Colonial Revival Gone to Sea

What was once the Cobb’s Island Coast Guard Station is now the eastern shore of Virgina’s center for conservation programs and community functions. This adaptive re-use included not only the construction of a new foundation, the restoration of the dilapidated main building and connected boathouse and the addition of a caretaker’s cottage but also a relocation across 10 miles of open water. The Colonial Revival building retains its original configuration and exterior detailing, with eased accessibility and entirely new mechanical and fire-safety systems.

Cobb’s Island Station was designed by the U.S. Coast Guard’s Civil Engineer’s Office and built on a remote barrier island in 1936 under Franklin Roosevelt’s Civil Works Administration program. It served the Coast Guard for 28 years before it was decommissioned and left vacant in 1964. The Station is one of the few surviving examples of the 1930s-era pattern stations – described by some as “Colonial Revivalism gone to sea” – constructed simultaneously on four of the Virginia islands. In 1973, the island and the Station were acquired by The Nature Conservancy. The building’s remote and exposed location subjected it to harsh weather conditions and while the elements took their toll on the structure, much of the hardware, guttering and roof flashing was removed by vandals.

With the hope of opening the building to the community and the acknowledgement that the building would need to be accessible for continual service and maintenance, The Conservancy decided to relocate the Station to the mainland. In May 1998, the building was moved 10 miles in two pieces by barge. The new site in the harbor town of Oyster was composed of mostly unstable dredge fill, so “we constructed reinforced-concrete pile caps at grade, over which we placed more than 100 wood pilings,” says architect Jeff Dreyfus, Principal in Charge at Bushman Dreyfus Architects PLC in Charlottesville, VA. “Visually, this mimicked the building’s original wood piling foundation.”

Once the new foundation was completed in September 1998, the building renovation began. “First we had to stabilize the building to prevent further deterioration,” says Dreyfus. Referencing some of the original construction drawings of a similar station built nearby, Bushman Dreyfus Architects put on a new wood shingle roof, replacing the long-deteriorated asphalt shingle roof of an earlier renovation, and made structural repairs. “We next took the building down to its studs,” he continues, because all of the interior finishes had to be removed to abate asbestos and lead paint.

In rebuilding, it was most important to keep the exterior true to the original. “We worked with the existing window configurations as we re-thought the interior layout,” says Dreyfus. Much of the wood shingle siding was salvaged, and small areas were repaired or replaced with similar shingles. The detailing over the windows, the corner pilasters and the trim profiles that defined the building as Colonial Revival were rebuilt to the original plans. Also, the porches that were so particular to the spirit of this structure were restored and removable screens were replicated for them.

Once the exterior restoration was underway, Bushman Dreyfus tackled the building’s interior spaces. “We wanted to be as sensitive to the interior as we were to the exterior,” says Dreyfus, “but we needed to adapt it for new proposes. Though we wanted to remind people of the building’s past, it was no longer going to function as a Coast Guard station.” The main structure that once housed the crew’s lodging, kitchen and living facilities was turned into a library, dining room, kitchen and seven guest bedrooms, the latter of which are located on the second and third floors. The fourth-floor crow’s nest lookout remains intact, but the original ship’s ladder was replaced with a new circular stair that makes the room more easily accessible.

The interior of the old boathouse was renovated into a meeting room that seats 100 people. “It seemed a very appropriate adaptation, and it clearly fit The Conservancy’s hope to provide community meeting space,” says Dreyfus. The garage doors were “replaced with insulated windows patterned to closely approximate the configuration of the original doors.”

The new entry to the facility was built into the one-story connector between the main building and boathouse. The connector itself had been determined unsalvageable as it was totally decayed due to early failure of the flat roof, and so was demolished on the island and entirely rebuilt on the mainland.

Another consideration in planning the renovation was the addition of new electrical, plumbing and mechanical systems as well as the inclusion of new fire-safety equipment and the addition of handicapped-accessible features. To avoid the construction of a fire stair, the building had to be outfitted with sprinklers. Guardrails needed to be added on the porches and a handicapped-accessible ramp was also required. “This was probably the biggest challenge of the project,” says Dreyfus. “There was a very concerted effort to keep the building true to its origin and not to leave our mark as architects, but we had to adapt the design to the building code regulations.” The firm was sensitive in incorporating the required upgrades, running the ductwork through the central hall on each of the floors in order to keep all the other ceilings at the original 10-ft. height. The metal guardrails on the porches are held off the structure to indicate that they are additions and not part of the 1936 construction. The ramp that was built to accommodate the handicapped was designed “to remind visitors of the original boathouse ramps used to bring boats in for repair and maintenance,” Dreyfus says.

Also on this site is a caretaker’s cottage, built in a style that complements the historic building. At almost 3,000 sq.ft, it includes a living and dining room, two bedrooms, an office and one additional, fully-accessible guest suite. Between the buildings, an elevated deck was constructed. “It recalls the original, raised work deck built behind the station, which helped to shield outdoor workers from the fierce insect population on the island,” Dreyfus explains. The deck is not a replica of the original configuration but is located similarly and provides the same kind of gathering and work place.

The 11,325-sq.ft. Cobb’s Island Station project was completed in December 2001. Since then, Bushman Dreyfus Architects and The Nature Conservancy have paired themselves for a number of other projects. The firm has worked with the Conservancy for more than seven years to date and has completed a number of projects for the nonprofit organization, including a new office on the Eastern shore. –Hadiya Strasberg