Historic Pelham Blog Archive
September 19, 2005

350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION BOOK:  "THOMAS PELL AND THE LEGEND OF THE PELL TREATY OAK" -- $11.95 (PROCEEDS AFTER PRINTING COSTS WILL GO TO BARTOW-PELL MANSION MUSEUM).  CLICK HERE TO BROWSE BEFORE YOU BUY! LEARN MORE.

In April 1993, workers were laboring in the lovely home known as Pelhamdale, then owned by Robert and Janis McMullen. Portions of the home are believed to have been built before the Revolutionary War. The home is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The workers had begun to refinish the walls of the entrance foyer. When they began, they reportedly thought the walls of the space were merely painted blue. As they began to remove paint, they realized that there were layers of wallpaper beneath. As they began stripping away wallpaper, according to one report, "the faint etchings of a treetop emerged from nowhere". The work crew, it turned out, had stumbled onto a long-lost and lovingly created pastoral mural. Below is a detail from the mural.

The mural depicts what appears to be a pastoral scene from colonial America. It is in the so-called primitive style andis quite lovely. In the foreground are balusters. There also are what seem to be wild roses growing and entertwining themselves among those balusters giving the feeling that the viewer is standing on a balcony or along a lovely promenade looking over an idyllic scene. There are fishermen spreading their neights, a child and a woman playing near goats and women washing clothes in a beautiful pond.

Removing decades worth of paint and wallpaper caused slight damage to portions of the mural, but the homeowners commissioned a local Pelham artist named Rebecca Conviser to restore the mural. She and her assistant, Alex Rutschbrock (then a New Rochelle High School art teacher), spent weeks restoring the mural at the home. For those lucky enough to visit the home today, the mural is among the first things they see when entering the home. It make for a dramatic entrance and is strikingly lovely. Another detail from the mural appears below.

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posted by Blake A. Bell @ 5:32 AM Comment

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