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Home Energy Magazine Online November/December 1998
History in a New Light: The House of the Seven Gables
Lighting Retrofit
by Sandy Cataldo
Nathaniel Hawthorne probably didn't have
a full-house lighting retrofit in mind when he wrote this about the House
of the Seven Gables in 1851:
"the many lattices, with their small, diamond-shaped panes,
admitted the sunlight into hall and chamber, while, nevertheless, the second
story, projecting far over the base, and itself retiring beneath the third,
threw a shadowy and thoughtful gloom into the lower rooms."
But now, almost 150 years later, the Gables has been carefully brightened
up.
How many historic preservationists
does it take to change a light bulb? Well, a few might consider it, but
most won't change a thing. Preservation is the key word here. So
when the caretakers of the famed House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts,
considered retrofitting the building's lighting fixtures for added efficiency
and visibility, they hesitated. The existing lighting fixtures and standard
incandescent bulbs just didn't do enough to accent the aging timbers, the
collections of pewter and porcelain, and the artifacts of maritime and
social history. At the same time, the caretakers weren't sure if modern
lighting equipment could be blended into the decor of the home without
harming its authentic colonial character and detracting from the history
it was illuminating. With the help of some experts, though, they found
a way to make it work.
Perched on a rise overlooking Salem harbor, this
dark wooden house with its multipeaked roof has been a working museum for
88 years, showcasing one of America's most important examples of early
colonial architecture. Together with five other early structures on the
grounds, the Gables houses an impressive collection of artifacts and art
spanning three centuries. The house was nearly 200 years old when Nathaniel
Hawthorne drew inspiration from it and the history of witchcraft hysteria
in Salem for his brooding novel, The House of the Seven Gables.
Today, the House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association maintains the
house and uses proceeds from the touring public to support charitable work
on behalf of children and their families in the community.
The Gables' caretakers decided that, before the
house was to celebrate its 330th birthday this year, it needed a new look.
Nearly every lighting fixture and lamp--52 of them in all--would be replaced
with modern technology. Twenty-two more would be added.
Dim Beacons to the Past
Close to 200,000 visitors tour the Gables every
year, but they don't come to see the latest technology in efficient lighting.
Instead, the highlights of the guided tours are the artifacts on display
throughout the Gables, as well as the architectural elements reflecting
the two centuries during which the house was built and expanded. Early
colonial life is discussed as visitors are taken through narrow corridors,
past 200-year-old portraits and hand-turned furniture, through mazes of
connected rooms and sleeping chambers, into the "keeping room" (the kitchen),
and up the secret staircase.
Lighting experts at Osram Sylvania, one of the
retrofit's sponsors, recognized a multitude of problems with the house's
lighting scheme. "Portraits were hung with no directed light. China cabinets
and curios were desperate for attention," said Osram's Susan Reminger.
The existing fixtures and glaring bulbs also were obviously out of place
in rooms full of antiquity.
Improving the aesthetic of the museum was the
primary concern, but the lighting retrofit had some great side benefits.
By using lighting more effectively and efficiently, energy costs at the
Gables were trimmed. It took approximately 4,275 kW to light the house
before the retrofit. This figure dropped to 4,131 kW after the retrofit,
for a total savings of about 145 kW (see Table 1 for
a partial listing).
Finally, it was important to cut down the amount
of heat generated in this non-air-conditioned structure.
Design Challenges
According to Cari Palmer, director of marketing
and development for the Gables, the "Illumination of the Gables" was completed
with the help of lighting designer D. Schweppe, of Schweppe Lighting Design
Incorporated, and electrician Bruce Whear and his crew from Wire-4-Hire,
who are well versed in historic architecture. In all, the crew installed
more than 74 fixtures and lamps, running over 200 ft of wire. First, preservationists
inspected the house to determine what work could be done without harming
any original building material. They indicated where wire could be inserted,
how fixtures could be installed, and what should be left alone.
Working within these parameters to bring the
museum's lighting into the 20th century posed a challenge to D. Schweppe.
His first objective was to preserve the look of the house by reducing the
size of the fixtures and hiding them whenever possible. Lighting levels
were to remain the same--a low 5 foot-candles in each room (adequate light
to see well enough to walk around comfortably)--in keeping with preservation
requirements. However, artifacts and architectural details needed more
direct light to bring them into view.
