Featured Project: Masonry Conservation
Glen Fern
Wissahickon Valley Park
Livezey Lane
Mortar Analysis and Re-pointing 2005
Thomas Livezey Philadelphia’s most successful colonial miller, built Glen Fern beginning in 1747 and, in 1869, the house became part of Wissahickon Valley Park. Since 1998, the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust has been collaborating with the Commission to restore and adaptively use Glen Fern. In 2005 the Trust completed a mortar analysis using acid digestion and petrographic analysis to determine the composition of historic mortars. Samples of all the existing mortar campaigns were sampled and archived. Following the analysis, the many campaigns of existing pointing were removed and replaced with a historically appropriate, lime based mortar. Surviving historic stucco was conserved using consolidants.
