Brooks Estate Master Plan - Appendix Medford-Brooks Estate Land Trust 1 September 2011

Brooks Estate Master Plan - Appendix

 1998 M-BELT Conservation and Preservation Restriction  1998 M-BELT Manager's Agreement  Shepherd Brooks Manor - 1880 Peabody & Stearns Drawings  Carriage House - 1900 Peabody & Stearns Alterations Drawings  Hamlet - 1900 Peabody & Stearns Drawings  Shepherd Brooks Manor - Highlights  Shepherd Brooks Manor - Timeline  A Tour of the Shepherd Brooks Manor  Shepherd Brooks Manor - Existing Conditions 2010  Historic Photographs of Estate (1880-1900)  Contemporary Photographs of Estate (1994-2010)

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Brooks Estate Master Plan - Appendix

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Brooks Estate Master Plan - Appendix Medford-Brooks Estate Land Trust 1 September 2011

Shepherd Brooks Manor - Highlights

Architecture  Built in 1880  Designed by Peabody & Stearns, architects  Queen Anne Style  Cost: $39,361  Exterior Materials: red brick, brownstone trim, rusticated granite foundation, wood cornice and red slate roof with copper gutters and flashing  Interior: each major room has a unique fireplace and is finished in a different wood species  Twenty rooms on 3 floors and a full basement

Brooks Family  Thomas Brooks acquired 400 Acres in West Medford in 1660.  The Brooks Family was one of the most distinguished and prominent families in Medford for almost 300 years.  Governor John Brooks (1752-1825), served as Governor 1816-23 after fighting in the Revolution.  Peter Chardon Brooks I – Massachusetts’ first millionaire (1767-1849); made his fortune in marine insurance in Boston.  Charles Francis Adams (son of President John Adams) married Abigail Brooks at the Brooks Estate.  Shepherd and Peter Chardon Brooks developed their Victorian Estates (1859-1933).  Shepherd Brooks married Clara Gardner, niece of Isabella Stewart Gardner.  Brooks Family generosity in Medford includes giving land for the original Brooks School, much of the land along the Mystic Lakes, the park along Grove Street and for H.H. Richardson- designed Grace Episcopal Church on High Street.

Manor Use  Designed as a summer home for the Brooks Family; the Brooks Family stayed at the Manor from Memorial Day to Thanksgiving before returning to Boston for the winter.  The Estate was a self-sufficient working farm with horses, pigs, hens, all that was necessary to be self-sufficient in terms of food for the Estate.  Seven full-time female servants worked in the Manor and lived on the third floor and part of the second floor. These young women had unique responsibilities in the Manor: cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, dining room, laundry, and Mrs. Brooks' personal servant.  A half-dozen young men worked the farm seasonally with a full-time grounds caretaker and two chauffeurs. The young boys were often Irish immigrants fresh off the boats in Boston.  The Manor was built on Acorn Hill, an undeveloped part of the Brooks' family ancestral land, which they had owned for more than 200 years when the Manor was built.  The Manor was a companion piece to the Peter Chardon Brooks Estate mansion, Point of Rocks, which was an Italianate stone mansion built in 1859 and destroyed in 1946.

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Brooks Estate Master Plan - Appendix Medford-Brooks Estate Land Trust 1 September 2011

