Shared from the 10/4/2017 The Hour eEdition

NATHAN HALE MEMORIAL

Picking up the pieces

Fountain restoration gets boost from scion of late architect

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Alex von Kleydorff / Hearst Connecticut Media

Lisa Wilson Grant stands Monday in the courtyard area at Fodor Farm in Norwalk where the Nathan Hale memorial fountain will be placed, once her efforts to restore the Stanford White-designed fountain are realized.

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Alex von Kleydorff / Hearst Connecticut Media

Detail of the top of the Nathan Hale memorial fountain, which will be placed in the courtyard at Fodor Farm in Norwalk once the restoration is complete.

NORWALK — Manhattan is studded with his landmarks. The Washington Square Arch, Metropolitan Club and Bowery Savings Bank were all designed by Stanford White.

He was a partner in McKim, Mead & White, the preeminent Beaux-Arts architectural firm that helped define the Gilded Age. The firm’s work strove to impart a sense of history and grandeur to its surroundings; in 1931, the New York Times wrote that White, “more than anyone else, furnished out of his own abounding conviction and enthusiasm the dynamics of the American Renaissance.”

White became a household name, partly because his personal life was as storied as his professional one — his notorious murder by his mistress’s millionaire husband in the second Madison Square Garden (which he also designed) was memorialized in several works of art, including Richard Fleischer’s film “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” and E.L. Doctorow’s novel “Ragtime.”

The name still carries such cachet that White’s grandson, Samuel G. White, receives emails every month or two from people believing they live in a Stanford White home. An architect himself and the author of three books relating to his grandfather’s firm, he is always open to hearing descriptions and reviewing photographs of possible White buildings. But by and large, he said, those emails stem more from hope than reality.

“The most famous are already known, and many are no longer extant,” Samuel G. White said of his father’s works.

So in June, when White received a call and a 107-page document from Lisa Wilson Grant about a Stanford White fountain in Norwalk, he listened with increasing attention. Familiar motifs leaped out — a lion’s head; an acanthus leaf, which Stanford White loved so much his partners used it to grace his tombstone. What’s more, the records lined up.

“I could see that that was in fact a work of the firm. They had recorded the commission,” White said. “It’s always exciting to come across the work of one of America’s greatest designers.”

Grant had been working on restoring the fountain for over four years in conjunction with Recreation and Parks. The fountain is a memorial to Nathan Hale, who sailed from Norwalk to Long Island to spy on the British during the American Revolution. He was caught, and his famous (alleged) proclamation is preserved on the fountain in bronze: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

However, when Grant first came across the fountain, the lettering was bent and missing in places; gaping holes were left where a trough for horses and two small bowls for dogs to drink from had been removed.

To Grant, the disassembled monument resembled nothing more than a tombstone. “I was like, what the heck is that?” she said.

She began researching the fountain, and learned a missing piece was nearby in Ambler Farm. In fall 2013, her husband’s landscaping company moved the two-tone granite trough to Fodor Farm, reuniting it with its vertical shaft.

Amid the resulting media coverage, donors pledged to back restoration efforts. But after the publicity faded, so did the promised financial support. Eventually, Grant said, the effort “kind of lost steam.”

But for Grant — who coincidentally shares Nathan Hale’s birthday — the restoration was hard to escape. Since she began resurrecting his memorial fountain, she has run into a Nathan Hale re-enactor at Darien Library; a book about Nathan Hale was accidentally mailed to her home. “Just when things are waning, I find myself talking to someone who’s interested,” she laughed. And the encounters have spurred her to continue her work. “I have to say where I’m going next with it.”

While working on a separate project, Grant met Wes Haynes, a project director at the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. He was the one who recommended reaching out to Samuel G. White.

After learning of the Norwalk fountain designed by his grandfather, White asked how he could help.

“I need your help with everything,” Grant said.

Reflecting on the conversation months later, Grant laughed. “I’m not sure I can help her with everything, but I know what I can help her with,” he said.

He started by inquiring about details so that they could finalize architectural drawings. The fountain originally used groundwater, which flowed from the spout into the trough and dog bowls, then out into the street. To conserve water, it will have to be reconfigured to circulate non-potable water from the bowls back to the spout, and missing pieces will have to be recast.

Grant has estimated costs will approach $40,000, and she started an online campaign at www.gofundme.com/nathanhalefountain-norwalkct. So far, she has raised 8 percent of that goal. But White says once architectural drawings are finalized, Grant will receive a firm estimate of the costs, which she can use to boost fundraising efforts.

“It’s an iterative process, and I’m just helping on one step of the way,” White said.

He was happy to see the Nathan Hale Memorial Fountain returning to its original state. White saw the stately beauty of his grandfather’s designs as a contribution to the civic landscape, and thanked Grant for shouldering the yearslong task of bringing the fountain back to working condition.

“I think she should be acknowledged as someone who has taken quite a bit of trouble to restore this fountain,” he said of Grant. “Because it’s these things that make the world a more attractive place.” rschuetz@hearstmediact.com; @raschuetz

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