Cutting Cornice Costs Without Sacrificing Historic Character

When a 1927 Emery Roth building on the Upper West Side faced a crumbling cornice, the board could have spent a fortune on traditional terracotta and waited two years for installation. Instead, Oswald Bertolini and Eric Vonderhyde, partners at Bertolini Architectural Works, came up with an unconventional solution that cut both costs and timelines while satisfying Landmarks' strict requirements. This conversation reveals the collaboration between architects, manufacturers, and preservationists that made the project work, plus insider strategies for managing complex facade repairs across multiple seasons. The results transformed how historic buildings approach restoration while honoring their architectural legacy. Habitat’s Emily Myers conducts the interview.

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Transcript

Emily Myers: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about challenges facing New York co-op and condo board directors. I'm Emily Myers with Habitat Magazine and I'm joined by Oswald Bertolini and Eric Vonderhyde, partners at Bertolini Architectural Works. Great to have you both here. 

Eric Vonderhyde: Very happy to be here. 

Emily Myers: So we're gonna talk about facade and cornice repairs.

We'll discuss why this is crucial for building safety and how boards can effectively manage the process. I'm excited to kick off our conversation with a look at a co-op you are working with on the Upper West Side, 310 West End Avenue, where I think you took a very different approach to the cornice repair.

Can you paint a picture of this building and explain what the problem was? 

Eric Vonderhyde: Absolutely. So let me start by saying this is an important building. It's a brand name building by Emory Roth, built in 1927. Mr. Roth is an icon of residential buildings in New York, having built the El Dorado, the Beresford, just to mention two of the prominent ones on Central Park West.

We had an obligation to restore this building in such a way that it valued the historic nature and also to comply with all of the codes regarding safety. So in this particular case they have a large cornice that runs along West End Avenue and returns on 76th Street. And it was in disrepair.

It was actually approaching a hazardous state and needed full replacement. Typically on a building like this, we would look at restoring it with either terracotta or cast stone, which is a similar replacement, something that Landmarks accepts as a substitute for terracotta. But both of those have inherent problems: one being cost and two being weight.

In conjunction with the board, there are two architects on the board, we discussed it at length and we decided to go to Landmarks and suggest an alternative material, which is fiberglass. And fiberglass has several advantages. It's light, it doesn't fail catastrophically when it wears over time.

And it's far less expensive, which is also a big driver for condos and co-ops. 

Emily Myers: Historic cornices obviously have a lot of detail, a lot of intricacy. How was fiberglass able to replicate that? 

Eric Vonderhyde: Yeah, it's an excellent question. Before we went to landmarks, we went through a pretty long process with one of the manufacturers here in New York City called Seal.

And we had mockups done. We had. We wanted to assure ourselves that we could replicate all of the intricate detail of this cornice, and in particular, the finish. That's where things tend to fail like this. Terracotta has, it looks like a natural stone or a clay pot, and fiberglass is fiberglass. And once we were satisfied that they really could replicate the texture and the colors we were working with here, we felt a lot more comfortable presenting it to Landmarks.

Emily Myers: You said that the board were supportive of this. So what was the Landmarks Commission's reaction to this alternative material choice? 

Eric Vonderhyde: So they did their due diligence but they were very accepting of it. Once we were able to once again, demonstrate that from the street, you would be unable to differentiate the material from the original and that we were going to be able to replicate all of the fine detailing, they were I don't wanna say surprisingly, but they were very accepting and they approved it pretty quickly with the caveats that we share shop drawings and final material samples with them once they were ready. 

Emily Myers: You mentioned that there were cost benefits to this, but Oswald, perhaps you can talk about the key advantages of fiberglass over terracotta.

Oswald Bertolini: Definitely yes. There's some very interesting aspects to it. Probably the biggest advantage is the schedule. This can be manufactured within a few months, while terracotta, it takes a lot of labor and it's adjusted by hand and the colors are applied in a different process, one at a time is going through the kiln and basically it takes two seasons to get from the point that you create the cast through receiving the units at the side and you can start installing them.

In addition to that is definitely the cost, which is lower, and the fact that it's very light. This is a very strong building, but we have worked in buildings that after a hundred years, they're not as strong as they used to be. And while terra cotta is not super heavy, it's massive.

And on the other hand, when you're looking at fiberglass, it's like the finish of a boat. And so we create like a substructure made of stainless steel, which will means we'll never rust and decay, so there's a lot of air behind it, and it alleviates the loads on the building.

So all of that and the fact that it's prefabricated and it's preassembled in a shop. Then by the time they come in and they put it on the building it goes really very fast. And the colors are fantastic. The textures, it's advanced in the last, I would say 20 years. And it's so much better than the material used to be when we tried it first in the nineties.

Emily Myers: So what was the cost of the project? 

Eric Vonderhyde: So the total cost was a little over 2.8 million and about 800,000 of that was dedicated just to the cornice. I should mention it's a large building. There were lots of other facade elements that needed repair and replacement. At the lower sections, we did more traditional replacements with cast stone, and then at the lower floors, they have a Briarcliff sandstone which we had to outsource to a specific manufacturer in Canada which also had a pretty heavy cost component to it.

