Client: Saint Joseph Church

Location: Crestline, Ohio

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Praised as a "gem of a church" by Bishop Horstmann of Cleveland when it was dedicated in 1892, Saint Joseph Church was in serious need of repair by 2008 after a series of well-intended exterior and interior makeovers made during the previous sixty years had proven detrimental to the historical structure. Daniel DeGreve was invited in 2009 to serve as the design consultant for both the exterior stucco repair work and for the interior restoration project.

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An ideal solution for repairing the exterior would have been to remove the spalling 1941 Portland cement, faux-stone stucco application from the entire brick masonry building and carry out a comprehensive replacement of the outermost layer of soft red brick with more robust brick bound by lime mortar. However, since a feat of that magnitude could not be approached by the parish capital campaign budget, the parish opted to have the cement stucco painstakingly repaired and sealed with a pigmented and breathable water-repellant coating.

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Unfortunately, the original 1890 Pennsylvania slate on the immense roof had been replaced a year earlier with inferior roofing. It was brown rather than gray, making the color palette selection for the water-repellant coating challenging. Daniel generated digital renderings with Adobe Photoshop showing different palettes of two and three colors that accentuated the Gothic architectural features of the building. The selected and finalized palette restored the exposure of the natural stone elements while highlighting the cement stucco arch voussoirs, corbel tables, wood tympana above the west doors, and the window tracery.

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