The preservation committee decreed that no additional
holes were to be made in walls, ceilings, or floors, unless they were hidden
inside closet spaces. That meant making use of existing wiring and using
remote transformers to step down the voltage when necessary. Still, Schweppe
wanted to replace all of the hundred or so dated fixtures and glaring incandescent
bulbs that spoiled the look and did nothing to highlight the museum's many
artifacts.
The obvious choice for efficient lamps in so
many museums today--compact fluorescents--was not appropriate for the House
of the Seven Gables. Most of the lighting levels available with CFLs today
would have been too bright for the Gables. And to focus the lowest level
of compact fluorescent light for the variety of spot lighting tasks needed
throughout the house would have required fixtures much larger than the
existing ones, defeating the goal of hiding or at least reducing most sources
of electric light. Low ambient levels were needed to achieve a particular
look and feel in the space; the goal of the retrofit was not to add more
ambient illumination, but rather to use small pools of accent lighting
to call attention to particular items of interest. For this application,
low-voltage halogens proved better suited than most CFLs. Ambient lighting
was provided, where needed, by halogen floodlights.
With very few exceptions, occupancy sensors,
timers, and other modern controls were out of the question. Most of these
devices require their own hard wiring, breaking the "no new holes, no new
wiring" edict. Also, light schemes that are preprogrammed, automated, or
timed--and so cannot be controlled by the tour interpreter--are not tour-friendly.
High-Tech Solutions
Schweppe found a number of new lamps and fixtures
to work with that met the criteria. He used low-voltage quartz halogen
task lighting for most of the small-space spot lighting needs. A combination
of halogen PAR20 or PAR30 lamps with low-voltage halogen lamps in track
lighting to illuminate many of the larger areas.
In many of the rooms, track lighting was already
in place in the form of 20-year-old fixtures using standard 100W to 150W
A-lamps--standard incandescent bulbs. The new design made use of the holes
and some hardware already installed on the ancient timber ceiling beams
but called for new tracks that were significantly smaller in scale and
supported smaller PAR20 and PAR30 quartz halogen lamps at 50 to 75 watts.
All the decorative fixtures were relamped with
clear, long-life, lower-wattage incandescents to increase their light output
while cutting back on consumption. Because other spot lighting was added
in many rooms, less lighting was required for the decorative fixtures.
This lowered the overall wattage used.
Illumination in the Attic
In the attic, where visitors used to squint to
see displays of the actual post-and-beam architecture under the glare of
exposed R-40 (reflector) lamps, crews installed new tracks by concealing
the wiring and hardware behind the beams and focusing the PAR30 spotlights
directly on the beams and other artifacts instead of into the tourists'
eyes.
In areas to be lighted where no 120-volt wiring
existed, but smaller wire could easily be concealed by running it atop
beams and along baseboards, Schweppe resorted to low-voltage track lighting
with MR16 lamps. Low-voltage lamps in the form of 5W quartz strip lighting
were used extensively in display cabinets throughout the house. According
to
Schweppe, most of the cabinets are wide open and pose no problem for heat
buildup, a concern when using halogen lamps (even at that low wattage).
The enclosed parlor display cabinet, which houses
an impressive collection of 17th- and 18th-century porcelain, was an exception.
To prevent heat buildup here, Schweppe specified a fluorescent T2 lamp
with a small sleeve to protect the artifacts from UV radiation. This lamp
requires less frequent replacement than other lamps, minimizing the need
to go inside the cabinet and risk breaking the fragile items.
For the inside of the cabinetry, Schweppe considered
fiber optics--simple strands of fiber fitted into the crevices to emit
light. However, this setup would have required running the fiber quite
a distance from its power source, and unlike power cable, fiber cannot
be bent very much without damaging it. Given all the ways that wires were
snaked and twisted throughout the house, fiber-optic cable was not an option.
