Main House Basement Beam Maintenance
March 3, 2026
min read
At the heart of Camp Glen Brook is the Main House. As the name suggests, it houses the essential operations of Glen Brook: the kitchen, dining hall, living room, library, office, parlor, and many sleeping quarters. This building has been the heartbeat of the campus since it was built by Jedidiah Taintor as a farm house in 1776.
As an old building, the Main House has a fascinating structure that holds it up from below. Instead of manufactured beams supporting the Main House floor, there are half-cut tree trunks that have been there since it was built. In order to perform some preventative maintenance on these beams, we recently began to chisel away at the 250 year-old-bark on the trees to access, treat, and protect the hardwood that lies underneath.
Many people have played a part in maintaining this incredible building. William Harrer reflects in his journal on the steps he took to maintain this space during his time, digging a trench from this basement, or cellar, as he called it to help manage moisture in the space: “While this was going on I wondered how I could get the water out of the Main house cellar. It had no drain. To pump it out would only be a temporary solution as it would flood again and again. The cellar needed a drain which meant digging a trench from the corner of the house to the road some 50 ft. So that was the next job I tackled myself. At the corner of the house it had to be 8’ deep and by the road it came to the surface in the bank. It was a hard job, but since the drain is in we had no more floods in the cellar.”
It feels a bit strange to remove the bark from trees that have been present in a space for so long. It almost feels like removing a layer of history. However, we know that as we work, we are taking important strides to preserve the history of both the building and the memories it holds.
