Highland Park Armstrong Parkway Georgian — 1925 Restoration

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Armstrong Parkway is one of Highland Park’s defining residential addresses, planned by Cook and Kessler in 1907 as a wide, planted boulevard with deep lots on either side. The houses built on the parkway in the 1920s and 1930s tend to be the more formal of the Park Cities inventory — full Georgian, full Neoclassical, occasional Tudor or French — and they tend to remain in long-tenured ownership.

The house in this case study is a 1925 Georgian on the parkway, currently in its third family. The principal-room fireplace had been original to the build, with a hand-carved marble surround and a substantial dentil-detailed mantel. The owners had been told, on purchase, that the fireplace had not been used in roughly two decades.

The work was a sympathetic restoration — clean what was original, repair what was failing, return the system to working condition without losing the patina of a hundred years.

A carved-marble surround from 1925 has, by 2026, the kind of cumulative patina that defines a piece of architecture. Wax buildup, hairline lippage at returns, mineral deposits at the slip line, micro-staining from a century of household life. A modern restoration approach — strip and re-polish — would erase the patina and yield a marble that read as new, and therefore as wrong.

The right approach was conservation rather than restoration. Clean the surfaces with appropriate chemistry, stabilize the lippage where structural, leave the patina where it lived, and bring the surround back to a working condition of dignity rather than newness.

The mantel was a related question. The dentil work had been overpainted twice, but the carving was intact beneath. The mantel paint needed to come off without damaging the detail.

The firebox required a Level 2 inspection">Level 2 inspection, which produced a moderate scope — refractory replacement at two panels, smoke chamber parge to current code, and a stainless flue reline given the age of the clay liner.

• Marble-appropriate conservation cleaner and reversible epoxy
• Period-appropriate ivory satin paint (mantel)
• Refractory panels, refractory mortar
• 304-stainless flue liner, insulated
• Sealed direct-vent gas firebox, hand-built log set
• High-modulus crown sealant

Seven weeks from contract to commissioning. Marble conservation took two weeks; mantel stripping and refinishing took two running parallel; firebox rebuild and reline took two; commissioning was the seventh.

The fireplace is in working condition for the first time since approximately 2005. The marble retains its patina and reads correctly to the period of the house. The mantel is in its original color. The Level 2 documentation produced at project close has been added to the household records and provided to the owners’ insurer.

The third family of this Armstrong Parkway estate has now used the fireplace through one full winter season. The next sale of the house will credit the work.

For other Highland Park and Park Cities work, see the Highland Park Tudor restoration, the University Park Georgian fireplace rebuild, or the Volk Estates traditional mantel redesign.

Return to the main portfolio index or read the Highland Park area page.

To discuss a comparable restoration, reach the design team at 214-444-8094.

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