THE BOW TIED MAN

THE BOW TIED MAN

Monday, April 5, 2010

SCHENCK HOUSE


The Jan Martense Schenck House represents the oldest architecture in the Museum’s period room collection. It is also the most complex of the period rooms in terms of reconstruction and interpretation. The house is a simple two-room structure with a central chimney. Its framework is composed of a dozen heavy so-called H-bents, visible on the interior of the house, that resemble goal posts with diagonal braces. This is an ancient northern European method of construction that contrasts with the boxlike house frames that evolved in England. The house had a high-pitched roof that created a large loft for storage. The roof was covered with shingles, and the exterior walls were clad with horizontal wood clapboard siding. A section of the clapboard has been removed at one corner to expose a reconstruction of the brick nogging used as insulation. The interior walls were stuccoed between the upright supports of the H-bents.






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