News

“Today really is the pits.” That was the clever subject line of an email chain last week between Peale board member William “Chick” Chickering and Jackson Gilman-Forlini, City of Baltimore Historic Preservation Officer, about the digging of the Peale’s elevator pit. Renovation work continued last week as the team exposed original brickwork and early 19th c. joists. Areas for the cafe and elevator shaft have also been laid out in the building.

According to Gliman-Forlini, the interior walls, particularly around the foundation, “are all original to the best of anyone’s knowledge. There’s no record of these having been replaced at any time.” Also original to Rembrandt Peale’s building are the stove niches on the second and third floors, which have now been uncovered.

On the other hand, “the façade was replaced in 1930 with salvaged brick from an 1830s townhouse on the corner of Saratoga and St. Paul that was selected because it closely matched the color, size, and texture of the original façade brick. The exterior wall along Watchhouse Alley was also replaced in 1905,” most likely with new brick at that time. Other features, like the brick wall that bisects the “East Wing” first floor was added in 1930. The flag stone pavers in the current garden date to that era as well. Gilman-Forlini notes that they “originally served as the pre-1930 toilet partitions!”

Over the last few weeks, the Peale’s renovation team has made some intriguing discoveries as they removed a 20th-century ceiling. The image above shows straight cut marks on the room’s wooden joists, indicating that this joist was cut by a “sash-style” sawmill, and therefore, is as least as old as the 1830 conversion of the building into City Hall.

It’s possible that the joists could date to the original 1814 building; however, the team is cautious not to assign the joists to Rembrandt Peale’s original construction because records indicate that a large quantity of joists and framing lumber were purchased by the City as part of the 1830 adaptations undertaken when the Museum was converted into Baltimore’s first City Hall. “There’s a very good chance that much more of the original framing lumber survives than we previously thought. At the latest, these joists date to 1830,” said Jackson Gilman-Forlini, Historic Preservation Officer with the City of Baltimore.

Learn more about renovation work at the Peale from 1830 to the present in this interview with Gilman-Forlini, and stay tuned for more news and photos in this News section, on our Flickr page, and in our weekly emails!

With your support, such discoveries will continue to be made in the weeks and months ahead. We’ve raised $4.8 million to date to return this historic gem to public use, so are nearing the end of the Peale’s $5.2 million capital campaign! Any amount you can contribute will help continue our interior renovations to make the Peale a fully accessible home for Baltimore’s stories.

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