When an historic Colonial Revival home in Fort Worth, Texas needed a gentle facelift to restore its original beauty, the homeowners called on Brent Hull of Hull Historical to head up the renovations. For classical expertise in renovating the facade, Hull Historical turned to Christine G. H. Franck, Inc.

Byrd Residence after renovation

In the 1930s a lovely Colonial Revival home was built in Fort Worth, Texas.  With its painted white brick, attenuated columns on its portico, and high pitch to the pediment, it had all the charm and grace typical of Colonial Revival homes.  Dark shutters around simple masonry openings set a nice rhythm of contrast for the facade and balanced the breadth of the brick. A tight color palette of white and green unified the serene composition.

Over the years, in an attempt, perhaps, to “classicize” the facade, it had been renovated with incorrectly detailed and proportioned Corinthian columns, the addition of stone cladding in the tympanum instead of the simpler wood siding that had previously covered it, the addition of bulky stone architraves around the windows, the removal of the shutters, and the addition of cast stone trim profiles in the entablature that were baffling in their incorrectness.

Byrd Residence BEFORE renovation

To renovate the home to its earlier Colonial Revival grace, Christine G. H. Franck designed a renovation which removed the ungainly Corinthian Columns and replaced them with attenuated Ionic columns from Chadsworth Columns.  The heavy cast stone trim around the windows and in the entablature, the cast stone cladding in the tympanum, and the bulbous balusters were all removed and replaced with correctly detailed and proportioned wood trim and weatherboards.

Byrd Residence AFTER renovation

Since the slate roof was to remain intact, the cornice moldings were designed with slightly less projection than canonically acceptable.  Gibbs’ Ionic order, as well as several other sources, were of help in resolving the limitations on the projections without sacrificing the alternation of elements.  The strange modillions-cum-dentils were also removed and replaced with elements more appropriate to the order, scale and detail of the facade.