Bringing the Brackets Back at Vertullo

When Historic Boston acquired the Vertullo Building and envisioned the improvements that would make it stand out in the neighborhood, we knew that the place needed some gussying up.  Clapboards would replace the worn out shingles, shutters would return to enhance the residential windows, and we?d bring back the decorative brackets that had been removed long ago.  Historic photos that we found only showed the building from a distance, so details weren?t clearly visible.   With the help of our preservation consultant Leslie Donovan of Tremont Preservation, our architect Chris Brown looked at examples of other ornamental brackets in the neighborhood and proposed this bracket profile for Vertullo: 

The next step was for our contractor, Mike Mawn, to make a couple of sample brackets to install and review, which we did this week.  The conclusion was that while the bracket profile was handsome, it looked a bit puny on the building.