The next year, he moved from Leiden to Amsterdam and made his first serious self-portrait, wearing finery worthy of a wealthy merchant and leaning suavely on a stone sill, like a Renaissance courtier.
More importantly he knows the geology beneath his feet, and knows which stones – "malmstone, greensand, sandstone, chalk" – are soft enough to hold the impression of passing feet, for "like creases in the hand, or the wear on a stone sill of a doorstep or stair", holloways "are the result of repeated human actions.
In letters to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the groups said the houses dated to around 1840 and retained original cornices, molded stone sills, windows and ironwork, among other features.
"There's the issue of vibration and how that may shake an adjacent building and loosen cornices or stone sills or even the foundation," he said.
The exterior of the observatory building has a brick cornice, with stone sills and lintels, stone water course, ornamental gutters, and original copper downspouts.
On the first floor there are nine tall, narrow windows with wide frames, stone sills and deep arches of rubbed brick.
Elaborate brickwork, especially around windows that have cast-stone sills and jambs, will add texture to the facade, Mr. Kully said.
Replacing external stone window sills is one of the most common stonemasonry jobs for old homes, says Peskett – but there is also an aesthetic side to the job, as homeowners doing a restoration job often approach stonemasons to restore intricate stone carvings, usually found above doorways.
A racy gallery of Herb Ritts prints apart, the house and its two guest rooms, called Sancerre and Champagne, are decorated in a refined, classically elegant style, with the bathrooms – Sancerre's is all pale yellow wooden panelling, slate floor and rough stone window sills – providing a contemporary edge.
Contractors are scheduled to begin removing the building's crown molding, limestone window sills, stone lintels and bricks on Monday.
IT is at the edges of a house that damage often creeps in — the rotted sills, the cracked stone steps, the crumbled bricks of the chimney.
