Sybaritic Studios’ involvement with the Whalehead Club, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, began in 2001. I attended the Traditional Building Restoration & Renovation annual trade show in Washington D.C. While there, I was approached by an architect that had noticed the pieces in our booth and was intrigued as to their origin. When I answered that I had made all of the Tiffany Studios reproductions in question, he quickly told me that he would be right back.

He returned within thirty minutes with a shoe box. He was nervous and trembling noticeably. He opened the box and presented the contents. Inside, there were three unique original Tiffany Studios blown glass shades. He asked, “Can you reproduce these?” I answered that I was not a glass blower, but that I knew a few that were capable of reproducing those pieces. The architect’s face flushed. He took a business card, left one of his own, and rushed off, promising we would hear from him soon.

A couple months went by, and true to his word, the architect made the call. The project was moving forward as planned, but they were not yet to the lighting and furnishings phase. However, in their current phase, the existing hardware (door and window handles, hinges, escutcheons, etc…) needed to be restored, and there was a large amount of the original hardware missing that needed to be reproduced. They found themselves without a vendor. At the architect’s request, I was given two original door escutcheons, one with the original finish existing, and the other that had been stripped. If I could match the finish, the contract was mine. I sent the two pieces back a couple days later, and received a phone call early in the morning on the day they were received, with the architect’s inquiry: “Which one had the original finish?”

Since that day, Sybaritic Studios has restored or replicated all of the hardware now in place, and the process continues as more information on the original contents and placement becomes available through recollections of those that had been to the Whalehead in the days of the original owners.

Once the first phase of hardware work had been completed, the lighting and furnishings phase began. The first focus of this phase was the dining room. Originally, the dining room contained eight original Tiffany Studios wall mount double armed sconces and an elaborate matching chandelier. Over the years, seven of the eight wall mounts disappeared, along with the chandelier. It was my job to reproduce the other seven fixtures by taking molds and measurements from the last existing original fixture in the trust’s possession. The reproduction wall mount fixtures were completed and installed in time for the dedication ceremony in 2003. I am still waiting for the authorization for the chandelier.

In late 2005, the original Tiffany Studios fixtures in the main entry foyer underwent the restoration and replication process. The six light ceiling fixture was fully restored and rewired. It was also refinished, at the request of the trust, to match the verdigris finish on the original wall mount fixture. Originally there were two wall mount five-arm lily fixtures, but as in the dining room, there was only one left. The second was reproduced, again based on the original measurements. However, there was no casting done for this piece. Instead, the pieces had to be fabricated by the metal spinning process. All of this lighting was installed prior to their opening for tours in 2006.