A Glow in the Fireplace
Perhaps the most impressive change took place
in the house's many fireplaces. Crews installed 5W quartz strip lighting
inside or up underneath the lintel of each fireplace to bring out its architectural
detail. The transformers to step down the standard voltage to low voltage
were hidden in the basement, well out of sight, and the wiring was hidden
in the mortar joints and any cracks that the crews could find. The three
fireplaces in the house that have cast-iron firebacks had previously been
unlit. They now reveal beautiful detail, thanks to fixtures from Task Lighting
and Sylvania's Starline halogen display lamps.
Prior to the retrofit, the kitchen had been lit
only by three 75W incandescent bulbs in jelly-jar fixtures, shining down
onto the fireplace and the corner cabinet. The cabinet was retrofitted
with task lights (strip lights) along the inside edge of the molding to
bring out its artifacts. The kitchen fireplace, a huge walk-in affair showcasing
colonial ironware and utensils, was retrofitted with a new track of 50W
PAR20 halogen lamps tucked up out of the line of sight and directing light
onto the 17th-century tools hanging inside.
A number of decorative fixtures remain in the
Cent Shop, sewing room, and bedrooms, but all of the standard 100W incandescent
bulbs have been changed to lower-wattage, long-life clear bulbs which,
Schweppe says, allow modest energy savings without appreciable light loss.
In the front hall, the preservation committee opted to use only the decorative
wall fixtures with the new clear bulbs to avoid having to install any additional
wiring, and the "rooting and ravaging" inside the ancient plaster that
would be required for track or any other lighting.
Shedding Light on Dark Secrets
The home's most famous attribute--the secret
staircase--was treated to an upgrade as well. The staircase was not secret
at the time the book was written; it was walled in just prior to the Civil
War, when, it is thought, the occupants participated in the Underground
Railroad, the covert effort to hide slaves fleeing from the South.
Like the staircase and the fugitives who used
it, the upgrade had to be almost invisible. Before it was done, guests
had to feel their way up to the attic because so little light came from
the standard bulb wall fixtures at the bottom and top of the stair. After
the retrofit, the stair was illuminated by a jelly jar fixture housing
a new 75W quartz lamp that was installed under the staircase and shone
through the open treads. Schweppe says he chose the yellow tones of light
from the quartz lamp to "play up the atmosphere" of the hidden staircase,
in which the CFL color would have looked "too institutional."
A Museum of Wires
Credit for the tricky installations goes to Bruce
Whear and his crew. According to Whear, they encountered a "museum of wires"
in the house--everything from nonmetallic sheathed cable, to armored cable,
to knob-and-tube wiring. They also had to work around the schedule of a
very busy museum, completing each day's work before the house opened for
tours at 10:00 am.
Whear had to avoid marking, puncturing, or otherwise
damaging the existing antique structure. Instead, he used every existing
crack, every hidden crevice in the floorboards that would allow wire to
be concealed or snaked through with the least intrusion possible.
In the kitchen fireplace, low-voltage wiring
twisted and turned through a maze of mortar joints and snaked to a crack
between two wide pine floorboards, ending in the cellar for its final connection.
In the garret, wiring for the new track lighting supported on the gable
beams was tucked painstakingly up into the spaces above the beams where
they meet the roof. Whear admitted that his crew "had their share of splinters"
by the time the job was finished.
Blow Out the Candles
Finally, on the moonlit night of July 10, a crowd
gathered for a gala celebration of the house's 330th birthday and waited
in the dark for the "Illumination of the Gables." When the preservation
committee flipped the switch, the public and the museum benefactors got
their first glimpse of the grand old home's new look. They responded with
appreciation and amazement. The right technology, lamps, and fixtures had
preserved, enlightened, and saved energy for a venerable matriarch of historic
monuments.
Sandy Cataldo is a freelance writer and a
fan of history, writing about energy issues and other mysterious subjects
in Massachusetts.
Lamps and all expenses for the House of the
Seven Gables retrofit were provided by Osram Sylvania of Danvers, Massachusetts.
Light fixtures were donated by Lightolier of Fall River, Massachusetts
and Task Lighting of Kearney, Nebraska.
For information on the House of the Seven
Gables, contact: House of the Seven Gables, 54 Turner St., Salem, MA 01970.
Tel:(978)744-0991; Fax:(978) 741-4350; Web site: www.7gables.org.
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