A remodel for the ages

HENRY HUNTINGTON was one of the richest men of his time, a visionary tycoon who made millions lacing Los Angeles with railroad tracks.

Freddie Summerville grew up on the wrong side of those tracks, in Compton.

The arcs of their lives might never have touched but for the house: Huntington’s old mansion, some 60,000 square feet of marble and fine hardwood, originally containing 15 bedrooms (most for servants), 10 bathrooms and 13 ornate fireplaces, set amid the spectacular gardens of his estate in San Marino.

Summerville knew nothing of Huntington or his estate or his art until he started working here, assisting in a $20-million renovation that began in January. But it has since changed his view of the world -- and of what is possible in it. He wishes every young person could be so inspired. “I’m saying ‘wow’ to this, and ‘wow’ to that, and I’m older,” says Summerville, 48, who still lives in Compton -- in a home that would fit neatly inside the Huntington’s main portrait gallery.

When completed in 1911, this mansion was hailed as the finest home in Southern California, rivaling the palaces of the Astors, the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts. After Huntington’s death in 1927, it served as a museum for Huntington’s vast art collection, including the paintings “Pinkie” and “The Blue Boy.”

Today, construction aims to make the building seismically safer and more effective as a museum. Walls are being opened up and reinforced with rebar and concrete. Stairs and doorways are being moved. New lighting, thermostats and sophisticated smoke-detection equipment are going in. Places where visitors were never allowed before are being transformed into exhibit space.

Once the project is completed -- in late spring or summer of 2008 -- the mansion will offer significantly more gallery space, project officials say. At the same time -- and this is the tricky part -- the mansion’s main floor will retain the look and character of the original home. Visitors will likely see Huntington’s study just as it was, right down to the paper-strewn desk. Cordoned-off areas of the main library are to feature original French rugs and furniture, as well as the massive Beauvais tapestries that famously cost Huntington more than the mansion itself -- $577,000 at the time, by one calculation, compared with $479,377 to build and decorate the house.

SUMMERVILLE often commutes to his job on the Metro Rail -- the successor to Huntington’s pioneering Pacific Red Car line -- when he doesn’t drive his old Ford. As he shovels plaster debris, pushes a wheelbarrow, spools out electrical cord, he marvels at what Huntington constructed: a home with soaring ceilings and camouflaged doors, buzzer systems for the servants and receptacles that fed a hidden network of suction pipes so that hoses could be plugged right into the walls to do the vacuuming.

Huntington had a circular shower that sprayed him from all sides. (The fixtures are still intact.) He even had a railroad spur in the basement, where he brought in shipments of books and art through a service tunnel. A section of track remains, partially paved over.

“There’s something new every day,” Summerville says of the discoveries being made as workers bore into the walls and ceilings like so many archeologists. He laughs. “I’ve never been in a house like this. It’s a mind thing; it makes you wonder, ‘How did they do this?’ ”

John Murdoch is the man most responsible for finding out how -- and for making sure the integrity of the former home is preserved. Murdoch became head of the Huntington’s Art Division after being recruited from the prestigious Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Educated at Oxford and the University of London, he talks in patrician tones about rooms “communicating” with one another, and “managing vistas,” and the “irony of this major American heritage project being consigned to a foreigner.”

Some members of the project have devoted their lives to studying art; others rarely, if ever, set foot in a museum. Yet nearly all seem genuinely amazed at the scale and opulence of the mansion.

Sculpted cornices adorn the enormous L-shaped room that once was Huntington’s personal library. On a table formed of plywood and sawhorses lie a set of original blueprints to help the workers find wiring conduits. Next to the blueprints are some original push-button light switches and wall plates. Electrician Humberto Carrillo shows off a switch imprinted with a 1900 date. The accompanying plate is dated 1902.

When the renovations are done, the vintage switches will go back in the walls, but they will no longer work. Lighting will be controlled from a single, concealed location.

Electrician Wynton Davis, 43, who lives in an apartment in Gardena, is an amateur photographer with a keen appreciation for the mansion and its aesthetics. He has taken pictures of the interior to show his wife when he gets home at night.