Shepherd Brooks Manor - Timeline

 1880 – Shepherd Brooks Manor is constructed.  1883 – 1889 – Brooks Pond is constructed from a marshy area south of the Manor.  1881 – 1939 - The Brooks Family use the Estate as their summer home.  1900 – Additional second floor room is added over porte-cochere; new storage rooms are added on first floor north end of the Manor; modifications are made to the Carriage House.  1900 – The “Hamlet”, a large wood framed bungalow, is constructed east of the Manor for Shepherd’s son Gorham and his college friends; later it was used as a caretaker’s residence.  1922 – Shepherd Brooks dies.  1939 – Clara Gardner Brooks dies.  1941 – Brooks children sell Winchester Woods portion of Brooks Estates to Town of Winchester.  1942 – Brooks children sell remains of Peter Chardon and Shepherd Brooks Estate to City of Medford, eighty-two acres of land including the Peter Chardon Brooks “Point of Rocks” Mansion and the Shepherd Brooks Manor.  1942-1946 – The Peter Chardon Brooks Mansion is abandoned and vandalized for parts.  1946 – Peter Chardon Brooks Mansion is destroyed by the City of Medford.  1946 – 1954 - Ten World War II Veterans’ families move into the Manor as part of two-hundred family Brooks Village development on the Estate; The Manor is saved only because it is easily converted to one-room apartments. None of the temporary housing is extant; it was all removed and later developed as cemetery lots.  1956 – 1977 - Manor is used as a city nursing home.  1980 – 1985 - Manor is used as a group home for physically challenged adults (Dorothy Hegner Center).  1991 – 1998 – Various caretakers live at the Manor.  1997 – Brooks Estate and Shepherd Brooks Manor receive permanent protection with the passage of the Conservation and Preservation Restriction.  1998 – Brooks Estate Rededication on May 5 includes Shepherd Brooks II, grandson of the Manor’s builder and namesake.  1998 – M-BELT Board holds its first meeting on November 4.  1999 – present – M-BELT-selected caretakers occupy the Manor.  1999 – 2002 - Two-phase Manor roof restoration is completed with funds from the State of Massachusetts PPF Grant Program, federal CDBG money and M-BELT funds.  2000 – 2001 - A Landscape and Vegetation Plan for the entire Brooks Estate is developed and approved by the Trustees of Reservations.  2000-2001 – A Master Plan for the Historic Core around the Shepherd Brooks Manor is completed.  2001 – Public tours of the Shepherd Brooks Manor begin.  2003 – Manor window restoration is completed – 70 windows with interior storms and functioning wood shutters.  2004 – New oil tanks are installed in Manor basement.  2005 – Chimney with 1880 date is restored to original height.  2007 – New ADA accessible toilet is built in storage room off first floor caretaker’s kitchen.  2009 – New boiler is completed in Manor basement.  2010 – Two-story west porch is restored.

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A Tour of the Shepherd Brooks Manor

The First Floor Rooms

The Main Hall – Butternut wood panels

The 10 foot wide wood-paneled main entrance hall runs the length of the house from the porte- cochere to the west porch. The hall was an appropriately scaled greeting space for visitors and family alike and provided access to the four major public rooms on the ground floor – the Parlor, the Library, the Dining Room and the Office. A beautifully carved butternut wood stair and balustrade dominates the hall, which has butternut wood wainscoting. The wood floors, like much of the Manor floors, are oak.

The Parlor – Pine wood trim

The parlor was the primary public room of the Manor. It was the room where the Brooks family greeted and entertained guests, and the adjacent outdoor verandah and south lawn allowed the space to literally spill outdoors and down to Brooks Pond, which was visible from the verandah. The projecting corner bay allowed family members to see approaching carriages coming up the hill drive. Like all of the major rooms in the Manor, the Parlor was equipped with a large fireplace, which Mrs. Brooks kept lit throughout their stay. Note that the mantel and trim designs of each fireplace are unique to each room. One of the interesting design features of the Shepherd Brooks Manor is that a different wood species was used in the different main rooms. The Parlor wood trim moldings are all pine, although this is the only major room that is completely painted.

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The Library – Ash wood trim

The Library is the only interior space in the Shepherd Brooks Manor depicted in a period photograph, from 1881, the first summer that the house was occupied. The attached photo gives a sense of the Victorian finishes and furniture that were typically found throughout the Manor – the rich patterned fabric, the throw mats and carpets on the floor, and the ornate gaslight fixtures hung from the ceiling medallions. The built-in glass-enclosed bookcases and drawers are in excellent condition. During the years 1946-1954, ten families of World War II veterans lived in the Shepherd Brooks Manor as part of the Brooks Village development. Each major room was converted into a single-room rental apartment. Note the apartment number on the door and the bathroom that was added in the corner of the room, as well as the hooks in the glass cabinets: they were used as closets. The books on the shelves are all from the 1930’s and 1940’s, leftovers from the Medford Public Library, probably from the Brooks Village era.

