Bandelier Historic Structure Report: CCC Buildings

BUILDING COMPONENTS (continued)

Walls

Walls were constructed of Bandelier rhyolite tuff, a volcanically formed rock. Contemporary documents often erroneously referred to the building rock as tufa, which is a different stone entirely. (Tufa is a travertine, a form of precipitated limestone.) Most of the tuff was quarried on the Ramon Vigil grant on land that was under the jurisdiction of the Forest Service at the time but that later became part of Bandelier National Monument (figure 23). The CCC had been hoping to leave the quarry in such condition that it could be turned into a stock tank after its work was done; it is not known whether they did so. In 1974, the park staff cleaned up the quarry and built the present amphitheater. [4] At least one other quarry was used during the early phases of construction — on the Ramon Vigil grant, land adjacent to the monument under the control of the Indian Service. The CCC did an extensive cleanup of that area and obliterated the scars in 1935. [5]

Figure 23. The CCC enrollees quarried rock from the adjacent mesa on the Ramon Vigil grant. They took the rock out of the natural layers and vertical seams. (Photo: Bandelier)

Working the stone took a great deal of time. The CCC men took the rock material in layers and vertical seams and roughly shaped the building stones (figure 24) at the quarry. [6] They did the final shaping "at the respective building site in the canyon." The project completion report for hauling and transporting the stone from the quarry estimated that they had hauled 7,280 cubic yards of stone for the buildings, walks, and walls, at a materials cost of $1,577.80, using 47,984 man-days. [7]

Figure 24. Often the tuff was soft enough that enrollees sawed the rock in chunks. The men roughly shaped the stones at the quarry, and they completed the final shaping of the building stones in the canyon. (Photo: Bandelier)

Specifications providing the details for wall construction called for stones to be between 6 and 10 inches high, and between 16 and 24 inches long, laid up with strata veins (bedding planes) in a horizontal position. Larger stones were at the bottoms and corners of walls, and they decreased in average size toward the top. The specifications called for stones to be laid true to batter on the exterior and true to plumb on the interior. Wall batter averaged 1 foot 9 inches. The top of the wall was a parapet usually extending 1 foot above the gently sloped roof. Where plans called for stone masonry to meet concrete, such as at a floor slab, the pieces were bonded with the wire reinforcing for the concrete wound into the stone joints and embedded in mortar. Stones were thoroughly wetted before being laid in mortar. [8]

Although the specifications called for the masonry to be true to batter on the exterior and true to plumb on the interior, Charles Richey wanted the buildings' lines kept fluid. He complained to William Carnes in the Branch of Plans and Design in San Francisco that the lines on the working drawings were so stiff that it was hard for the CCC men to visualize the effect they were striving for. Richey was basically the architect in charge of overseeing the developments in all the Southwestern Monuments, and he had to "depend on an occasional inspection to keep work lined up." He felt that if the drawings were done freehand, the on-site people would understand better how the desired end product should look. The San Francisco office denied his request because it introduced "a likely chance of possible error due to the fact that T-Squares and triangles are still the proper tools to use when it is necessary to make clear detail drawings." [9] Despite Richey's concern in the early stages, he was pleased with the final results. The construction foreman managed to understand the architectural intent and incorporate its subtlety into the finished product.

The specifications required three types of mortar. The first was a cement-lime-sand mortar (1:1:6 mix) used for stonework below grade, around eight viga ends, around windows, doors, and parapets, and as capping. [10] Pojuaque mud mortar was sometimes used in main wall sections in a mix of "Pojuaque soil, sand and water in proportions approved by the custodian." [11] This Pojuaque soil was a clay taken from borrow pits somewhere in the monument, or possibly on adjacent federal lands as designated by the custodian. A third type was a cement mortar with "one part cement and three parts of fine aggregates and with an addition of 10% lime to volume of cement used." All masonry was pointed flush with the face of the stone. [12]

The drawings called for an exterior finish of "pojuaque mud plaster put over stone." Landscape architect Charles Richey clarified that "we are not using outside mud plaster but simply striking the mud joints flush and going over the exterior with a wet broom." This wet broom coat over the stone was intended to give "a texture of mud and stone." Mrs. Frey pointed out that the maintenance of that mud plaster would be both expensive and annoying, and Hugh Miller, assistant superintendent for Southwestern Monuments at the time, recommended using brown stain on the porous rock to achieve the desired effect. Charles Richey replied that that was not an acceptable solution: "Mr. Richey's attitude was that it was not intended to remud the buildings annually but simply permit weather to wash down the first coat (figures 25 and 26), leaving an appearance resembling that of weathered adobe walls." [13]

Figure 25. The entrance gate to Frijoles Canyon Lodge had the exterior wall treatment that the designers hoped to achieve. Landscape architect Charles Richey noted: "We are not using outside mud plaster but simply striking the mud joints flush and going over the exterior with a wet broom." He did not intend to remud the buildings annually but "simply permit weather to wash down the first coat, leaving an appearance resembling that of weathered adobe walls." (Photo: Bandelier)

Figure 26. In this photograph the plaster on the employee dormitory (B-16) had begun to weather. (Photo: Bandelier)

Some misunderstanding about and complications with the mud plaster continued. The portals had been finished with the mud plaster. Partial exposure to weather had made their appearance somewhat messy and made some of the built-in bancos less useful than they could have been.

In 1941, the maintenance crew removed the mud plaster from the portals and replaced it with a "cement mortar." That year the crew also knocked the remaining mud plaster off the residences and replaced it with "a hard lime plaster." [14] Any combination of these exterior finishes may be found today.

Most interior walls were constructed of tuff, averaging 9 inches in thickness, finished with gypsum plaster and painted. Most plumbing walls were built of clay tile block, also plastered and painted. Interior bathrooms had cement plastered walls and ceilings. A few interior partitions added in recent years were of wood framing and Sheetrock, plastered and painted to match existing fabric.