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Topic: Hardscaping



Date Posted: Thursday, September 03, 2015
Posted by: Tanya Zanfa (Master Admin)
Source: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/features/home/3820739-park-point...


Park Point man leaves no stone unturned


Park Point man leaves no stone unturned

Seven-foot tall brownstone walls turn a patio into an outdoor room. Architectural stones combine with plantings for a timeless feel.

A garden pavilion. A temple. Secret places.

Bob Swanson has no ordinary backyard.

Pass through an ivy-ladened stone passageway behind his Park Point home and an idyllic lakeside garden scene unfolds, leading to dock and a pleasure boat, ready for a Lake Superior getaway.

But look closely at the entry's brownstone covered with ivy and vines and you can make out the the letters L Y C, a partial E U and M. It's from the marquee of the historic 1892 downtown Duluth theater that was demolished in 1966, its rubble dumped in the bay.

The patio's brownstone wall includes the large, elaborately carved sections with "ANNC DOMINI MCMIX," Latin for "In the year of our lord, 1909." It's from the entry of Superior's old Central High School that was razed in 2004.

Hefty brownstone blocks from University of Minnesota Duluth's Old Main, destroyed by fire in 1993, form the walls of the garden pavilion, an Old World folly meant for decoration. Its columns came from St. Clement's Catholic Church that once stood in Duluth's Lincoln Park neighborhood. A narrow pathway around it leads to a secret garden room. Across the yard, other columns and a dome from the church were refashioned into a temple, another folly feature.

For nearly 25 years, Swanson has salvaged stone from historic buildings before they were demolished. He's recovered discarded and forgotten architectural stone from dump sites. And he's dug up old stone foundations where structures once stood.

He's given those historic remnants of the area's history new purpose. At his home, the stone has helped create a garden sanctuary steeped in the area's history.

"If I didn't go dig something up, it would be lost forever," said Swanson, a retired entrepreneur who became skilled at working with architectural stone.

Reclaiming history

Sometimes, Swanson got the rights to remove stonework before the building was razed. Sometimes, he worked with the demolition contractors to get it. Sometimes, he brokered trades, disassembling sections, in exchange for some pieces. In 2008, for example, he removed the stone entrance of the old Bemidji High School for its alumni association and was allowed to remove and take some stone columns.

"It was never my intention to acquire all these stones, but once I started, I couldn't stop," he said. "I had to save it. I'm just driven."

Unlike the United States, Europe has centuries-old structures still standing, he said. "They don't destroy these buildings, we do. We're a young, immature country."

 

Swanson himself has worked to save historic buildings. He's part of a limited liability company that helped save and now owns Superior's old Carnegie Library.

 

He has salvaged stone from many now-demolished structures, including Superior's East High School and Palace Theater, Duluth's Lincoln Hotel and Park Point Elementary School, the Tower-Soudan High School, the Village Hall in Marble, Horace Mann Elementary School in Virginia and the Two Harbors High School.

The 17-foot-tall Romanesque brownstone archway that fronts Swanson's home came from Superior's Hammond Block building. The gardens' large decorative brownstone spheres came from the Ah-Gwah-Ching sanitorium in Walker, Minn.

Dennis Lamkin, longtime Duluth Preservation Alliance member, is familiar with Swanson's work.

"As a preservationist, I am saddened when a building has to come down," Lamkin said. "However, when some of the architectural elements of the building are saved and repurposed, a portion of the history lives on."

He said Swanson has done impressive work, including garden and hardscaping projects for others. They include a memorial garden at Lamkin's home, centered with a carved brownstone pillar from Longfellow Elementary School in West Duluth.

"Architectural elements salvaged from a Duluth landmark can be the unexpected surprise in your home or garden," Lamkin said. "And repurposing the item gives it new life and perpetuates the story of the building from which it came.

"The lion carvings at the Zoo and the masks at the entrance of the Duluth Playhouse are good examples of architectural elements which will live on for many generations to come."

The journey begins

For Swanson, it all started when he bought a house on the bay side of Park Point in 1986. Still in its original 1922 condition, it needed work. The backyard was flat, devoid of landscaping with an eroding shoreline that had been used as a dump.

But Swanson likes to tackle challenging projects.

He cleaned up the debris and built a retaining wall to stop erosion from waves. Next came a dock that doubles as a deck. Trees were planted to frame the yard and to create privacy. He envisioned creating a series of rock gardens. He wanted to use Kettle River sandstone, which is sand-colored and very hard.

"There just wasn't much around, so I had to settle for brownstone," he said.

Brownstone quarried in the area one century earlier had been widely used in local construction from 1885-1915. And — unfortunately — it was available.

"They kept knocking down wonderful old buildings," Swanson said.

He's done much of the work extracting the stone himself. Tools of the trade include demolition saws, electric jackhammers and stone-cutting chain saws. Excavators, grapples, winches, dollies and snorkel lifts move the heavy pieces to a truck. Once moved, pipes are used to roll stones to the desired site, then jacked up and lowered into place.

With salvaged brownstone blocks, Swanson built walls in his yard that create outdoor rooms on one side and serve as retaining walls on the other for sloped and tiered gardens. He created a stone supported berm behind his house, brimming with colorful annuals, so it could be seen from the house. To save on the fill needed to create it, Swanson built an 8-by-8-foot root cellar in it.

By 1993, his gardens were already getting attention. His was one of four gardens out of 600 entries in a national gardening competition sponsored by PBS's "Victory Garden." He won the contest with 45 percent of the votes and was awarded the Silver Trowel Trophy, a trip to England and was featured on the show.

Swanson says he's harvested several hundred tons of brownstone, totaling thousands of pieces over the years. What he doesn't use at his home, he stores in a rented location. And he's had occasional sales to defray the costs of storing it.

He figures someday he'll sell his home. But when he does, he probably won't take the historic stone with him

After all, he says, "It's the journey."



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