The Dining Room – Cherry wood trim

After the Parlor, the Dining Room was the most public space in the Manor. It once looked out across the rolling wooded hills towards the Peter Chardon Brooks Estate at Point of Rocks. The exquisitely carved cherry wood sideboard is the most elaborate and best-preserved artifact in the Manor. Note the nine-panel wood doors and the original door hardware. It is remarkable that a 130- year old house has so much of its original woodwork in a relatively undamaged, unpainted state. Also note the second door that leads to the main hall – it is a very tall door that opens to a very low ceiling. Why? It is because the landing of the stair prevented a taller ceiling and the symmetry of

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the Dining Room prevented a shorter door. The result is a compromise – a tall door that is “pocketed” in front of a lower ceiling. This kind of quirky detail is quite common in older homes.

There were a total of seven young female servants that worked in the Manor and lived on the third floor and part of the second floor. These young women had unique responsibilities in the Manor: cooking, cleaning, dining room service, laundry, servants for the children and Mrs. Brooks' personal servant. One of the servants named Elizabeth McDermott was the Dining Room servant. From Elizabeth’s two sons, who still live on Brooks Street in Medford, we know that her responsibilities were to serve dinner to the family and maintain and clean the Brooks family silverware collection and Brown Derby china, one of the most expensive of its day. The Brooks family resided at the Shepherd Brooks Manor from May through October, returning to Boston for the winter. During their stay, on Sundays the two Brooks families would alternate dinner at each house, one week at the Peter Chardon Brooks Estate (Point of Rocks) and the next week at the Shepherd Brooks Manor (Acorn Hill).

The Office – Ash wood trim

Shepherd Brooks’ office is the smallest public room on the ground floor. Strategically placed close to the main entrance door, the office was where Shepherd Brooks conducted his business affairs while vacationing at his summer home in Medford. There is a closet and dressing room (now a small toilet) that also accessed the back hall of the Manor. This allowed Shepherd to make his way to the office without being seen by visitors in the main hall or Parlor.

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One of Peter and Shepherd’s many business pursuits involved the redevelopment of Chicago after the 1871 fire that destroyed much of the city. Over a period of several decades, Peter and Shepherd developed many ground-breaking buildings in Chicago, including the Montauk Block, considered to be the first skyscraper ever, and a number of other prominent buildings including the Rookery Building, the Monadnock Building, the Marquette Building and the Brooks Building. Although Peter was much more involved in the building process than Shepherd, and although neither brother ever visited their Chicago commissions, it is likely that at least some of the planning and execution of Chicago’s rebirth was done in Shepherd Brooks’ office in his summer home on the Brooks Estate.

The Rest of the First Floor

Most of the remainder of the first floor is comprised of the service wing of the Manor and includes the main kitchen, china closet, pantry, storage rooms and service stairs. This part of the Manor would have never been seen by most of the family and none of the guests; this is where the other servants completed their tasks doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry and other chores that supported the Brooks family. The service areas of the Manor were cleanly separated from the rest of the Manor as shown on the attached diagram, where a distinct line separates the public zone from the service zone.

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The Second Floor

The second floor is organized in a similar fashion to the first floor. Four bedrooms are grouped around the main hall with matching bedrooms for Shepherd and Clara Gardner over the Library and Parlor, respectively, with a common bathroom in between. On the other side of the hall are a pair of large bedrooms for the Brooks’ three children, Helen, Rachel and Gorham. Each of the four bedrooms had a large fireplace similar in scale to the first floor fireplaces, although with less detail than the exquisitely carved mantels and wood trim of the first floor. This somewhat reduced level of wood trim and detail is true throughout the second floor. For example, the doors on the first floor are large nine-panel doors, where the second floor has four-panel doors. The hardware is slightly simplified on the second floor as well. The remainder of the second floor is comprised of the “servant wing” with a pair of small bedrooms for servants who likely functioned as nannies for the children, and a back stair to the third and first floors.

It appears that the bedroom added over the porte-cochere was to give Clara Brooks a servant in close proximity to her bedroom, with a dressing room in between. This dressing room was converted to a kitchen for the Veterans' housing in 1946.

The Third Floor

The third floor was entirely devoted to the female servants quarters. The five bedrooms all have sloped ceilings from the impressive Manor roof, and built-in drawers at the eaves and dormer windows. Although the chimneys pass through the floor, there are no fireplaces on the third floor. Two of the bedrooms were combined to create a kitchen for the Veterans' housing era. The main hall stairway was extended to the third floor in 1946 to give a second means of egress to the Manor for the families on the third floor, at approximately the same time that the fire escape was installed on the Manor south elevation.

