St. James Church in Newark NJ. is one of the largest restorations of a single window we have undertaken.  This window is housed in a 1890's Parish hall by Carrera and Hastings., a very important firm of the period. The Gothic Rose Window which is approximately 16 ft wide by 32 ft. tall, encompasses two entire floors of the hall.  The window is composed of over 180 jeweled and leaded panels of various shapes and sizes. There were thousands of individual hand cut pieces that had to be extensively handled and cleaned prior to the releading process.  >>>

The studio was also involved in  the extensive repair of the wood frame. This massive piece of carpentry was constructed to resemble the stone tracery openings of the great European rose windows. It had been protected in the 1970's with a layer of Plexiglas. Unfortunately the installation contained no ventilation for the window, so any moisture that ended up between the stained glass and the so called "protective glazing" could never escape, This lead to the destruction of  about 40 % of the giant wood frame. Our  subcontractors handled the replacement of bad wood, epoxy consolidation and reconstruction of the entire exterior face of the frame with wood that matched the specifications of the original old growth material..
On some of the areas where writing was too deteriorated to read anymore, we created a second layer of glass which contained the missing information. This process, called plating, gives us the means to make the window more visually original without changing or discarding the original glass pieces. When viewed this technique revitalizes the window back to its original splender without loosing original fabric, and consequently, value.
Please contact our studio for estimates on restoration projects in your area.