“For me to be part of history, I go home bragging about it all the time,” Davis says. “It just blows my mind.”

SHELLEY M. BENNETT, the Huntington’s curator of British and European art, is the daughter of John E. Bennett, a Pearl Harbor survivor. Her idea of fun is going through the archives of Huntington and his wife, Arabella, to study their lives and the history of the mansion.

The mansion was the centerpiece of a love story, and a fabled marriage of fortunes, Bennett says. Henry built the home to woo Arabella and bring her west. She was one of the world’s wealthiest women, the widow of railroad magnate Collis Huntington -- Henry’s uncle, and the same man who made Henry a millionaire. They ended up keeping the money in the family.

Arabella did not see the mansion or marry Henry until after the home was finished, but emerging research by Bennett and other scholars suggests that she was instrumental in its design and look. Arabella saw herself as part of the Paris and New York aristocracy. Not only was she an avid art collector who inspired Henry’s later acquisitions, but over the years she owned no fewer than 11 magnificent mansions, including three in Paris, Bennett says.

Architect Myron Hunt designed the new California house in a Beaux Arts style popular among the era’s elite. Beaux Arts had spread from Paris to New York in the 1800s; Carnegie Hall, Grand Central Station and the homes of prominent industrialists were built to incorporate its fusion of classical Greek and Roman elements. One notable surviving example is the Marble House that rival railroad baron William K. Vanderbilt created in Newport, R.I.

“Arabella Huntington was influenced by the Vanderbilts,” Bennett says, noting that the Huntington will present an exhibition featuring Arabella from May 6 through June 25. “This house was designed entirely in a New York context. All of the designs were discussed and approved at Arabella’s house on 5th Avenue and 57th Street.”

COLOR is one important issue of the renovation. The mansion stands shrouded in scaffolding, sheets of clear plastic and yellow caution tape as dozens of masked men use chemicals and power washers to strip lead paint from the exterior.

“The thing with this job, it looks like it was painted about 10 times,” says worker Arcadio Vasquez, 52. “The paint is thick and tough.”

In planning for historical verity, Huntington officials must try to determine the mansion’s original colors, inside and out. Paint samples have been taken throughout the first floor and in selected areas of the second, says Bert England, the lead architect for the renovation’s main contractor, Earl Corp. A woman from Architectural Resources Group, a subcontractor specializing in historic buildings, flew with the samples to the company’s offices in San Francisco to analyze them with a microscope and a spectrometer, England says.

“The design team will analyze her findings, and we will make a decision in terms of which colors we think are appropriate,” he says.

White was probably the dominant color. The warm-shaded blanc du roi (“the king’s white”) was a staple of mid-18th century Parisian interiors, according to Bennett. But there is evidence of other shades, including greenish grays, bluish grays and even light mustard, and it isn’t always easy to distinguish the primer from the paint.

On the exterior, the issue becomes thornier because the white that Huntington apparently painted it runs counter to architect Hunt’s polychrome design, which relied on the pale, mint-green color of the unpainted cement walls, columns and balustrades. The mansion was painted time and again over the years, burying the original look under deepening layers of concealment.

“I love the Myron Hunt vision: absolutely gorgeous mahogany window frames and doors, blending into this mint-green stucco with this texture to it,” England says. “It catches the light. Our design team is struggling with this.”

The mansion’s peculiar construction makes other tasks difficult, England says. Workers drilling through ceilings, hoping to open passages to the second floor, often hit crossbeams or columns because there’s no predictable grid.

“The columns don’t line up from floor to floor,” England says.

Flues and fireplaces -- which are no longer used -- are being looked at as routes through which to run ducts and wires and to conceal climate-control monitors.

A stairwell once off limits to the public, and the space adjoining it, are being opened up to house a towering stained glass by William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. Boxy rooms on the second floor are being reshaped into corridors. The goal is to allow visitors to flow through more easily.

