One hundred and thirty years of harbor weather had been collected by this roof — and by 2025, it was collecting it indoors. The original Monson slate, quarried in Maine when the house was new, had outlived its fasteners: the slates were sound, but the iron nails beneath them had rusted to powder.
The challenge
The Historic District Commission required the streetscape to remain visually unchanged. The owners wanted no plastic substitutes. And 40-mph gusts off the water meant scaffolding, staging, and slate-handling had to be planned like a small naval operation.
The approach
- Salvage first. Every slate was lifted, sounded by hand, and graded — 40% went back on the roof they’d guarded since 1894.
- Match the rest. Replacement stone came from a Vermont quarry whose gray-black bed runs nearest to original Monson; we blended old and new across slopes so no plane reads “patched.”
- Copper, rebuilt from photographs. The ornate ridge cresting was missing since a 1978 storm. A period photo from the historical society let our copper shop fabricate it anew.
- Stainless from here on. Every slate rehung on stainless hooks and nails — this roof will not fail by fastener again.
“The commission approved it in one sitting. They said it looked like 1894 — which was the whole assignment.”
The result
Watertight before the first nor’easter of the season, approved unanimously by the commission, and warrantied for fifty years. The owners got a letter from a neighbor thanking them. So did we.
