WE ARE GETTING CLOSE to applying new surface finishes to our sanctuary’s outer south wall, and to our main sanctuary hall. Which leads to a question: What should their surface colors be?
Below the jump, this post discusses both surfaces—exterior and interior.
Executive Summary
• HISTORIC PRESERVATION: The usual goal is to restore the original colors.
• EXTERIOR: The present blue-gray color is not original. From a maintenance perspective, it is not a prudent choice. The original color (at least on the south wall) was a pale green.
• INTERIOR: We should take care not to obscure the original mottled appearance of the ceiling. On the east wall, the original color was a tan or buff. It’s not clear whether the long walls were originally that same color.
Historic Preservation
For the colors of a historic-cultural monument, the guiding principle is as follows:
It is recommended, but not required, that the building be repainted with colors that are identified through examination of strata by a qualified architect or conservator, or which are historically appropriate to the building. (Historic Structure Report = HSR, 2003)
By “historically appropriate,” the authors mean the period 1948 to 1960.
Exterior
The present dark blue-gray color (Mysterious Night) was applied around 2007, according to the painter Ellsworth Ramclam. It has faded considerably in the meantime.
The south wall appears to have been originally finished with a coat of pigmented stucco. (Samples are available from pieces that have broken off.) The pigment resulted in a pale green finish, similar to the celadon shown HERE, or more precisely what Behr Paints calls Avocado Whip. It can be seen peeking through the paint in the photo below.
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Maintenance
From a maintenance perspective, the present dark color is not a good idea. It absorbs more of the sun’s energy, causing a greater daily expansion and contraction of the surface material. And that leads to more cracking and aging of the surface. For the same reason, the paint itself doesn’t last as long. Therefore more frequent maintenance is needed now than for the earlier pale green.
Thinking only in terms of maintenance, the waterproofing contractor recommends a bright white, which would reflect away as much of the sun’s light as possible.
Interior
Ceiling
Nobody I’ve spoken with can recall the last time that our plaster sanctuary ceiling was painted. Indeed, its mottled look (which is most obvious during the day, when the electric lights are off) suggests that the ceiling was never fully painted.
I draw that conclusion because on the north side, the white paint covering the foot or two immediately above the wall is smoothly white, whereas the paint farther up the ceiling is spread unevenly—the roughly finished plaster has bare spots.
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| Near the top of the wall |
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| Farther overhead from the wall |
If that uneven application of paint were by design, it would have been made uneven consistently. The inconsistent treatment suggests instead that the painters were unable to get up high enough to complete their paint job! And given that poor coverage, what we are looking at is probably the original coat of paint!
This raises the question as to what “restoration” properly consists of. Paint that is 75 years old has surely deteriorated (dried out) and faded. Thus in order to reproduce the original look of the ceiling, we do need to repaint — yet at the same time we need to avoid overdoing it, by creating a smooth appearance that fills in the dull spots.
Consider, too, our need to repair the large T-shaped ceiling crack in the southwest corner. Of course after the repair, the new plaster there will need painting. Can the plastering be done in a manner that emulates the roughness of the original plaster? And can the paint job emulate the spottiness of the rest of the ceiling?
Walls
As for the walls, the present blue-with-white-accent color scheme was done more than 25 years ago, when Brett Barenholtz was president (1997). At that time, the color was the same blue, yet without the white trim, according to Brett. That is, the stars of David were the same color as the rest of the wall, although Brett believes that they had originally been white.
Likewise when I asked Laura Gold (daughter of our late member Louis Gold), who used to attend High Holy Day services in the 1970s through about 1995, she recalled blue walls throughout that period.
Previous to that, however, the walls seem to have been painted white. At least that is true of the eastern wall, according to the HSR:
In order to recover the probable original wall color, a test patch was done near the bottom of the [eastern] wall, to the left of stairs. One layer of blue paint and one layer of white paint were removed with solvents to recover what is probably the original wall color.
And that original wall color was described as tan or buff. That test patch is still visible, next to an electrical outlet at the stairs that go up to the Bimah.
Further examination?
Given that the eastern wall was treated as an accent wall (with murals), it’s possible that it was originally a different color than the two long walls.
Indeed, in the process of opening up access holes in the south wall, I have not noticed any paint color other than the surface blue; and I have not noticed pigmented plaster.
If “a qualified architect or conservator” were called in to examine what’s underneath the blue paint on the south wall, they would presumably use the same method as documented in the HSR:
The blue paint was effectively removed with a 100% solution of denatured alcohol. lt was also quickly soluble in acetone.
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