Writing Room

Building D was a Sailors' Snug Harbor dormitory and featured a Writing Room, where residents could find materials for writing. The original Victorian mural was hand-painted in the trompe-l’oeil style, creating the optical illusion of a three-dimensional glasshouse roof with flora suggesting the South Seas, where many of the resident mariners had sailed.  The mural was originally commissioned by Sailors’ Snug Harbor around 1883 in celebration of the retirement home’s 50th anniversary. 

Restoration of the Writing Room ceiling, 2023

The museum is known for the grassroots adaptive reuse project led by the volunteer Noble Crew during the 1990s, which rehabilitated the National Historic Landmark Building D, a former Sailors’ Snug Harbor dormitory from 1844, and turned it into the museum’s new home.  While restoring the Writing Room thirty years ago, the Noble Crew discovered, under decades of paint layers and plaster patches, the glasshouse ceiling mural, and its restoration was a crowning achievement of the rehabilitation of Building D.

Unfortunately, in July 2020 during a thunderstorm, a portion of the ceiling collapsed.  With a generous emergency grant from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the museum engaged restoration firm EverGreene Architectural Arts to assess the condition of the ceiling.  EverGreene’s conservators and preservationists determined that deterioration of the plaster and failure of plaster keys among other factors lead to the collapse of the ceiling that was built in the 1840s.  The existing ceiling framing was no longer sound and also needed to be replaced.  In 2021, prior to replacing the ceiling, EverGreene conservators documented the mural, which included a full photogrammetric digital scan and a historic paint analysis, so that one day it could be restored. 

The museum then contracted the Staten Island firm Simply Built to remove the original ceiling and put up a new one that was finished to EverGreene’s specifications—should the museum one day raise enough money to have the mural restored. With great skill, Matthew Poritz of Simply Built was able to salvage the room’s original plaster crown molding from the 1840s.

In the late winter of 2023, representatives from the Conservancy visited the museum and inquired about the status of the Writing Room ceiling mural restoration project. The Conservancy offered to connect the museum with The Versailles-Giverny Foundation, which after a site visit from its President Barbara de Portago and Chargé d’Affaires Anthony Rhodes, generously offered to underwrite the mural restoration, to be facilitated by the Conservancy. 

EverGreene’s Design Studio prepared the design documents to recreate the original mural using the information from the original mural design, color palette, and hand-painting techniques from the conservation report completed in 2021. Salvaged fragments of the original mural also informed the hand-painting techniques so EverGreene’s artists could create prototypes to build out this large-scale recreation. EverGreene’s artists then hand-painted the design onto archival-quality canvas in their Brooklyn Studio, first completing a mock-up that was reviewed and approved by the Noble Maritime Collection.

Once the mural was completed and approved, the on-site work for the installation occurred in October 2023.  The canvas was adhered to the ceiling in sections and the seams touched up to ensure the mural is completely smooth and harmonious.

in 2023 The Versailles Foundation underwrote the mural restoration.  The project was graciously facilitated by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, and the hand-painted replica is the work of talented artists from EverGreene Architectural Arts. 

The presentation of the museum’s exhibitions is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; and by a grant from the Lily Auchincloss Foundation.