BY JOHN RUCH
GAZETTE STAFF

PONDSIDE—The soon-to-be-demolished Pinebank mansion at Jamaica Pond will likely be memorialized by some kind of outline of the building’s footprint, signs and possibly reconstructed doorways, according to three design options presented at a city meeting last week. The options will be presented to the Boston Landmarks Commission (BLC) on Sept. 26.

“My task has been one of interpretation,” said designer Victor Walker of Walker Kluesing Design Group at the Boston Parks and Recreation Department meeting held Sept. 14 at Arnold Arboretum.

The site, on a promontory overlooking the pond, will likely be improved in various ways. They include a path circling the mansion site, three sightlines to the pond cut through the trees, repairs to the historic steps leading up to the area and thinning vegetation in a small dell.

The decaying historic mansion probably will also still be there, literally, its debris entombed in a bed of preservative sand in the buried basement. This kind of pine box for Pinebank is intended to make it possible to rebuild the mansion with some original materials, a resurrection-day dream advocated by the group Friends of Pinebank.

Friends of Pinebank leaders Hugh Mattison and Anne Lusk spoke skeptically of the designs and expressed concerns that they won’t save enough debris, or will ruin it by using it to build bits of walls and doorways. While the group previously agreed with the city-hired engineer’s report that the building must be demolished, Lusk now advocated covering the mansion in a giant net, instead, to hold it together in the hopes of securing historic preservation grants.

“The building is coming down,” said Margaret Dyson of the parks department.

The Boston Preservation Alliance (BPA) previously also expressed skepticism about the engineer’s report and said it would seek a second opinion. BPA Executive Director Sarah Kelly told the Gazette that indeed happened.

“We did have a couple of our board members who have expertise look at it,” she said in a Gazette interview. “They agreed that the condition really is beyond the point where the building can be restored.” She declined to name the board members.

The BPA advocates for documenting the building and storing its debris on-site, she said, adding the group will not advocate for any particular memorial option yet.

Friends of Pinebank has no funding in place for its dream of rebuilding Pinebank as an arts center, at a cost estimated at well over $5 million.

However, there are concerns over funding for the Pinebank memorial as well. Estimated costs for demolition, documentation and the various memorial options fall roughly with the possible state capital budget. That consists of $300,000 currently in place and hopes of $400,000 more in next year’s budget, according to Dyson. There are no dedicated maintenance funds in place. Some private funds might also come into play.

John Iappini, chair of the Jamaica Pond Association (JPA), expressed concern that the parks department has enough money to demolish the mansion but might not get—or even intend to get—funding for any memorial.

“I really think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, because I’m really concerned about the funding,” Iappini said, warning of the possibility that “we’ll be looking at nothing for 10, 20, 30 years.”

He said the JPA’s stated position is that a memorial must be done in conjunction with the demolition. Dyson said she agrees, but that having a plan in place is what will help drive funding. However, she also said the city’s Inspectional Services Department could order demolition for safety reasons at any time.

Design options
All of Walker’s design options are similar and have interchangeable elements. Essentially, they are all the same idea, just with different elements highlighted or exaggerated to provoke thought.

Alternative A has the footprints of the mansion and its terrace, and also the mansion’s ground-floor rooms, outlined in bricks or stone from the structure. The outline would be flush with the ground. The mansion part would be paved with some kind of stone. It also has “interpretative”—meaning not entirely accurate—reconstructions of the mansion’s four-columned rear portico and front doorway made of mansion debris. Its total estimated cost is $800,000.

Alternative B creates only the footprint of the mansion and terrace with a wall about 30 inches high, rebuilt from the mansion’s bricks. The land inside the outline would be built up about a foot so the wall wouldn’t seem too high. That area would be just grass. Its estimated cost is $550,000.

Alternative C is the same as Alternative B, except with 6-foot walls and an inner area built up about 3 feet with a stone-paved floor. Walker himself heavily bashed this option, saying such high walls present too many crime and graffiti problems. Its estimated cost is $675,000.

Alternative A got the most positive feedback, especially for the attention-getting doorways. There also appeared to be consensus that a grass surface is better than a paved one. Grass would also be a lot cheaper, reducing Alternative A’s cost by about 25 percent, Walker said.

Alternative A has no path, but Walker said that’s just for contrast and that he prefers the idea. So did most meeting attendees. Alternative B showed the circular loop path around the site, while Alternative C had a more complex version.

Walker also showed Frederick Law Olmsted’s original 1892 preliminary design for the park, which showed a similar path looping around the mansion, as well as a built-up terrace area.

The plan also showed what appeared to be a circular overlook platform built on the tip of the promontory. The idea is not included in Walker’s designs, but fired the imaginations of some people at the meeting.

Walker’s designs don’t specify any types of secondary usage, such as artistic performances. The idea is for the design not to “preclude” any of them, Dyson and Walker said.

That includes the idea of food vendors. “Mobile vendors, I think, can work here, if you can get them to come,” Walker said.

Lusk and some other attendees said the designs don’t have enough appeal or activities to draw repeated visitors.

Walker’s designs also don’t specify signage or other historic education elements. However, he did provide a rough sketch as a suggestion, showing a kind of kiosk built of debris from the mansion, with signs or photographs attached.

Walker described the site as currently “overvegetated” and “uncomfortable.” His idea of cutting or thinning trees to create sightlines to the pond appeared to be popular.

All of the designs, as well as Friends of Pinebank’s dream, are predicated on the idea of turning the site into a high-use part of the park. However, a sometimes overlooked third opinion is that the site should remain wild, or become even wilder.

Gerry Wright, one of the key advocates of that view, arrived late for the meeting, and the idea was not raised. However, he later told the Gazette he prefers a wilder version of the plans, using hedges to outline the building’s footprint, and creating a wildflower meadow instead of a lawn.

“The natural landscape should be the destination,” he said, adding the design should also be integrated into the rest of the park.

The parks department will present the design options to the BLC design review commission on Sept. 26. The full commission might then vote on the proposals, depending on the outcome.

The design options can be viewed on the web site of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy at www.emeraldnecklace.org. Comments can be sent to Dyson at Margaret.Dyson@cityofboston.gov.