Significant changes have been made to the mansion in decades past, most notably in the early 1930s, when the old servants quarters were replaced by the main portrait gallery. Arabella once had a rooftop garden on the east wing, but its entry was completely sealed by a solid brick wall. New French doors will breach that wall and reopen the garden, though safety codes will prevent visitors from entering that area. The ceiling of the main gallery is also being substantially altered to filter out more of the damaging sun from a massive skylight. Light cans, artificial light that can be precisely controlled to bring paintings to their full glory, are being installed. “If you go to the Frick collection in New York, they’re struggling with exactly the same problem -- the glare from the skylights,” Murdoch says. He keeps scale models of the galleries, including miniature paintings and sculptures, outside his office. He admits he lies awake thinking about the project.

“There is a strategy, and what you might call, somewhat pretentiously, a vision,” he says, adding that “to be invited to come across half the world” is “an astonishing privilege.”

STANDING outside the mansion, with men high above him working on the balustrades of the south-facing facade, paint stripper Robert Rodriguez, 26, reflects on the difficulty of the task. The chemicals used to remove the lead paint are so toxic that workers have to be certified to handle them. The crews are often 40 feet off the ground or higher, struggling to make sure they don’t damage the old cast-iron cornices.

“You have to be real careful,” he says.

He thinks about the people who lived here. The Huntingtons, who were in their 60s when they moved in, rarely used the mansion for socializing. But Henry, especially, took tremendous interest in the grounds and the building. He was there almost every day during the original construction, according to biographer James Thorpe.

Thorpe quotes contractor Charles E. Richards, who says Huntington “made a daily practice of going to the work about 10 o’clock in the morning and usually staying, without lunch, until the men quit. He knew most of the workmen by name ... and most of the men formed a decided attachment to him.”

Summerville, the laborer from Compton, suspects that Huntington continues to watch over the work on his beloved house. A few weeks ago, Summerville was working near Huntington’s master bathroom and saw a portly figure staring from the seldom-used stairway to the attic. Summerville didn’t stay long enough to form a mental picture.

“That’s all I wanted to see -- I was gone,” he says with a laugh. “It was either my imagination or a ghost. And I don’t drink or smoke, so I think it was a ghost.”

David Ferrell can be reached at home@latimes.com.

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Restore, yes, but be faithful

If you’re planning to remodel or restore an old home, you might have to address any number of issues: How can you determine the original color? Is the old wiring safe? Should you tear out walls, add on or just leave it alone? There are places to find help, such as private architects, Pasadena Heritage and the Los Angeles Conservancy. Some primary considerations:

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General approach: Go modern with seismic safety features and electrical systems but take pains to preserve the look of original rooms and color schemes, suggests Los Angeles architect Martin Eli Weil, who specializes in restorations and owns a period home himself -- a Craftsman built in 1905.

Floor plan: If you want a more open layout, you don’t have to tear out walls, Weil says. You can better connect a foyer and a living room by enlarging the door to a graceful archway. Keep in mind that replacing old galvanized pipes (go with copper) should be done before most other projects if the repiping means knocking holes in walls.

Historical style: It’s permissible to remodel a distinctive older home, but you should carefully evaluate its defining features and protect those, says architect John Ash, whose offices are based in the historic Bradbury Building in downtown L.A. When adding a room: “You want an addition that is compatible with the original architectural style ... but not a copy.” Standards for historic preservation by the U.S. secretary of the Interior warn against creating “a false sense of history” by mirroring what’s already there, Ash says.

Wall color: Forget beige and white. Go with the richer palettes of yesteryear, and determine original colors either by microscopic analysis (Weil’s method) or by careful work with razors or sandpaper to get beneath decades of paint layers. “What one looks for is the first coat of paint that has dirt over it, because that means it’s the finish coat” and not the primer, Weil says. Remember, rooms often were wallpapered.

Windows: Like most designers, Ash has a pet peeve: poorly designed vinyl windows. “A vinyl window totally changes the character of a house,” he says. Homeowners choose them because they offer double panes at a low cost. If possible, Ash says, invest in double-paned wood frames that will last longer and better suit a home’s original style.

-- David Ferrell