"The Brown Decades": The Rise, Fall, and Endurance of Brownstone
- Estelle Rampelt
- 9 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part blog series.
Lippitt House's full exterior masonry facade is being restored for the first time in its history. This massive undertaking involves repointing the exterior brickwork and repairing or replacing badly deteriorated brownstone trim. “Lippitt House and ‘The Brown Decades’: The Rise, Fall, and Endurance of Brownstone” explores brownstone as an important 19th-century building material and illustrates how the history of brownstone at Lippitt House informs the current restoration project.
The “Brown Decades”
Brownstone was one of the most popular building materials of the 19th century. A brief walk through Providence’s East Side will show just how many buildings from the time were built with brownstone, and Lippitt House is no exception.
Built for the Lippitt family in 1865 in the Italianate palazzo style, the brick and brownstone mansion both stylistically and materially represents the cultivation and taste of the family. Influenced by the Romantic movement, architects of the time embraced designs that rejected classical formality, favoring natural, earth-toned materials like brownstone (Matero and Teutonico, 1982). Thus brownstone, also known as “freestone,” Portland Stone, or Connecticut Stone, became the most popular and stylish building material of the time, dominating the architectural landscape of the 19th century. Indeed, the eras of greatest brownstone popularity following the Civil War became known as the “Brown Decades,” as quarrying methods and technologies made brownstone cheaper and more accessible and the material proliferated in both domestic and public architecture.
A Brief History of Brownstone
Brownstone, the common name for brown sandstone, is found in significant deposits in the Connecticut River Valley between Connecticut and Massachusetts. The name “Portland Brownstone” comes from the stone’s association with the major quarries in Portland, Connecticut, the first of which was opened in 1665 (Guinness 2002). The town itself is supposedly named after Portland, England, another major site of sandstone quarrying. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the major Portland brownstone companies Shaler & Hall Quarry Co., Middlesex Quarry Co., New England Brownstone Co., Brainard Co., and Connecticut Steam Brownstone Co. thrived, producing nearly all the brownstone for the East Coast market and beyond.
The Decline of Brownstone
While the rise of brownstone’s popularity in the 19th century was gradual, it fell out of favor rapidly. Contributing factors such as the rise of terra cotta and Portland concrete as cheaper and more durable alternatives to the costly brownstone, as well as changing aesthetics led to the decline of nearly all the major brownstone quarries by the 1890s (Matero and Teutonico 1982). Ironically, brownstone’s popularity, combined with technological and industrial advances, contributed to its decline, as the demand for faster quarrying led to less careful production and treatment of the material. As Alison Guinness, a scholar of Portland brownstone, explains:
“Progress was both friend and foe to brownstone. Better technology—steam power, new and faster machines—made it possible to quarry millions of cubic feet of stone to supply the Brownstone Age, but haste interfered with the correct use of the stone. To facilitate quick and easy construction, the brownstone was often not properly seasoned or cut” (Guinness 2002).
This haste created many of the preservation challenges seen today. Brownstone must be properly seasoned and thoroughly dried to resist weathering. When that process is skipped, water penetrates the stone’s porous structure, and repeated freeze-thaw cycles can cause cracking, spalling, and eventual deterioration.
Although the major brownstone quarries have remained closed and vacant, renewed interest in Portland Brownstone led to the opening of Portland Brownstone Quarries, Inc. in 1993 (Hartford Courant 2012). The small operation supplied stone for restoration projects and new construction until its closing in 2012. The Portland Brownstone Quarries were designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000.
To learn more about the history of Portland brownstone at Lippitt House and the masonry restoration project underway, stay tuned for Part II of this blog series!
Guest Blogger: Estelle Rampelt is a Master of Arts student in Preservation Studies with a concentration in museum practice at Boston University.
The Lippitt House Masonry Restoration Project has been made possible in part through the generous support of the History of Equal Rights Grant Program, National Park Service; Rhode Island State Council on the Arts; The Champlin Foundation; and individual private donations.
To read more about the Masonry Restoration Project or to make a donation, please click here.
References
Guinness, Alison C. "The Portland Brownstone Quarries." The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Inc. 55, no. 3, p. 95.
Matero, Frank G., and Jeanne M. Teutonico. "The Use of Architectural Sandstone in New York City in the 19th Century." Bulletin of the Association for Preservation Technology 14, no. 2 (1982): 12.
"Portland's Last Quarry Is Closing." Hartford Courant, February 26, 2012. https://www.courant.com/2012/02/26/portlands-last-quarry-is-closing/