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The Manor Exterior

The Shepherd Brooks Manor exterior is a beautiful example of Queen Anne style of architecture, one of the many period styles of the Victorian era. Queen Anne is an eclectic style that combines elements of classical architecture with a rich mix of exterior materials, a steeply pitched roof, and tall detailed chimneys. The primary exterior material is red brick with brownstone sills and trim, a red-slate roof punctuated by numerous dormers, copper gutters and downspouts and a rusticated granite foundation partially made from reused block from the then-defunct Middlesex Canal, which once ran through the Brooks Estate The building was capped with a rich wooden balustrade. The wood trim, detailed cornice and all other exterior woodwork were originally painted a deep green color. The Shepherd Brooks Manor was designed in 1880 by noted Boston architects Peabody & Stearns, who also designed the matching Carriage House and Hamlet building.

The Shepherd Brooks Manor was integrally designed with the surrounding landscape, especially Brooks Pond, which was constructed in the decade following the completion of the Manor. The Manor’s east elevation with the porte-cochere is the “front” of the Manor, but each side of the building presents an important response to its surroundings. For example, the diagonal corner projecting bay in the Parlor overlooks the main road, where approaching carriages could be seen approaching the Manor. The south elevation is dominated by the curved verandah, which spills out from the Parlor to the lawn which had a direct view of Brooks Pond. Above the verandah were the bedrooms of Shepherd and Clara Brooks, again with a view of the ponds. Working around to the back of the Manor we encounter the west porch, with a stair from the Manor main hall on the first floor and a barrel vault-roofed porch above. The west porch would have been glimpsed from one of the main road vistas and would have also had a view towards the Peter Chardon Brooks Point of Rocks building. The west side of the building is where the granite foundation can be seen in all its glory. So although the front Manor front was on the east, both the south and west elevations presented a different and significant face to its surroundings.

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The high level of integration between the buildings and the landscape and the fact that much of the Estate’s original land remains undeveloped to this day makes the Shepherd Brooks Manor and Carriage House a rare and outstanding example of a gentleman’s Victorian estate. It is the combination of high architectural design with a sophisticated land integrated landscape design that makes the Brooks Estate so unusual. Medford had many estates during the eighteenth and nineteenth century – the Royall House, the Lawrence Estates, the Stearns Estate – but it is only the Brooks Estate that continues to have much of its original land intact to the present day. With the passage of a Conservation and Preservation Restriction in 1997, this important legacy will be saved in perpetuity for the people of Medford.

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Shepherd Brooks Manor – Existing Conditions 2010

Exterior

Roofing, Flashing, Gutters, and Drainage. The entire red-slate and copper roofscape of the Manor was restored in two phases from 1999-2002 with matching red slate used to replace broken or missing slate. In addition, all-new copper gutters, trim and downspouts were built and all five brick chimneys were either restored or rebuilt. The chimney on the caretaker/north side of the Manor with the 1880 date carved into it was extended to its original height in 2005, after being decapitated several decades earlier. The total cost of the exterior restorations to the Manor is approximately $800,000 and was paid for largely with Community Block Development Grant monies, grants the Massachusetts Preservation Projects Funds, with additional in-kind and M- BELT funds. There is one roof area remaining that needs to be restored: the second floor copper roof of the porte-cochere. This roof was built in 1900 when the servant bedroom was added over the porte-cochere.

Exterior Wood Trim. All of the Manor wood trim, with the exception of the restored wood windows and the west porch – needs to be restored to its original condition and proper historic color. This includes wood cornices, shingles, verandah trim, wood dormers, and building entrances. Great progress was made in 2009 when a significant percentage of the exterior wood trim on the Manor was painted green. However, much more painting still remains and there is quite a lot of wood restoration work that needs to be completed across the exterior of the Manor. At the very top, the wood balustrade that capped the highest point of the Manor roof needs to be built from scratch and installed on the copper-covered wood posts that were left to receive them when the copper roof was restored in 1999-2002. It should be noted that the historic color research has been completed during the window restoration project through paint testing and analysis. The bold green color selected will be used for the remaining wood trim restoration and painting across the Manor exterior.

