AR:B4d1.8, P&E 262. "The Parabiographies": House for Catherine Gray, alterations project [Minneapolis, Minnesota] (1914)

Text by William Gray Purcell

for 1914 Project Date (in Parabiography): September 14, 1914

Mrs. Gray, Greenhouse, Fireplace, etc.

These were studies for projected greenhouse room to be added to the old house on Lake of the Isles Boulevard for the pleasure of my grandmother. It would have been fun, but probaby too much labor for her to take care of. I had never been thoroughly satisfied with the fireplace in this house. It was too bricky, too much of a mass of masonry, and I had always given a certain amount of thought to some way in which to quiet it. As I see it now, I think about all that was needed was a coat of plaster (annotation by WGP: get rid of the masonry, may be?) to unite it with the walls of the room.