Restoration of Homewood Museum portico nearly complete

Last year, a substantial restoration project began on the iconic south portico of historic Homewood Museum, located next to the Milton S. Eisenhower Library on the Homewood campus. The building is a landmark Federal-period home whose grounds became the Johns Hopkins University campus. The portico is a prominent element of the building's architecture that influenced the look of many other campus buildings, notably Gilman Hall and, more recently, Mason Hall.

Frederick N. Rasmussen writes about the 19th-century building, its history, and the delicate work of restoring the weathered and worn portico in The Baltimore Sun.

North Charles Street motorists, bikers and walkers will notice that the scaffolding that has masked the elegant south portico of historic Homewood Museum since late last fall has been removed, revealing a dazzling and historically accurate restoration.

And on a sun-splashed September afternoon on the Johns Hopkins University campus, Catherine Rogers Arthur, Homewood's director and curator, couldn't wait to show off the nearly completed work to a visitor.

"We were able to save as much of the True Cross as possible," she said. "It was a most exacting and exciting project."

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