The story of the Eustis Mansion began on November 7, 1876, when Edith Hemenway married W. E. C. Eustis. Peter says, “The Hemenway and Eustis family properties in Milton bordered each other. Edith’s mother, Mary Hemenway, gave the couple approximately 181 acres on the adjoining properties to build their new home.” Historic New England describes the Queen Anne style mansion as “a marvel of the Aesthetic Movement.” Locally prominent architect William Ralph Emerson designed the home. Peter says, “Unfortunately, not many of William Ralph Emerson’s papers survived. There isn’t one great repository of his work and that is regrettable because he was pretty prolific. Today, Emerson isn’t very well-known and just recently two of his fantastic houses in the area have been demolished. We are hoping the Eustis Estate will shed new light on Emerson’s body of work.” (Emerson was the fourth cousin of author Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Regarding the decor, Peter says, “We don’t know if the emphasis on wood was determined by the young couple, Emerson, interior designers or Edith’s mother, Mary Hemenway.”

Detective work has tracked down many of the craftsmen who worked on the mansion. Unfortunately, the woodworker remains a mystery. Evidence points to a Boston carver, possibly a German, named Caspar W. Roeth. Peter says, “There aren’t any maker’s marks visible on the wood, but Roeth was working with Emerson at the time the Eustis mansion was being built.” Roeth’s obituary in the Boston Journal on November 21, 1891, described him as a “well known manufacturer of artistic furniture and a decorator of buildings.”

Peter notes, “The family’s heavily carved wooden furniture was likely purchased on the couple’s Italian honeymoon in 1876. We found the word ‘Firenze’ underneath one of the pieces, so we feel confident that it came from Florence. Some carved panels in the mansion might have been done by Luigi Frullini. He was working on the Chateausur-Mer mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, at the same time the Eustis Mansion was being built. The fireplaces do not have any identification, but there isn’t any evidence they were imported. This is still a new property for us. We have only been in the house for two years, and we hope to learn much more.”

Michaela adds, “The mansion has all types of wood, and the carvings have subtle differences throughout the building. Every time I looked at a section of wood, I found something different. In the dining room, there are birds and grapevines. Some paneling has starbursts, swirls; upstairs, there are faces and cartouches. The carving is very playful. The wood is not constrained by one pattern throughout the house. Many houses often have the same types of wood and motif throughout, but not here. The elaborately carved fireplaces all have different style variations; some of them are subtle.” She suspects “the fireplace in the dining room might be by someone not part of the larger woodwork project. It looks like a different hand.”

Overall, Michaela said, “The wood is in extremely good condition. The family took very good care of it, and it shows. I can imagine them telling the children to be careful playing in the house.”

Liz Peirce, a Mellon Fellow in art conservation who worked on the Eustis restoration, detailed the cleaning process: “We used a mild citrate solution on the woodwork, cleaning with a combination of soft rags, swabs and brushes. We use a 2% citrate solution that has been buffered to approximately pH 8. We use a chemical grade citric acid powder, which is then dissolved in water before adding a base to adjust the pH. In some cases, if the dirt was particularly grimy, a very small amount of benzyl alcohol was added (0.05%) to help cut through grease. When dry, the woodwork was then waxed with either clear paste wax for flat surfaces or a tinted paste wax for highly carved decoration. The clear paste wax dries white, and is difficult to buff out from crevices. Toned waxes are less glaring, should any be left in nooks and crannies. The wax was then buffed with a soft cloth. For heavily handled places, like the stairway railing, the clear paste wax was applied twice to build up a protective layer.”

Peter said, “As we were making the final preparations for opening the museum, we gave our office staff a chance to get involved and had volunteer days. People who work at Historic New England love old houses. They welcomed the opportunity to work on the beautiful wood.” Peter also emphasized that “Any restoration work has to be reversible. Anything added may have to be removed at a later date. The restoration in the house doesn’t look ‘perfect.’ We wanted the house to show age and the wood’s patina.”

The Eustis family sold the museum several rooms of original family furniture. However, the sheer size of the mansion led to a revolutionary idea. Peter said, “We wanted to have a furnished look. Period furniture was obtained through dealers and auction houses specifically for use by visitors doing self-guided tours. Information for each room can be found on tethered computer tablets. The only custom-made furniture is a set of Mission-style side tables that accommodate the tablets; the power cords run inside one of the legs.” This is a museum where people can sit on the chairs!

Historic New England, originally known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, was founded in 1910 by William Sumner Appleton. Anyone interested in traditional architecture, carpentry and historic furniture would enjoy visiting their 37 properties. The oldest is the 1664 Jackson House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the newest, the 1938 Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts. The Eustis Estate is particularly worth a visit by anyone who loves Victorian woodworking.

For more information, visit the websites www.eustis.estate or www.historicnewengland.org or call the Eustis Estate at 617-994-6600 or Historic New England at 617-227-3956.

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In the early 2000s, he started buying tools. “I was avidly reading magazines like Woodworker’s Journal. Then I decided to get real.  I bought a table saw, jointer, band saw and a planer. It was a big investment for an amateur woodworker. I have kept upgrading, but still have and use two of those original tools.”

