Repairing cracks in 1760s town-owned center estimated cost: $250,000
Brick masons have begun work this week on restoring cracks in a portion of the west wall of the circa 1760s Urbanna Museum and Visitors Center building on Virginia Street.
Kevin Nieto and Robert Hall are independent bricklayers who specialize in restoring colonial brick work. They both work for Colonial Williamsburg and Historic Annapolis, nonprofit organizations that oversee the maintenance and preservation of colonial buildings in those cities.
Nieto and Hall said they were struck by the fact that earlier restorations to the museum/visitors center building were able to preserve so much of the colonial brick features. The masons, however, were concerned about the overall future of the building.
“The greatest enemy to any building is water penetration,” said Nieto. “Over the centuries water has gotten into the cracks in the walls of this building and has expanded the cracking problem.”
Earlier restoration
Robert Hall noted that part of the problem might go back to an early restoration. The first major restoration of the building took place in 1964 when it was owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA). The restoration included rebuilding of the brick walls, porch, and roof which were all completed by 1965.
Total restoration was completed in 1967 and that year the Urbanna Public Library moved into the downstairs of the building. Although it took the APVA nearly 30 years to restore the building, this completed the first major restoration of the structure since it was built.
Hall said that it was probably during the 1960s restoration that angle iron was used to support windows, doors and other structures. It would have been standard policy to use angle iron in the 1960s, but not today. “We use stainless steel for everything that we do,” said Robert Hall. “The angle iron in this building is most likely failing and may be the main reason for some of the cracking in the walls.”
Nieto said that when angle iron fails and begins to rust it expands causing cracks in the bricks. “Disintegrating angle iron will expand 10 times its normal size,” said Nieto. “The answer is that all the angle iron around the windows and doors and throughout the building should be removed and replaced with stainless steel.”
The estimated cost of repairing the cracks in the west wall and elsewhere in the building is $250,000 without considering these new problems that are in the mix.
Friends of Urbanna
Several years ago, the 501c3 nonprofit group Friends of Urbanna (FOU) was able to obtain a River Counties Community Foundation Grant, which was used to hire the firm of Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects out of Albany, N.Y. The firm determined there was $250,000 worth of repair work needed on the building.
Aubrey Hall of FOU reported in February to town council that the group had received a $25,000 matching grant from The Cable Foundation out of Richmond that can go towards the repairs. Hall also said that the River Counties Community Foundation Grant committee had awarded FOU another $15,000 grant, of which $12,500 can go towards the match. “We have about $7,000 in our account from individual donations to start the first phase of repair,” said Aubrey Hall.
“With that, we plan to fix cracks in the side of the outside brick wall on the western end of the building,” he said. “This building is one of the most significant buildings in America and we have it right here in Urbanna and Middlesex County,” said Aubrey Hall.
“So many times throughout its history, the wrecking ball was just moments away from taking it away but someone always stepped forward to keep it alive,” he said.
Anyone interested in donating towards the repairs and restoration of the Urbanna Museum and Visitor’s Center building can send checks to Friends of Urbanna, P.O. Box 1117, Urbanna, VA 23175.
