this kind of work today," he says.

Aesthetic considerations aside, preserving these bricks and reinforcing the hand-mixed mortar that has kept them standing is key to helping the structure survive another 200 years, says Angie Gaebler, associate at the Kansas City architectural firm of Susan Richards Johnson and lead architect on the Hickman house project.

"I think the biggest challenge we've had out here involves the masonry work," Gaebler says. "The mortar used to construct this house is a lime-putty mixture, a material used before Portland cement came into production. A lot of people trying to restore these types of houses use a Portland cement mortar like we would use today. But it dries too hard for these bricks."

Gaebler gestures toward a nearby wooden pallet. The bricks piled on top of it lie heavy, not quite uniform in shape and color, and bear only a passing resemblance to their contemporary counterparts. Most are a chalky red-brown, with some shading toward sienna and ocher. Others, so-called clinker bricks, exhibit a darker, vitrified hue, their gunmetal gray and slate-colored surfaces stained with patches of shiny glass, this the result of their proximity to the kiln fire.

Workers from MTS Contracting, Inc., a Kansas City-based company specializing in masonry and brickwork restoration, have already completed removal of the lime whitewash that once coated the house's brick walls. They've also reconstructed its stone foundation, repaired the home's four fireplaces and rebuilt its chimneys. Repointing the exterior brickwork -- the laborious process by which cracked and loose mortar is chiseled out of joints and replaced with new material -- is the next task. For this the MTS masons will use a lime putty blended by a Chicago firm that analyzed and recreated the home's original mortar.

Published by the Office of Research.