Mayfield Senior School was originally founded in 1931 by the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and is a private, all female, college prep school in Pasadena, CA. The house at the heart of the campus was built between 1914-1919 and was known as the Marshall-Eagle Estate. The property was purchased for the Society of the Holy Child Jesus by Dr. Charles and Vera Strub in 1950.
We were contacted a few months ago to see if we could save a pair of original copper and glass doors. The existing doors were pretty far gone: missing handles, missing trim, numerous holes and old patches in the copper cladding, deteriorated wood, mismatched hardware, etc. However, they couldn’t merely be replaced, because installing new doors would mean the opening would have to be upgraded to meet the current building codes. So instead, we took the doors back to our shop and got to work on the meticulous restoration:
- repaired the deteriorated wood core
- replaced the non-salvageable copper cladding
- repaired existing trim and replaced missing trim
- patina’d old and new copper to match
- reproduced a missing handle
- installed new slimline door closers
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- The existing copper doors before restoration.
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- One of the original handles was long gone.
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- Newer polished brass door hardware did not coordinate with the historic doors.
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- After the copper cladding was removed, we repaired the water damaged wood core.
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- Copper doors after restoration was completed
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- Can you tell which handle is the reproduction?
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- New slimline door closers were installed and existing brass hardware was refinished to better coordinate with the historic door.
We’re pretty happy with the results, and the school is ecstatic that we could save their beautiful doors.
kcrestorationinc 