Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305300109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Medium
When Washington laid the roof at Mount Vernon, he selected old-growth cypress, one of the world's densest and most water-resistant woods. He told workmen to cut the cypress into fan-shaped shingles and paint them red to resemble more costly tiles being imported from Europe.
The original shingles were replaced for the first time in 1860, and have been replaced several times since then.
Replacement shingles were made of other woods, including cedar, and eroded about three times as fast as the original roof.
So this year when Mount Vernon's resident architects and conservators launched the fifth shingling since the originals were laid in 1774, they returned to Washington's wood of choice. Work began last week.
Washington chose cypress because he knew the wood would withstand Northern Virginia's cold winters, spring downpours and summer heat longer than any other natural material, Mount Vernon spokeswoman Ann Rauscher said. The original shingles came from cypress in southeastern Virginia.
In a two-year search for the cypress, Mount Vernon staff and New York architectural consultant John Waite toured hundreds of swamps. They were looking for fallen cypress trees that lie embedded in mud. Some of the trees are more than 12 feet in diameter and have been buried for 100 years or more.
Waite said the cypress they found is ideal because the swamp water has saturated the wood, increasing its density and layering the wood with natural enzymes that help prevent rot.
"If you keep it wet all the time or dry all the time it will last a long time because it is conditioned to extreme weather," Waite said. "The cedar rotted quickly because it's alternately wet and dry, and that encourages erosion."
Waite also praised Washington's sheathing design, which allowed the wooden shingles to breathe and hastened the drying process after rainfall. Recent restoration has tacked tar paper to the underside of the replacement shingles, stifling the wood's natural drying process, Waite said.
The project is estimated to cost more than $1 million. Rauscher said the private group that oversees the historic home as a museum has raised $200,000 so far.
About a quarter of the money has come from the Neighborhood Friends of Mount Vernon Association, a group of neighbors who live on most of the original 8,000 acres of Washington's Potomac River estate. Today the house and grounds occupy about 500 acres.
"It's important to restore what we have been given from ancestors as closely as possible to what they created," Rauscher said. "Only from that can we learn about the past."
by CNB