LEFT: One area of the house where Marci took extra liberties was the bathrooms.“ Even the loveliest tile cannot withstand one hundred years of use,” she says. RIGHT: Rather than risk damaging the hand-painted ceiling murals, Marci opted to leave them as is— even in the Willoughby Suite, where a small fire during the 1950s left its mark in one corner.
The latter was immediately confronted with a bigger-than-expected project when the fire marshal informed Jim that every lead-soldered copper pipe— that is, every single pipe in the house— would need to be replaced. Walls and floors were carefully opened and resealed, a monumental( not to mention, expensive) process made bearable only by the discovery that the house’ s electric was blissfully up to code.
While he was no rookie in matters of construction, Jim soon realized that restoring an early 1900s landmark was a far cry from the office buildings and shopping centers he’ d built in the past.“ There was no going to Home Depot with this project,” he says.“ I needed to make everything look like it was built in 1908.” To do that, he set up a wood shop in the basement and replicated moldings, balusters, and other ornate details with a commercial-grade router.
While Jim was elbow-deep in sawdust, Marci was making herself a regular fixture at the local community center, where she unearthed books, correspondence, and artifacts from Elmer Darling himself. What she learned of Burklyn Hall’ s creator impressed her so much, it ultimately informed her entire design concept.“ I realized how much thought he put into this home, and felt I had no choice but to honor it.” But honoring didn’ t mean replicating. In fact, to truly do Burklyn justice, Marci believed evolution was in order.“ Elmer Darling was an innovator, and he would have wanted to keep up with the times, so while I wanted to make his home
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