Category: Commercial Painting

Spectra Painting, Inc @ Schuyler – Colfax House

Spectra Painting, Inc .

We are starting  a project at this Historic home.  Due to a burst water pipe a large section of the main hall ceiling and portions of the walls were completely destroyed and the old Plaster and lathe  had to be removed.  We will be installing new plaster and lathe and repainting and duplicating and original color coat plaster finish.

The old wood in the walls are actually trees sliced longwise.  Very interesting. IMG_1481 IMG_1483 - Copy

History

Completed as a one-room farmhouse in 1695 by Arent Schuyler, the Schuyler homestead was passed to Arent Schuyler’s great granddaughter Hester Schuyler who married William Colfax, commander of George Washington’s Life Guards. Their grandson, Schuyler Colfax, Jr., was the 17th Vice President of the United States. The Dutch Colonial style addition to the originally brick and field-stone building was added by Colfax in 1783.

Despite the 20th century alteration of the structure to add dormers in place of “belly-windows,” the Schuyler-Colfax House was added to the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1965, a decision based upon surviving historic features and the important role the Schuyler-Colfax family has played in local history.[4]

Today, the building operates as a local history museum having been purchased in 1994 by Wayne Township from Dr. Jane Colfax.

 

 

http://www.passaiccountynj.org/PhotoGallery/2/Schuyler-Colfax%20House.jpg   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuyler_Colfax

Painting an Historic Icon.

Spectra Painting, Inc. | Painting Contractor NJSpectra Painting, Inc. | Painting Contractor NJ

 

We are finished with our work at Ringwood Manor.  We were there nearly 8 months and were successful in removing the soot, repairing plaster and repainting about 30 rooms in this Historic mansion.

[ http://www.ringwoodmanor.com/history/hist.htm ]

The Manor is set to reopen sometime in mid April, so please make a point of visiting soon.

Spectra Painting, Inc is proud to have been selected to work on this incredible project.  It was a very unfortunate accident that caused this work to be necessary.  One of the Manors oil furnaces malfunctioned and blew soot into these Historic rooms. Coating everything, floors, walls, ceilings and all the irreplaceable furnishings.    However, it was also a blessing in disguise, as this work may never have been done.

 

 

Thanks

Eric Doeler

President

Spectra Painting, Inc.

www.spectrapaintinginc.com

 

The 19th Century Manor and Industry

Martin J. Ryerson purchased the historic ironworks and began building the present Manor House in 1807 while still operating the iron mines and forges on the property. Ryerson ran 5 forge-furnace complexes in three counties from his headquarters at Ringwood for the next half century. Ryerson made shot for the war of 1812 and negotiated land and water rights with the Morris Canal Company for expansion of Long Pond (Greenwood Lake) and construction of the Pompton Feeder on the Morris Canal. The Ryerson Steel Company is still in operation today.

New York’s Peter Cooper, a remarkable inventor and industrialist and his young son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, purchased Ringwood in 1854. The properties were purchased for the rich local iron deposits but Mr. and Mrs. Hewitt set about making the old Ringwood estate their summer home. Hewitt enlarged the Manor in the 1860s and 70s. The completed house contains 51 rooms built in a wide range of styles, that characterize the Victorian Period. This impressive house is 226.5 feet long and features 24 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, 28 bedrooms and more than 250 windows. The forges, mills, village and farms that serviced the iron industry gradually turned into the Victorian summer estate of the Hewitts, one of the wealthiest and most influential families of 19th-century America.

Ringwood is to industry what Williamsburg is to politics. Although eventually the industry moved west to the coal fields, bar iron was made at nearby Long Pond until 1882, and Ringwood’s iron mines finally closed in the 1950s. A major supplier of metal to the Union cause during the American Civil War, the Cooper-Hewitt Iron Company developed new methods and products throughout the industrial revolution to become an important factor in America’s growth, and the fifth-largest corporation in America. A collection of iron products and artifacts adorn the Manor grounds. The next generation of the Hewitt family divested themselves of involvement in both politics and the iron and steel industry, and having little use for the large estate, they gave Ringwood Manor to the State of New Jersey in 1936