Emily Myers: Okay so the cornice was the only area where you were using alternative materials and in the lower floors by requirement you, you have to use the same materials. 

Eric Vonderhyde: Yeah, it's important. Oswald mentioned that it's a much lighter material. It really only works in a setting where you're hanging it, where it's an application over top of something.

Funnily enough, 'cause we have used it in other buildings, we don't tend to worry about the loads. We actually worry about it blowing off. So when they run the calculations we're running it for uplift on wind and for blowing off the building as opposed to it overloading the building structure.

Emily Myers: Gosh, interesting. So does this project then set a precedent for using fiberglass in historic restorations in elsewhere? 

Eric Vonderhyde: I'm hesitant to say it sets a precedent. I will say that under the right circumstances, it certainly should be or could be considered. We certainly would look to use it again, should the circumstances present themselves where it makes sense.

But traditional construction where you, it's built into the wall is gonna continue to be terracotta or cast stone or some other cementitious heavy material. 

Emily Myers: Okay. And did the lightweight nature of it give you any concern about this approach? What were your concerns as you presented this option to the board?

Eric Vonderhyde: We got rid of the concerns pretty early on. Like I said, we wanted to make sure we could match it in color. We wanted to make sure the textures were right. We also wanted to make sure that it could be repaired over time. That was another big aspect of this. And it turns out that the finish colors can be touched up over time.

So if you have differential wearing or it were to fade, which isn't a big concern, but if it were to fade, you could reapply the gel coat over the top and bring those colors back. As long as it isn't allowed to degrade beyond those colors and get to the fiberglass itself, we can consider this a permanent element on the building.

Emily Myers: Okay. So in terms of the longevity of the fiberglass cornice, are we talking 50 years, a hundred? 

Eric Vonderhyde: So, properly maintained? I would say 50 years for sure. I don't wanna speculate beyond that, but properly maintained, there's, there was no reason it shouldn't perform for 50 years. 

Emily Myers: Goodness. So what are then the takeaways for other boards who might be listening to this?

I

Eric Vonderhyde: think the big takeaway from my perspective, and I'll let Oswald jump in after that 'cause he may have a different one, is just to think a little bit outside of the box. We tend to be like, let's replace with terracotta. Let's go with the original materials. And there are some acceptable alternatives that can streamline the process, cut down on costs, and still give you the same finished product.

Oswald Bertolini: For me, the interesting part was that we really were able to work in a very collaborative way, starting with the board. They were very eager to explore this new material, based on the speed and the cost, but also, they thought it was right that was going to preserve. They're very proud of their building, so that was a big part of it.

But also from Landmarks. We got really good feedback and we have fantastic team. Both like Eric said the subcontractor that produced the fiberglass, but also the GC that did an excellent job and putting all the pieces together. Because when you think about it, even though it's a lot of money for a board, this is not a giant project where you can streamline the production and the sequences because there are people living in the building and you have also restrictions in terms of how much you're doing of each, like the sandstone. We did just one band about, I don't know, foot and half tall. And even though it was super expensive, it was a very limited work.

And then we had this, and then we had to do a little bit of work in different areas of the building. And there was very careful steel welding and re-engineering that Eric was a big part of it, but also the GC in order to re-support some of the balconies that are actually terracotta. We took apart those and we put 'em back.

So I think that this project was fantastic in a sense of how everybody can come together and work towards a common goal. There was faith, there was effort and there was goodwill and that was critical. We couldn't have done it just on our own. 

Emily Myers: It sounds like you took a phased approach to some of the repairs.

Are there strategies you can share in terms of managing these types of project projects that might be useful for other boards? 

Eric Vonderhyde: Every project's a little bit different. And a lot of it happens organically. We like to partner with the contractor to talk about sequence.

We create a general scope of work and then we try to think about what the sequencing would be. Anytime you're replacing terracotta or anything with a long lead time, typically you put that up front so you can remove those things. Those are in fabrication while you continue your inspections or you fabricate other things.

This one had a couple of different lead times. So we had the fiberglass, we had the cast stone, and then we had the sandstone, which was an extremely long lead time. Each one of those were tackled individually. In this particular case, it was phased in such a way that we were completely done.

All of the scaffolding came down off of the building while we were waiting for the final sandstone units, which were at the base of the building. So the building wasn't saddled with additional soft costs or rentals for the materials up above. They got their views back, which is always nice. So yeah, structuring it in such a way that each of these things click along the way and come into play as the materials arrive is probably the best advice I could give. 

Emily Myers: And what has been the timeline for the project? 

Eric Vonderhyde: So it's a little quirky. It sounds longer than it is. It was from, summer of 2021, finishing in the fall of 2024. But about a full year of that, everything was demobilized and we were waiting on those hand cut sandstone units from from Canada.

The balance of this was done over two seasons, as well said. 

Emily Myers: Great. Thank you so much, Oswald Bertolini and Eric Vonderhyde, principals at Bertolini Architectural Works. 

Oswald Bertolini: Thank you. It was great to be here. Our pleasure..