FLASH NEWS! Wallpaper UPDATE!
OK! I am freakin’ out, man! FREAKIN’ OUT!
Recently, I did a post on the wallpaper discoveries at the Cross House.
In particular, I found scraps of the original 1895 wall paper, wall frieze, and ceiling paper in the two-story stair-hall.
Were these scraps, I wondered, enough to recreate all three papers? I mean, how cool would it be to have the original papers re-installed after 120-years?
What I found:
Wall paper.
Wall frieze.
The ceiling paper.
OK! So that is an update.
I have doing research into having the papers reproduced. As part of this endeavor, I contacted Bo Sullivan, whom I have known for several years. Bo wears many hats, and all related to old houses. Obviously, a must know kinda guy! Bo also started a company called Bolling & Company, which sells antique wallpaper fragments mounted as art. Cool idea. Gorgeous stuff.
Bolling specializes in the work of M. H. Birge & Sons, a Buffalo-based company which produced wallpaper from 1834 to 1982. At the time the Cross House was built, Birge was producing luscious, high-quality papers.
Well, look what Bo found. Scroll WAY down (I am delaying the unveiling for dramatic effect):
Courtesy Historic New England
ABOVE: My wall paper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am agog!
Incredible!
Astounding! THERE it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bo found the sample in the collection of Historic New England.
AND I LOVE IT! Interestingly, from what remains in the house I would never have guessed that the “shields” were asymmetrical. Cool. I am an asymmetrical kinda guy. My paper also had a silver ground, and not the green in the sample.
The paper was patented in 1893, the year before the Cross House was built.
I knew I had enough of the ceiling paper to recreate it. Now I have enough of the wall paper to recreate it. Whoee! The frieze? Ah, no.
But now I am hopeful! It is out there somewhere! The hunt begins!
Thanks Bo!
FUNNY SIDEBAR
I contact Bo and said: “Hey! I have some wallpaper scraps. Can you help me?”
Now, Bo is a Birge nut, oops, aficionado. The man LOVES Birge.
Well, he very kindly looked at my pitiful scraps. Then a lightbulb went off. And Bo got really really really excited. Are these, could it be possible, can these scraps be by…BIRGE?
I would love to have seen his face when he confirmed Birge.
You know, I so love a good nut, oops, aficionado.
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Congratulations! [pops champagne cork]
Wallpaper wonderment! Bo is amazing! What a great friend & aficionado! The wallpaper is so beautiful and to find enough scraps. That is just the ticket. Way to go Ross!
I sure hope you are able to paper the walls with it. I really dislike old houses done using mere paint on all the walls, usually a dark ‘red’ or ‘green’. Yuck! Old residences should be crammed to the brim with seating, side tables, figurines, paintings, potted palms/ferns, embroidery, a piano, fringed/frilly curtains, candelabras, doilies, statues, and of course BUSY WALLPAPERS and carpet patterns. Tables should be groaning under the weight of 4 drinking vessels, 8 pieces of silver, plates stacked upon other plates PER PERSON, all surrounding a voluptuous centerpiece. The height of wealth was demonstrated by the obscene quantity of ornate STUFF. Minimalism = poverty. I hope you furnish at least the receiving room/parlor authentically, since you are going to so much trouble to be authentic in every other manner with this enormous undertaking. I can’t think of anything more fascinating than working on that aspect of the project! (You’ll probably be able to get an antique upright piano for FREE nowadays, just sayin)
Dorothee – you are so right! And I’ve made an interesting discovery regarding pianos, more specifically, pianos belonging to the Cross branch of my family. Mary Cross’ mother (the first Katherine married to Charles Cross) was a pianist, and the piano Mary passed on to my grandparents may have lived in the Cross House. The age is correct. My brother has it now, and is going to attempt to research its provenance, such as a sales receipt that would show if it was purchased in Seattle or Emporia!
Katherine, how tantalizing!