Anyone driving by Historic New England’s Castle Tucker recently has probably wondered what is going on here. We are still open for visitors, and to borrow a line from the British during the Blitz, we are more open than usual!

This year, visitors are able to see historic preservation work in progress and learn about how it is being done.

For the first time in decades or even a century, the original brickwork of the building is visible under the scaffolding that has been in place for several weeks now as Historic New England undertakes several major historic preservation projects at the site. This year’s work will cost the heritage nonprofit organization approximately $500,000 which has to be raised through donations and grants.

Castle Tucker’s current problems were caused by over a century of varying levels of maintenance and care. First among the projects scheduled for 2014 is the complete restoration and repair of the brickwork on the north bow end, the rounded bay facing Lee Street. When Judge Silas Lee had the house built, he used the best and most expensive materials available circa 1807. Among those was a very heavily leaded paint which he used to cover the entire house.

Subsequent owners painted the house with oil paint and later latex paint. These layers of paint ended up creating a barrier, not allowing moisture to escape from the bricks. As the outer layer of the three-layer brick wall began to fail, more water penetrated into the layers and could not get out. This caused ice to form and melt between the bricks, hastening their disintegration and causing water damage to interior walls and wallpaper.

Further exacerbating the situation was the fact that when the massive central chimney system began to fail in the early 1850s, then-owner Franklin Clark dismantled the central chimney and replaced it with two chimneys, one at the outside end of each rounded bay. This created more places where water could enter the building and resulted in the house never being properly heated.

Last winter, Historic New England’s Property Care team worked with David Leeman, owner of Knox Masonry in Bucksport, and Amy Cole Ives, president of Sutherland Conservation and Consulting in Augusta, on an extensive evaluation of the building. This included a detailed historic masonry, mortar and paint analysis. The analysis resulted in our being able to pinpoint the paint and mortar used during each period of the house. Property Care researched and tested materials available today to develop a plan in accordance with Historic New England’s preservation philosophy and best practices.

At Castle Tucker, each brick was numbered before it was removed with the goal of returning each brick to its original location after repairs are made. If bricks are too damaged to be used, we replace them “in kind," matching extant or removed material in type or species, style, dimension, texture, and detailing.  Any new material installed is labeled with the date of installation and documented through photographs and project completion reports.

No one knows who Judge Lee’s inspirations were in designing Castle Tucker, but the work has already revealed new and puzzling details of construction. We discovered an 1807 drop ceiling in the Billiard Room which required us to re-examine how we were going to support the room’s ceiling during construction.

Then we determined that the window sills were elaborately carved out of one piece of wood and the building was built around them. This required significant changes in the plan for sill restoration.

The most recent discovery was that when Franklin Clark had the chimneys installed, the work was done cheaply by cutting through the inner two layers of brick and inserting the new chimney, but never actually connecting the chimney to the wall.

Over time, the outer layer of brick has been pulling away from the chimney creating more gaps for water to penetrate. If Knox Masonry had proceeded with the work as planned, it would have left the interior walls open to the elements and the windows and roof without the structural support they needed to stay in place. The team quickly brought in a structural engineer and supports were designed to hold everything safely together so work could progress.

We expect there will be more surprises as the work continues in this unusual, fascinating and ever-puzzling house, but all can rest easy that once work is completed, Castle Tucker will be safe and sound and more watertight than it has been in a century.

The next work scheduled is a roof repair project over the north bow end and repair of the enormous two story-high windows in the second floor piazza. We’ll let you know how those projects develop as work continues!

For more information and a full calendar of summer programs, visit www.historicnewengland.org.