Masonry Magazine May 2012 Page. 24
CASE STUDY
REHABS AND RESTORATIONS
By Jonathan Appell
Bringing the Beauty Back
Wilmington's Graham Kenan Mausoleum in Oakdale Cemetery gets a facelift.
The Kenan family heritage dates back to the earliest founders of North Carolina, with the family name being synonymous with prestige and philanthropy. When Graham Kenan unexpectedly passed away at age 38, he was working at his law office in New York City. His death was attributed to a second wave of the devastating 1918 flu epidemic. His condition slowly worsened, which allowed him enough time to overview and modify his will, providing great details in many respects. Yet, upon combing through the family archives in Chapel Hill, N.C., and reading his entire will, no mention is made of his future burial and memorial desires.
Situated along the wooded, quiet perimeter of Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington, N.C., the Graham Kenan Mausoleum calls out like a sentinel in time. Its bright white Vermont marble shines through the trees like a beacon to visitors. However, only two people are entombed inside, Graham Kenan and his wife, Sarah, who outlived her husband by nearly 50 years.
Not a single marking or attribution is visible on the structure's exterior identifying the architect or builder. To find out more about the mausoleum, The Vermont Marble Co. ran a one-page promotional in two separate publications, American Stone Trade, March 1923, and Park & Cemetery & Landscape Gardening, May, 1923.
The Kenan Mausoleum was designed by the Carrere & Hastings Co. of New York City. architects who had been awarded the contract to build the New York Public Library in 1895. This was, possibly, the first company to adopt the transformative curtain wall construction technique, which employed a hidden internal steel framework and an outer façade of stone. Therefore, most of the structures the firm built looked like solid stone and were classical in nature, however were more modem under their outer skin veneers.
All indications are that the Kenan Mausoleum is constructed of solid masonry, from blocks of white Vermont marble, but that hasn't been verified through a blueprint or construction records.
The structure was erected by one of the premier monumental builders of the early-1900s, the Presbrey-Leland Co. of Valhalla, N.Y., which constructs monuments still today. The large marble blocks are mated perfectly, with butter-knife-thick joints. Considering 90 years have passed since its construction, the building is in good condition. Unfortunately, the hard white mortar used in the narrow joints allowed for little or no movement from expansion and contraction, due to changes in temperature and moisture levels.
Because of this unforgiving mortar, the marble has developed many hairline cracks, radiating from the mortar joints, outward. This also is visible in the frieze portion of the entablature, and along the lowest horizontal mortar joint, where the wall meets the front stairs. There, cracking and spalling have chipped away stone slowly for many decades.
A number of unrecorded cleaning and spot re-pointing efforts have been performed since the mausoleum's construction. There are many areas where the mortar had failed, showing losses, separation or open joints. Multiple products had been applied to fill in the lost mortar and replace stone chips included chalking, synthetic mortar, epoxy based material, and a pure white, hard mortar.
Many of the repaired areas had cracked and failed, yet again. Non-cement-based repair materials also tend to attract staining on the surrounding marble, which was visible along assorted mortar joints throughout the structure.
Although mortars and re-pointing may seem a simple and straightforward subject, untold damage has been done to numerous structures by careless and misguided mortar removal and poor mortar selection. As a rule of thumb, when re-pointing historic structures, the mortar should always be considered as a sacrificial material. In other words, the mortar must be more forgiving and softer then the substrate - in this case, slightly weathered marble.
If the mortar on a historic structure has performed well but is failing due to age, it should be replicated by doing mortar testing of some kind, such as acid digestion or petrographic analysis. In this case, the original outer pointing mortar was far too hard; therefore, it can be assumed it is very high in white Portland cement. It was not desirable to imitate it.
No cracking or loss was found in large portions of the mortar joints. It was decided that a minimum level of intervention was the safest option.
All previously repaired joints, and all cracked and all open mortar joints, were carefully hand chiseled and raked out. All lose mortar was removed. This is a time-consuming process, as great harm can be