2006 Conservation Workshop: The Bartow-Pell Mansion

The Conservation Workshop is a semester long class offered as part of the Historic Preservation Degree Program at Columbia University. One of the goals of this course is to give student hands-on experience with buildings and building elements. Each year, a historic house has been used as a study site for the students for half of the Fall semester.

In the fall of 2006, the Historic House Trust graciously offered the Conservation Workshop the use of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum as our study site. The Landmark house is owned by the City of New York, operated by the International Garden Club, Inc. and is a member of the Historic House Trust.

George Wheeler, the Director of the Center for Preservation Research in the Historic Preservation Department worked with Therese Braddock, the Executive Director of the Historic House Trust to arrange for the Bartow Pell Mansion to be used as the study site. All of the participants, students and instructors, are grateful to the Historic House Trust staff and the Bartow Pell Mansion personnel including Clarissa Cylich, Executive Director of Bartow-Pell and Mary Huber, Curatorial Director of Bartow-Pell.

A Historic Structures Report for the Bartow Pell Mansion was written by Daniel M. C. Hopping and Zachary N. Studenroth in April 1987. This comprehensive report was used by the students as a starting point for their own research and investigation of various elements of the house. The students worked in teams of two. The resulting research has been documented by each of these teams and is included in this report. It is the hope of the Conservation Workshop that this report will become an amendment to the Historic Structures Report. Some of these studies are themselves initial paths of research that have been limited by the time constraints of the class.

The course instructors were Joan Berkowitz and Mary Jablonski, both Adjunct Faculty in the Historic Preservation Program.

Download full report (pdf)

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Columbia University 1172 Amsterdam Avenue New York, New York 10027