A mansion revived

The preservation specialist at Savannah College of Art and Design, who was scouting for a restoration project with his real estate agent, asked about the hulk on the hill. The agent told him about the long-running dispute between the owner, who was developing the property, and the preservation community, which feared for the city's best remaining example of Queen Anne Victorian architecture —- the home of a historically important Atlanta family, to boot.

You don't want to get involved, the agent said.

Pull over, Dickensheets replied.

Thus began the process to bring the mansion —- now a gloriously restored academic building and cultural center —- back from the dead.

CSI: Ivy Hall

Dickensheets and his crew began the 18-month, $2.8 million restoration in April 2007. Despite its travails, the house was, Dickensheets says, "a body with a lot of evidence."

With all the care of forensic detectives, they removed as many as 18 layers of paint, as well as generations of wallpaper, soot and debris, looking for clues to its original character. Standing in the entry hall, he recounts how he pulled up the curled corner of brown paper above the fireplace in the entry hall and saw a speck of gold. Hours of peeling the sticky paper from the transoms around the room finally revealed the gilded words of Charles Dickens' 1836 poem "The Ivy Green."

Occasionally, a clue was hiding in plain sight. To demonstrate, he pulls out the pocket door that divides the sitting room from the entry. Oak on one side and maple on the other, it featured a plaster relief of a bird on copper panels. "This door must have been closed for 130 years," he says. "It was in perfect condition."

Getting to know you

Gathering physical evidence was only the beginning. Dickensheets maintains that any proper restoration requires learning as much as possible about the architect and the owner. He had a leg up, having restored four Norrman buildings, including the architect's home, in Savannah. For this project, the most important SCAD had undertaken, he pulled out all the stops.

Graduate students scoured the archives of the Atlanta History Center, the University of Georgia, Savannah and even the Athenaeum —- an archive in Philadelphia, patriarch Richard Peters' hometown —- for information.

One lucky Philly find: a book on the popular Japanese decorative arts style, which grad student Wendy Musumeci recognized from a list of Norrman's possessions made at his death. Leafing through it, she found a drawing of a bird he must have copied for the pocket door.

They consulted 19th-century social columns, which described the home's interiors, along with the Peters' parties, perused letters of Edward Peters' sister and scrutinized old photos. By digitizing and enlarging a 1970 photo taken when the last Peters family member still lived in the home, they were able to see, and then replicate, such details as the antlers in the entry hall.

This old house

Once all the evidence had been gathered and digested, and the structure and systems had been updated, the team launched the restoration phase. This process was just as intense as the forensics. Contractor Jim Walker of John Wesley Hammer Construction still marvels at the lengths the team went to in matching and re-creating the original materials, finishes and ornamental details. Two examples:

> SCAD students re-created the fancy bronze doorknobs, copying examples discovered lolling in the debris.

> Walker's crew dug up dirt from the site and sieved the sand out of it to make mortar for the masonry.

When no information could be found, the restoration crew made its best guess based on the customs of the period.

This new house

Interior designer Glenn Wallace, SCAD's senior vice president for college resources, took more license with the furnishings.

"We created a period feel rather than a strict reconstruction," he says. "We mixed many styles like the Victorians did."

Artwork by SCAD faculty, students and alumni brings the house into the present. This is not Williamsburg after all, but a living building with a new use: the home of SCAD's professional writing program and a cultural center for the city. SCAD has planned a broad-ranging roster of events encompassing dance, literature, visual art, architecture, fashion and music.

Dickensheets stands in the entry hall. Now that the leaded, beveled-glass window above the stairwell landing has been restored, the space is dappled with rainbows when the morning sun shines through.

He imagines the pleasure this might have brought the Peters family, whom he feels he has come to know, and smiles.

"You can read about history," he says, "but this is a piece of the past you can feel, touch and stand in."

Upcoming lectures

> "Witches' Brew: Ingredients for a Classic Gothic Tale." Oct. 26 at 3 p.m.

> "Indian Cinema: Redefining Modernity and Womanhood in the 1960s and 1970s." Nov. 9 at 3 p.m.

Both events at Ivy Hall, 179 Ponce de Leon Ave. For a complete calendar of events, go to artofrestoration.org.