Masonry and Terracotta. The exterior elevations are constructed of hard red brick and trimmed with carved brownstone. The random ashlar granite foundation is exposed on the north and west elevations. Although, in general, the masonry is in remarkably good condition, there are areas of significant mortar loss. All five of the existing chimneys have been restored or rebuilt using matching brick and the proper mortar color and this standard should be continued for the remainder of the exterior masonry restoration, which needs near 100% repointing. The existing brownstone trim at the windows, doors and water-table are also in need of cleaning and restoration. The decorative terracotta panels along the south-facing verandah are in good condition and need only cleaning.

Door and Windows. The exterior doors and seventy windows were all restored in 2003 at a cost of $130,000. Prior to the restoration, all of the doors and windows were in fair to poor condition with missing paint, loose putty and in many cases, broken glass. More than half of the windows were boarded up with plywood due to a spate of vandalism when the building was unoccupied due to a failed plumbing system. Also, every window was covered with inappropriate dark aluminum storm windows. The 2003 window restoration removed the inappropriate storms, replacing them with

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magnetic “invisible” interior storm windows, allowing the historic character of the original 1880 windows to be restored. Also, the original working wood shutters were recreated using photographic evidence. These working wood shutters once again provide protection and security to the Manor. A final note: due to inappropriate changes over the years when the Manor was used as an apartment building and nursing home, three separate windows were removed and cut to become egress doors to metal stairs or fire escapes. The 2003 exterior window restoration restored these openings as windows, including matching the existing window details, trim and brownstone.

Interior

Ceilings and Walls. The ceilings and walls are painted plaster and appear to be in good to fair condition. An area of the Library ceiling close to the south-facing triple windows has had its plaster collapse and needs to be restored The second floor room over the porte-cochere is peeling badly, as is the second floor bedroom over the Library. Water damage from the previously leaking roof in several third floor rooms needs to be repaired.

The walls are generally in good condition. The exterior walls are comprised of three wythes of brick with lathe and plaster applied tightly to the interior brick face for a total exterior wall thickness of about 17”. No evidence of wallpaper is visible anywhere in the Manor. One extant historic photo of the Manor Library from 1881 shows the original “look” of the Manor interior – painted plaster walls and ceilings. A detailed paint analysis of the Manor interior walls, similar to the one done to the exterior, needs to be completed prior to any thorough detailed interior restoration. The majority of the stained and varnished wood trim doors, fireplace surrounds, decorative wood trim and wood cabinets are intact and in very good and unpainted condition, a remarkable state considering the sixty years of public use since World War II as an apartment building, nursing home and group home. The exception is the main first floor Parlor, which is painted white pine. It needs to be determined whether the Parlor was originally painted or, like the rest of the Manor rooms, left in a natural stained finish. The cherry sideboard at the Dining Room is the showpiece of the Manor, with richly carved cabinet doors and drawers and twisted posts with ionic capitals reminiscent of Bernini's baldachin in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A theme of the building design is that each of the major rooms is finished in a different wood species – pine in the Parlor, ash in the Library and Office, cherry in the Dining Room, Butternut at the main staircase and front hall. The condition of this woodwork is generally very good and only minor restoration is needed in these rooms.

Floors. Most of the original wood floors are still visible and only slightly worn. The Parlor and Library floors had vinyl composite tile for several decades before being removed in approximately 2000. Likewise, the Dining Room was carpeted for many years before it was removed. The Office wood floor experienced damage during a major plumbing line burst in winter 1998 from an adjacent bathroom, and will require eventual restoration/replacement. All of the first floor rooms mentioned above had their floor refinished in the spring of 2009. On the second and third floors, the wood floors are generally in good condition; several of the second floor caretaker apartment rooms are carpeted and their floors will need to be restored once the carpeting is removed.

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Doors. The original wood doors are in place and in good condition, including original hardware in many cases. In general, the doors and hardware are more detailed on the first floor compared to the second floor. For example, the first floor doors are generally eight feet tall, nine-paneled with ribbed door handles; the corresponding doors on the second floor are seven feet, six inches tall, four-panel doors with less detailed door hardware.

A modern demising partition and fire doors have been inserted at the mid-point of the main hall at the first and second floor as part of the fire protection system when the Manor was used as an apartment building or nursing home. These walls and doors are not in keeping with the quality of the historic finishes and should be removed.

