Bellerive Hotel Restoration
Kansas City, MO 1981
 The owners of this historic hotel asked me to determine an economical repair of the deteriorated terra cotta balconies.  A rusting steel anchorage system had blown the terra cotta apart. The building was on the National Historic Register which meant that the replacement materials had to match the originals. After attending a seminar on terra cotta preservation I determined that precast concrete would be the most feasible but also meet the guidelines of the Historic Foundation. Networking the local arts community I found a mold maker  and a retired concrete craftsman that were the beginning of my career in the precast concrete industry.
 Broken pieces were glued back together and repaired with clay. From these patterns molds were made from urethane caulking. A color match  and surface treatment to resemble the "granite" look of the originals was achieved by experimentation.
   

 Indistinguishable from the original

Sprint World Headquarters
Overland Park, KS
1997-2001
    
Produced by Architectural Art Stone

This project required more creativity in the bidding process than is usual. The specifications from the architect, the Hillier Group, were written for dry tamped cast stone but in examining the plans the actual profile of the pieces conflicted with the design guidelines of the Cast Stone Institute. Although there was a lot of repetition the pieces in section were "L" and "U"
shaped which does not produce efficiently in dry tamp. In addition the pieces were 6 to 8 feet long. 

My company wanted the job because it was in our town, would be a trophy job and would amount to 2-3 million dollars of production. I decided to bid the job as wet cast but include a "qualification" statement in my price that the bid did not technically meet the specifications. Architectural Art Stone was the successful low bidder and after numerous  meetings with the owner, architect and G.C. it was determined that the intent of the specifications was to get the "look" of cast stone and not dictate the "means and methods"of production..

Although Cast Stone is usually less expensive than wet cast, we had under bid the largest dry tamped cast stone producer in the  U.S. with a wet cast product. (this producer is also
in Kansas City) To now make money every phase of the process had to be streamlined. This was accomplished by organizing the process like a factory assembly line.

Home

Clock Tower
All light colored trim is cast stone

One of thousands of sills

There were 20,000 lineal feet
of the lower band and over 3000
of the window heads

Site seating