05/28/2026
May is Preservation Month, so it is the perfect opportunity to highlight a recent conservation project in the Great House.
This elegant wallpaper is part of the original design scheme for a suite of guest rooms known as the Hogarth Suite. Today, that suite serves as the Castle Hill Gift Shop, but the paper remains where there was once a bathroom.
We believe that the wallpaper dates to the era in which the Crane house was completed, 1927-1928. Although its pattern echoes the motifs of the antique Chinese export wallpaper in the former Ladies Cloak Room, this wallpaper is probably English or French, and it was likely a commercially available, block-printed paper. The design also has a certain Art Deco quality that speaks to a more modern era.
The paper is printed in two greens (now faded to an aqua color) on a liquid mica, silver-colored ground. Liquid mica was first used in wallpaper printing beginning in the 1880s and was used as a background, or to create reflective highlights in a design. It continued to be used in wallpaper production into the 1950s. Such reflective paper is often associated with the style employed by famed interior designer Frances Elkins, sister to Great House architect David Adler and his frequent collaborator.
The condition of the paper was fragile in our non-climate-controlled environment. The radiator heat creates a hot, dry climate in the winter, resulting in brittleness, delamination and loss. The humid summers can cause delaminated (or separated) areas to buckle and tear. In March, our paper conservators from Studio TKM stabilized the paper using wheat starch paste to set down and consolidate the separated areas and reattach loose and torn pieces. For large areas of loss, they used heavyweight wove paper toned with matte acrylic paint to blend with the background paper color. Their skilled technique, combining science and art, has once again allowed us to
save an important original feature of this National Landmark using best practices in historic preservation, which is at the heart of our mission.