He started by making boxes. “Boxes use the same techniques required for larger pieces. It was a lot cheaper to practice on boxes until I really learned techniques. I was basically self-taught for about 10 years.  In those early days, I did everything with machines; then I discovered the joy of using hand tools.” That happened when Jim took the nine-month course at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine.

Now living in the Lakes region of New Hampshire, Jim says, “I get much of my wood from a local sawmill.” Since there are no large lumber stores nearby, he also adds variety by purchasing wood online. “My favorite woods are cherry and curly cherry because I like the finished product,” Jim said.

In 2012, Jim made the decision to become a professional, full-time furniture maker. He specializes in furniture with a contemporary style, which he feels emphasizes the beauty of the natural wood grains and figures. “Manipulating colors and patterns in wood to complement lines, curves and surfaces in furniture comes intuitively to me.”

At the 2015 Fine Furnishings Show in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Jim’s Standing Desk project won the New Product Debut/Innovative Design award, sponsored by Rockler Woodworking and Hardware, an accomplishment that Jim found thrilling.

He has also created both a Wishbone Floor Lamp and a Wishbone Standing Coat Tree – the latter in response to a show attendee who looked at the lamp and said it would make a great coat tree. To create this request, Jim uses flexible green wood that still retains its bending ability. The base consists of thin pieces of tiger maple interwoven in and out of base supports, then inserts into slots. He laminates thin pieces of wenge to make the base and center supports. The end result of the Wishbone Standing Coat Tree has branches for hanging items.

Who knows, perhaps Jim will find more inspiration from those who attend the shows he’ll be participating in this year.

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See more about their restoration project see the video of the project here.

Learn more about the Greater Lowell Veterans Council and their work.

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They brought it to the attention of the Greater Lowell Veterans Council, then under Commander Bob Page, which jumped into action to restore the flag and 73” wide x 54” high frame, bringing it to Camille Breeze of Museum Textile Services in Andover for the restoration of the flag itself and to Melissa Carr of Masterwork Conservation in Arlington for the restoration of the frame.

The story behind this flag began when 24-year-old Solon A. Perkins joined a cavalry unit, the Independent Battalion of Massachusetts, later becoming part of the Third Massachusetts Cavalry.  Perkins was commissioned on February 20, 1862 and was killed in a skirmish on June 3, 1863 in Clinton, Louisiana.  After his death, the flag was sent to his mother.  Lowell historian Richard Howe says, “We can’t know for sure, but I believe he was so highly regarded by his men that they sent the guidon to his mother as a special honor for her.”  Mrs. Perkins kept it for many years, later giving it to Charles Knapp, a banker at Lowell’s Middlesex National Bank, who commissioned the elegant frame.

The main purpose of a “guidon” flag is to literally “guide on” the troops.  Soldiers would know where and when they were to move by watching their flag.  Historian and consultant Steve Hill, of the Dupage Military Flag Company, said of the piece, “Clearly this particular guidon, judging by the magnificent job of framing, was very important to those who originally carried it.” He also clarified that this particular type of guidon was common after 1862.  “At the beginning of the Civil War, guidons were simple swallowtailed flags of two colors: the upper half red, and the lower half white.  The Union guidons were redesigned as small, swallowtailed versions of the Stars and Stripes.”

When conservator Melissa Carr started the project, she did a thorough evaluation of the frame, which was actually two frames, one inside the other.  There were three phases: cleaning, stabilization and loss replacement. She also had to analyze the carvings. Were the carvings of the military equipment replicas of actual weapons or simply approximations of carbines, sabers, etc.?  The carbine, for example, was missing the trigger, trigger guard, sight and hammer assembly.  The Internet was a valuable resource, yielding photographs in enough angles to be able to reproduce the missing parts and identify it as a Joslyn .52 caliber carbine, model 1862 or 1863.  Whoever carved it had also carved the backs of the attachments as well as the front.  They were in 3D, even though those sections would not be seen.

The quality of the frame has led to speculation that it might be the work of master nineteenth century carver, John Haley Bellamy, who was in the area at the time —  but that might never be known for sure. At the bottom rail of the inner frame (paint restoration by Adeline Myers) are the words “Under this flag at Clinton, La., June 3, 1863, Solon A. Perkins was killed.”

Historian Richard Howe says, “The guidon is a tangible object that was with these men in Mississippi, many of them from my home city of Lowell.  I regard it as a way to communicate with the past.”

Conservator Melissa Carr says, “What struck me from the beginning and all along the project is the caring attached to this flag and frame.  The men originally with Perkins cared enough to save this flag.  How did his mother feel when she received the flag?  What were the circumstances that she gave the flag to Charles Knapp?  Was she dying?  There was a huge amount of care initially, then 120 years later, the Veterans Council’s care. The veteran’s group came into my studio as if they were carrying a newborn baby. The word legacy is overused, but people have kept caring about this flag and frame.”

At presstime, the Greater Lowell Veterans Council had raised $9,400 toward the $15,000 restoration costs. Further information can be found in their video here.

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