Fireplaces. There are five separate chimneys in the Manor, four of which serve the major first floor spaces – Parlor, Library, Dining Room and Office – and the corresponding bedroom on the second floor above. The fifth fireplace served the main first floor kitchen and was not used at the second floor above the kitchen, which was used for servant bedrooms adjacent to the children’s bedrooms. The third floor was entirely devoted to bedrooms for the rest of the seven female servants who did the cooking, laundry, and managed the Parlor and Dining room for the Brooks family. All of the fireplaces in the Manor have unique wood surrounds and decorative hearths. Like the different character of the individual woods in each of the first floor rooms, each of the fireplace surrounds is unique in its detailing; the first floor fireplaces are more intricate and detailed than the second floor fireplaces. The fireplace surround at the second floor southeast bedroom (Mrs. Brooks’ bedroom) was removed prior to 1998 and will need to be recreated using Mr. Brooks’ bedroom as a guide. All of the existing fireplaces have been bricked in and are not intended to be reopened.

Egress and Fire Protection

Stairs. The two original staircases are intact. The stair in the main hall originally extended only from the first floor to the second floor. Probably during the time the building was used as an apartment building or nursing home, the main stair was extended from the second to the third floor with a simplified staircase and wood railings inconsistent with the highly detailed woodwork of the original main stair. This seriously compromises the intent of the original main stair because the inserted stair blocks part of the large west-facing window at the second floor landing. Removing this inappropriate stair and rebuilding the extension to the third floor in a nearby closet will restore the original design intent of the space while still providing a required second means of egress to the third floor.

The stair adjacent to the kitchen/servant entrance extends from the basement to the third floor and is located in an open passageway. The stair is currently open between the first and second floors but is closed off from both the basement and third floors with doors. The door separating the second and third floors occurs at mid-stair and does not comply with current building codes. A new door/wall separation will have to be constructed at the third floor landing to properly separate the floors. The Massachusetts State Building Code does not allow the open connection between three floors without a smoke removal system, which is undesirable to coordinate with the historic Manor exterior.

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An exterior fire escape was added to the south elevation in the post-World War II years to provide additional egress to the second and third floors when the Manor was occupied by as many as 10 families as part of the Brooks Village veteran housing. It was determined that the current and future proposed uses of the Manor did not require the use of the existing fire escape and it was subsequently removed from the Manor and the doors restored as windows. Fire escapes are no longer a legal means of egress and the one at the Shepherd Brooks Manor was in very poor condition and deemed unsafe.

Fire Safety. The Manor building is fully sprinklered with an exposed dry-pipe system. The system is very old and appears to show signs of leaking and corrosion in several areas. In 2006, the sprinkler system underwent major maintenance and appears to be in good working order. The exposed sprinkler system is clearly a visual negative in the historic spaces, but it appears that it would be extremely difficult to rebuild it in a more concealed manner given the lack of physical spaces, shafts or soffits. It is highly unlikely that the Medford Fire Department will allow the removal of a sprinkler system once installed. A compromise might to keep the system intact but find a way to conceal the piping within the ceiling only in the five first floor historic rooms.

Accessibility. Providing clear, legal access to the Shepherd Brooks Manor has been a priority since the inception of M-BELT and every project undertaken at the Manor has been compliant with the Federal Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the rules and regulations of the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board (MAAB). The original architectural drawings of the Shepherd Brooks Manor indicate the location of an elevator, but there is no evidence of this lift system anywhere in the Manor. The spaces indicated for the elevator are currently used as storage rooms or toilets. The design and construction of a compliant elevator/limited use lift from the first floor to the second floor will be a major design and construction challenge, but should be a top priority now that an elevated level of public use in the Manor is anticipated. There appear to be stackable closets on the first and second floors off the main hall that should be good candidates to receive a lift. Once completed, this lift will make the entire second floor accessible to the general public.

