Masonry Design | 51
they did originally. Any green portions on 113’s
façade are cast iron, yellow pieces are terra
cotta, and the rest is made up of white glazed
brick.
Over the years, the limestone had built up a
significant amount of dirt, so cleaning crews
were brought in to do their best at removing all
the buildup. On buildings 111 and 113, painted
tuckpoints were removed in order to adhere to
the standards of the U.S. National Park Service.
Buildings 115 and 117, where the bourbon
distillery used to be, were temporarily
tuckpointed.
On the interior of the full buildings, solid masonry
walls had clearly stood the test of time.
Interestingly, original staircase and wall locations
were still visible in the patterns on the brick. The
design plan called for this project to be a
multi-use project, and the entire documenting and
bidding phases were completed.
THE FIRE
In July of 2015, however, all of the work came to
a standstill. A three-alarm fire burned through the
basement up, and W. Main St. wound up being
closed for eight days. Immediately, work was
done to stabilize the buildings and try to salvage
what they could. Obviously, the 18-inch solid
masonry walls were undamaged themselves,
but the wooden joists and floors were
destroyed. Because of this, the buildings
experienced a few collapses in
the floors and walls. Buildings 111, 113, and 115
experienced damage while 117 and 119, outside
of the NPS restoration project, remained
undamaged. No one was injured despite
construction crews having been there just shortly
before the blaze.
Immediately, work began to stabilize the buildings
and survey the damage. Within two weeks, all
the buildings were braced and stabilized. Angled
beams were placed in and around the structure
to ensure that there would be no further
collapses. After that, crews worked to remove
leftover debris from inside the building. All the
internals from Main St. down two floors had to
be repaired and replaced. The third floor walls
also had to be rebuilt. The masonry lasted even
though the other materials didn’t. Essentially,
developers were faced with a gutted shell of a
building and had to regroup.