Cape Henry Visitation

John Starling reports the week of April 1 (a six day week) brought 911 visitors to the Cape Henry Lighthouse. A good start for the month, and hopefully will continue a positive trend at the Lighthouse. The visitation counts for both February and March exceeded the 2007 levels and through the first three months, the Lighthouse is running 3.4% ahead of its pace last year! We have asked all sites to report on visitation on a weekly basis if possible so we can track trends more closely. To circle back to 2007, it proved a very good year for the Lighthouse: total annual visitation was 63,073 which represented an 8% increase over 2006, the first annual increase in visitation numbers since 2003 bested 2002! Well done John and crew!!

Farmers Bank Shutters

Karl, Mike and Jon finished rehanging the 5 exterior shutters and removed the scaffolding back to its home at Bacons Castle. While in that area, they traveled to Isle of Wight Courthouse to meet Lanny Hinson and inspect maintenance problems. Lanny pointed out the chronic stucco problem on the porch, paint and plaster coming off the interior wall in the courthouse, and two floor boards under the commode showing signs of rot. It was a good day for an inspection, the overnight rain had partially dried, which highlighted the really wet areas. Lanny indicated that it had been years since the rain gutters had been cleaned out. The exterior of the wall where the paint and plaster were failing had a wash under the gutter and a mossy, wet area on the foundation. This is a good indicator that rising damp from the gutter wash is causing the paint and plaster to fail.

When we looked at the porch, we noticed a substantial percetage of spaliated bricks and salt stains caused by moisture moving through the bricks. Our theory for the porch is that there is trapped moisture under the porch, which is unvented and inaccessible. The mortar used for the porch appears to portland cement based. This combination forces the trapped moisture to move upward through the bricks and eventually through the stucco, causing it to fail. In case you didn't notice, I finally figured out why I couldn't post pictures. I had failed to check off an agreement with blogger, so blogger wouldn't post them. I really needed to deal with a vindictive computor program.

On second thought...

I met this afternoon at the Marshall House with Ralph Higgins, a descendant of John Marshall and long time friend of the House, and Doug Welsh to consider the future of the now very large trees on the Marshall House landscape. We had requested a proposal from a local tree company to remove two trees and trim back the remainder. This was based on looking at a sketch of the property and a long time concern that the magnolias that flank the rear, especially the one pictured here on the west side are too large in that they: continually scrape the house fabric in a medium breeze, trap moisture and prevent sunlight from reaching both the foundation level and the brick exterior itself, and pose a threat in severe weather should they split or fall. The proposal that came back was exorbitant (in excess of $6K including stump grinding). Thus the on-site meeting today. The calculus once on site was very different. These are magnificent trees that dominant the landscape but are among the very few of their scale in the downtown area. Removing one, two or all would create a much different place and give the house a much different prospect. Before proceeding with outright removal, I plan to ask the tree company to provide one more estimate - this time to severely prune the large magnolia to allow for at least an 8 - 10 foot calm-wind buffer between the tree and the house. If this is affordable, we may have this done as an interim step before outright removal to see if there is away to preserve some of the shade and the park like setting around the house while achieving the goals mentioned above.

HJ Visitation in March

Initial reports from the Park Service indicate that 25,396 visitors came to Historic Jamestowne in the month of March. Naturally this is considerably fewer than visited in the anniversary year of 2007. March 2008 was 34% below the numbers for March 2007. However, it was 10% higher than the number for March 2006. It matched almost exactly the five year average for March from 2003 through 2007. Easter fell in March this year, which only happens every few years. Easter was last in March in 2005 and the number for that year was 7% higher than 2008. All of these numbers are just for a sense of comparison. It is going to be very interesting to watch the visitation numbers for Historic Jamestowne this year. We could not budget for this year based on 2007 so this year will not only prove important for operations this year, it will set the budget levels for operations next year and influence that decision beyond. It will also be difficult to determine the impact of higher gasoline prices as we do not have "typical" numbers from a recent period to compare. But, it will be interesting to watch!

Farmers Bank

The restoration crew set up scaffolding in the front of Farmers Bank to hang or rehang 5 shutters that needed repair/replacement. We found that the existing shutters on the upper 2 floors don't fully function as shutters, but are there more to satisfy architectural decor. We had to consolidate behind the pintles of two of the 3rd floor windows. We have found the windows to be very much out of square, due to settling of the window arches. There is also a long diagonal crack in the masonry in the front, extending at least two floors. We successfully installed two shutters today and hope to finish by the close of thursday. No pictures again!

April Fools 2008

Mike and Jon killed the morning at an insurance meeting at the Cole-Digges, while Karl went to BC and picked up the Farmers Bank shutters for installation on the 2nd. Mike and Jon spent the pm lifting the back gate at C-D. They had to perforate the gate post and dig under the post so that the concrete would have something to key into. If this had been done at original installation, the post would not have sunk, causing the gate hardware to misalign and function poorly.

A New Season

April 1 is always a big day in our historic house year, and not just because we like paying tricks. This is the day that all the properties open for the season. Bacon's Castle and Smith's Fort, which have been open weekends since the beginning of March, resume a full six day a week schedule today. Scotchtown also opens officially. It's first actual open day will be Thursday as it runs a five day schedule Thursday through Monday. Of course Historic Jamestowne, Cape Henry Lighthouse and The John Marshall House are open year round. We hope for a successful year, despite climbing gasoline prices. Keep an eye on this spot and we will report results as we have them!