The Athens Theatre
DeLand, Florida
1997
In May of 1997, Professional Restoration, Inc. was appointed to supply the artisans and the craftsmen to carry out the restoration of the external facades of this historic building.
The Task at Hand
The initial inspections of the Athens facades soon confirmed the formidable task ahead. In the fifties, when the whole concept of the theatre was changed, a remodeling program included the demolition of extensive areas of stone and brickwork. Substantial areas of those bricks that were left were totally encased with stucco, plaster, cement, tiles and the like and the photo's in this sections simply highlight the destructive nature of these events.
Brickwork
The Restoration of the Brickwork at the Theatre represented our greatest challenge. The bricks themselves had a strong, deep herringbone pattern and much of the cementitious products that had been plastered on top of them was extremely hard and impervious to the traditional chemical softeners that are often used to clean brick surfaces.
Eventually, our technicians developed a program of operations which included small electric tools, a lot of modified hand tools and a great deal of devotion and attention to detail, finally winning out on the day.
Towards the conclusion of this section of work our final challenge was to match up the subtle color changes of mortar required to blend with brickwork as the whole facade underwent a complete tuckpoint.
Stonework
The major challenges during the stonework restoration were the removal of the demolished stones whilst maintaining the structural integrity of the building and producing various color co-ordinations matching the old and new together.
Extensive repairs were carried out to many stones left in place and long hours were spent by the craftsmen mixing various repair compounds and adding and subtracting dies and coloring materials to get a particular color balance in a particular area.
Last but no means least, many of the stones weighed up to 700 lbs. and handling and placement sometimes required some real entrepreneurial skills.