The first floor is only slightly above the exterior grade at the enclosed entry on the north side of the Manor and M-BELT undertook a landscaping project in 1999 to replace the single step with an accessible sloped brick surface. This volunteer project was completed by Steve Tuden of the landscape design/build Brickworks, a long-time local businessman, Medford resident and friend of the Estate. This project made the entire first floor of the Manor accessible, allowing the building to be used for public tours and open houses on a regular basis. Another example of improved access to the Manor was the construction of a new accessible public toilet in a first floor storage room, which also featured a baby-changing station and an energy-efficient “green” design. Finally, when the two-story west porch was rebuilt in 2009-2010, both floors were raised approximately one inch and a 1:20 sloped surface was created on the interior to provide legal access to the exterior porches.

Structure. A visual inspection by a structural engineer was made in August 1994 as part of the Child Associates Land Use Master Plan Report. No original framing drawings were available, but the framing appears to be 2x12's spaced about 12 inches apart and spanning a maximum of 17

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feet, assuming midwestern white pine or southern pine, both of which were widely used in the last decades of the 19th century. As joists, these members can carry a live load greater than 100 pounds per square foot, the minimum required by the Massachusetts State Building Code for assembly use. Masonry walls appear to be sound and plumb. Rising damp damage exists in the basement for about two to three feet up from the floor, mostly in the form of flaking paint and slight, localized texturing of the brick surface.

Mechanical. The Manor building is currently heated with a two-pipe radiator system using a recently installed hot water boiler. The system has two zones at present and the zones were reinforced with the 2009 boiler project by altering basement piping to make the zones more consistent vertically through the building. There are no plans to radically alter the existing heating system of the Manor. There are numerous radiators that are either broken or unconnected to the system that should be repaired as the Manor interior restoration moves forward.

The heating system utilizes oil, which is delivered by truck several times each winter. In 2005, two new 275-gallon oil tanks were built in the basement and a new fill pipe added to the rear of the Manor. This effectively replaced the buried underground oil tank that was the fuel storage for the Manor for many decades, and which had been experiencing problems. There are no existing records of the oil tank size, construction or current condition. Given the size of the building that it served, it is estimated that the buried tank has between a 3,000 to 5,000 gallon capacity. M-BELT is currently preparing documents for the legal removal and disposal of the buried underground tank. The City of Medford is aware that the buried oil tank is a potential major cost to correct.

Plumbing. When the Shepherd Brooks Manor was converted to an apartment building in 1946 for returning World War II veterans, numerous closets throughout the building were converted to bathrooms to serve the ten families living in the Manor. In addition, a corner of the Library was boxed out for a new bathroom at this time. This bathroom is a non-historic intrusion into a significant public room and should be removed entirely. There are a total of nine bathrooms spread throughout the Manor, with only two operational as of 2010: the second floor caretaker bathroom located off the main hall, constructed in 1998, and the accessible toilet on the first floor, constructed in 2007. All of the remaining non-functioning bathrooms have been closed off and sealed, the piping drained, to prevent further damage. As noted in the Manor chapter, two additional toilets should be constructed as part of the continued Manor restoration: the bride/groom toilet on the second floor that would support wedding functions; and a new toilet serving the caretaker apartment on the third floor.

Electrical. The Manor is currently powered with 200 amps of power. The 1995 Child Report recommended replacing the existing electrical and fire alarm systems. The report called for the extension of new 600 amp, 1120/208V, 3 phase, 4W power service. The main electrical power panel is currently inappropriately located in the first floor front hall and should be relocated to the basement in a new cabinet, with breakers and distribution panels in the basement and one 100 amp, 120V/208V, 3phase, 4W panel board per floor with a minimum of (30) 20 amp, 1 phase circuit breakers. As part of the accessible toilet project completed in 2007, the Manor main electrical panels were replaced with larger panels with more capacity to accommodate the present and future power needs of the Manor.

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Utilities. The Shepherd Brooks is the only operational building located within the 50-acre Brooks Estate. The Carriage House does not have any electrical power or water service. All utilities serving the Manor arrive via the Access Drive to Grove Street, about 1/3 of a mile away. The telephone, electrical and internet service arrive via overhead wires on poles stretching along the Access Drive. It is M-BELT’s intention to improve all the utility services to the Manor and Carriage House and bury these utilities below grade adjacent to a rebuilt Access Drive. All services will have to be upgraded to accommodate the planned future uses of the Manor and Carriage House and should provide future capacity as well.

Security. A two-zone motion-detector security system currently serves the security needs of the Manor.

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