Students take on preservation of historic Bladensburg mansion

Students working on the project get hands-on experience with restoring pre-Revolutionary buildings, and Bladensburg, which owns the property, is able to save money on hiring a general manager for the project, said Donald Linebaugh, director of the graduate program in historic preservation within the university's architecture school.

"Because the building has not been restored before, it's a blank slate in some ways, if you will. There's every restoration problem out there in this house - water problems, roof problems, mold problems. You name it, this house has it," Linebaugh said.

These problems, he said, make it the ideal location for his graduate students to learn preservation techniques. His students will assess the damage and come up with solutions that help maintain the Colonial feel of the property. The "bricks and mortar" of the job will be contracted out to professionals, Linebaugh said.

The Bostwick house was built by Christopher Lowndes, a prominent rope maker, store owner and slave importer. It sits on a seven-acre property at 3901 48th St. that includes the main house, a brick laundry house, two large barns, a pump house and a garage.

The projects the students will undertake include an archaeological survey of the property, landscape design and solutions to the structural damage of the house.

Currently, Linebaugh lives in the laundry house and one of his students lives in the main house on the Bostwick property to serve as caretakers.

"It's wonderful, because it's like living with history," graduate student Suzanne Stasiulatis said. "You can go to a house museum and be taken aback ... but when you're actually living in a historic house, it's that same thing every day."

Though Linebaugh said the total cost of the project is impossible to calculate, the roof alone will cost a couple hundred thousand dollars. The project currently has between $300,000 and $500,000 in funding from grants, the town and donations.