I had the pleasure, a few days ago, of visiting this house,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenworthy_Hall.
SWMBO had horse business with the owner and I tagged
along for the visit, I ask the owner if I could have a look
around, she told me to do whatever I liked.
Even asking was a breach of Southern politeness,
but it was that or listen to a two hour discussion of horse
pedigrees and relative values viewed in todays market,
(This crap is mind numbingly boring) so politeness be damned.
Anyway, the owner only stays there a couple of days a month
with her primary residence in FL, so it wasn't quite the same as
asking to prowl around someones full time home.
It doesn't appear that the restoration/renovation work that has
been done over the decades burdened itself too much with
historical accuracy, however the place is impressive.
I did have the displeasure of seeing a set of 8, black forest
carved chairs with boar's head backs that had been painted,
(white paint and then spritzed with gold for highlighting)
there are some sick twisted individuals in this world.
The doors all appear original and are 96¡x 36¡ x 3¡ quarter
sawn white oak, each rail and stile joint is MT with 4
tenons going completely through the stile, this was no
small feat as the tenons are about the cross section of a
1x4 and the stiles are about 8¡ wide.
The hinges were about 8¡ long with plates 3/8¡ thick and
3¡ wide.
In spite of their age, there was not an open open joint
in any of the doors. There is something very satisfying in
closing a 300lb door and having it snick shut with just minimal
finger pressure.
The floors in the house are all vertical grain heart pine, a lot of the
flooring is 18-20' long, there were no visible repairs that I could
see.
The brickwork is massive, my best guess about the size of the house
and thicknesss of the walls would put the number of bricks
somewhere around 500,000, at todays prices just the cost of the
brickwork alone would swallow the cost of most present day
mansions whole.
While poking around the grounds, I looked in one the the
out buildings(I believe that it was orignally a smoke house)
and there were great stacks of crown moldings, post, beams
and assorted woodwork, I suppose left over from past
rework of the house. After some internal discussion I finally
had to admit to myself that, ´do whatever I liked¡ did not
include backing the truck up to the smokehouse and helping
myself to a load of woodwork, :(
One observation I made was the presence of 2 1000 gallon
propane tanks, there wasn't a generator set, undoubtedly
this place takes a metric shitload of money to heat, even
in cold challenged Alabama.
I was glad to get to see it up close and personal and
even happier to find out I didn't own another horse
when I left.
basilisk
On 3/26/2011 9:05 AM, basilisk wrote:
>
> Even asking was a breach of Southern politeness,
> but it was that or listen to a two hour discussion of horse
> pedigrees and relative values viewed in todays market,
> (This crap is mind numbingly boring) so politeness be damned.
ROTFL. There is little in this world that is more boring than to listen
to two horseman discussing the lineage of their horses, to six
generations back ... "by xxxxx, out of yyyyy", ad infinitum. My father
and his cronies can do this for days on end without tiring. One of the
myriad of reasons I decided to forego the family horse business.
Great story, BTW ... thanks for sharing.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 4/15/2010
KarlC@ (the obvious)
On Mar 26, 10:05=A0am, basilisk <[email protected]> wrote:
> I had the pleasure, a few days ago, of visiting this house,http://en.wiki=
pedia.org/wiki/Kenworthy_Hall.
>
> SWMBO had horse business with the owner and I tagged
> along for the visit, I ask the owner if I could have a look
> around, she told me to do whatever I liked.
>
> =A0Even asking was a breach of Southern politeness,
> but it was that or listen to a two hour discussion of horse
> pedigrees and relative values viewed in todays market,
> (This crap is mind numbingly boring) so politeness be damned.
> Anyway, the owner only stays there a couple of days a month
> with her primary residence in FL, so it wasn't quite the same as
> asking to prowl around someones full time home.
>
> It doesn't appear that the restoration/renovation work that has
> been done over the decades burdened itself too much with
> historical accuracy, however the place is impressive.
>
> I did have the displeasure of seeing a set of 8, black forest
> carved chairs with boar's head backs that had been painted,
> (white paint and then spritzed with gold for highlighting)
> there are some sick twisted individuals in this world.
>
> The doors all appear original and are 96 x 36 x 3 quarter
> sawn white oak, each rail and stile joint is MT with 4
> tenons going completely through the stile, this was no
> small feat as the tenons =A0are about the cross section of a
> 1x4 and the stiles are about 8 wide.
> The hinges were =A0about 8 long with plates 3/8 thick and
> 3 wide.
>
> In spite of their age, there was not an open open joint
> in any of the doors. There is something very satisfying in
> closing a 300lb door and having it snick shut with just minimal
> finger pressure.
>
> The floors in the house are all vertical grain heart pine, a lot of the
> flooring is 18-20' long, there were no visible repairs that I could
> see.
>
> The brickwork is massive, my best guess about the size of the house
> and thicknesss of the walls would put the number of bricks
> somewhere around 500,000, at todays prices just the cost of the
> brickwork alone would swallow the cost of most present day
> mansions whole.
>
> While poking around the grounds, I looked in one the the
> out buildings(I believe that it was orignally a smoke house)
> and there were great stacks of crown moldings, post, beams
> and assorted woodwork, I suppose left over from past
> rework of the house. After some internal discussion I finally
> had to admit to myself that, do whatever I liked did not
> include backing the truck up to the smokehouse and helping
> myself to a load of woodwork, :(
>
> One observation I made was the presence of 2 1000 gallon
> propane tanks, there wasn't a generator set, undoubtedly
> this place takes a metric shitload of money to heat, even
> in cold challenged Alabama.
>
> I was glad to get to see it up close and personal and
> even happier to find out I didn't own another horse
> when I left.
>
> basilisk
Both your posting and the linked Wikipedia reference ( Kenworthy Hall)
made interesting reading. Thank you for sharing.
Joe G
"basilisk" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> I had the pleasure, a few days ago, of visiting this house,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenworthy_Hall.
>
> SWMBO had horse business with the owner and I tagged
> along for the visit, I ask the owner if I could have a look
> around, she told me to do whatever I liked.
> While poking around the grounds, I looked in one the the
> out buildings(I believe that it was orignally a smoke house)
> and there were great stacks of crown moldings, post, beams
> and assorted woodwork, I suppose left over from past
> rework of the house. After some internal discussion I finally
> had to admit to myself that, ´do whatever I liked¡ did not
> include backing the truck up to the smokehouse and helping
> myself to a load of woodwork, :(
Afterward, the lady was thinking, "I wish he would have cleaned out this
crap". Oh well, your loss.