A worker wrangles a steel component for the Garcelon Field grandstand as it’s unloaded on Sept. 15, 2010.

The grandstand is rising at Garcelon Field, the eagle landed at 10 Frye St., and they’re still slinging steel at Hedge and Roger Williams halls:

“That’s going to be a fun thing to watch to go together,” Garcelon Field project manager Mike Gustin said as the first components of the new Garcelon Field grandstand showed up on Sept. 15. .

Watching workers fasten wooden planks to the sides of steel beams near Roger Williams Hall the other day, we got vague ideas about some kind of bare-brick, hanging-fern, exposed-beam motif for the interior renovation. Not so, said project manager Paul Farnsworth. .

On Sept. 9, a crew from Facility Services restored the 1873 eagle weathervane to its roost atop the carriage house at 10 Frye St., ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ newest student residence. Carpenters Tim Chouinard and Tom Winslow went up in a 65-foot cherry picker to remount the bird, with painter Dan Sands, who gave the bald eagle its colors, standing by. .

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions, reminiscences and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at this E-mail, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.

View a slide show of the renovations of Garcelon Field and Hedge and Roger Williams halls by clicking the thumbnails below:

Building the new Garcelon Field grandstand on Sept. 17, 2010. Photo by Elizabeth McKean '12.

Seen from the Historic Quad on Sept. 15, 2010, with about 11 months to go on their renovations, are Hedge Hall and behind it, Roger Williams Hall.

Concrete footers for the new Garcelon Field grandstand, shown on Sept. 15, 2010.

Trucks arrive bearing steel pieces of the new Garcelon Field grandstand on Sept. 15, 2010.

Steel components for the new Garcelon Field grandstand are unloaded on Sept. 15, 2010.

Editor’s note: As the photo at right illustrates, the eagle landed on Sept. 10. Read more about it in the Sept. 17 edition of Campus Construction Update.

In an e-mail slugged “The eagle will land,” Facility Services project manager John Rasmussen alerted Campus Construction Update to a new development at the .

An eagle-shaped weathervane believed to be original to the 1873 carriage house at the site is scheduled to return to the roost the week of Sept. 6. (Watch this space for time and date.)

Posed with its wings spread as if about to take flight, the weathervane will be remounted on the cupola atop the wooden building. With an apartment newly installed on its second floor, the structure is adjacent to the brick main house at 10 Frye, which has six student suites.

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and general contractor Pizzagalli Construction Company of Portland renovated the whole complex this summer. The eagle is the crowning touch.

The bird, Rasmussen said, “has been painted to look like a bald eagle. It’s life-sized”: 3 feet, 6 inches high, with a not-fully-spread wingspan of 2 feet, 6 inches.

“It’s made of sheet metal — tin most likely, as all the other exterior sheet metal was tin. The directional arms are cast iron, and the whole vane weighs about 40 pounds.”

A couple of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ carpenters in a cherry picker will return the eagle to its home about 35 feet off the ground. Its shaft will pass through the decorative spire, or finial, on the peak of the cupola.

A recent owner of 10 Frye, Joseph Cronin, removed the weathervane before he sold the house in 2005, fearing that it might be stolen or sold. Cronin stored it until he learned about the restoration and decided to donate the bird to the College.

“It was in terrific shape,” Rasmussen said. “The only work required was the paint job and the replacement of the shaft on which it is mounted.”

Rasmussen is sure that the bird was an original feature. “The finial of the cupola looks original,” he explained, “and weathervanes, along with the iron cresting on the house, were very popular with Gothic Revival buildings.”

Then as now, the eagle was a powerful cultural symbol. “The choice of an eagle, as opposed to roosters or other farm animals, may have been influenced by the upcoming American centennial” in 1876, Rasmussen said.

“And such ornamentation, along with the many other elaborate architectural details on the house, was meant to indicate the status of the occupants — common to all ostentatious architecture throughout history.”

This fall, 23 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students will find themselves studying, socializing and sleeping inside a lesson in local architectural history.

Acquired by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in summer 2009, the large brick house at 10 Frye St. is the latest addition to the college’s stock of student residences. But it’s one of the older buildings in the fleet, dating to 1873.

If you’re trudging up Oak Street toward Frye, No. 10 is the house that you see. Brick with yellow trim, it occupies a lot alongside a carriage house, complete with cupola, that contains one of the residence’s seven apartments. The establishment once belonged to one Albert B. Nealey, a civic leader and prominent grocer with a store on Main Street.

The Nealey home is “one of Lewiston’s most delightful examples of eclectic Victorian architecture,” according to an on the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce website. It’s a sampler of popular 19th-century styles: the peaked gables and pointy windows of Gothic Revival, the mansard roof and wrought-iron roof cresting of the Second Empire school, and busy wooden brackets of the Italianate style. The later addition of a front porch even threw a touch of Queen Anne into the mix.

Happily, a renovation this summer left intact — or restored — many of the charming details that originally graced the house.

John Rasmussen, a project manager for Facility Services, led tours of the residence in August that gave members of the college community (including Campus Construction Update) a chance to ogle those details.

About a dozen people gathered for the Aug. 13 tour, held on a sunny morning as deliverymen lugged new refrigerators and microwaves into the house. (Each suite has a kitchenette.)

Rasmussen started the tour with a bit of history and an overview of the renovation: in addition to the creation of the seven suites, the work included complete replacement of the roofing, windows, electrical system and plumbing; the installation of telecom lines and a fire alarm system; new siding on the carriage house; and all new paint.

Not to mention the restoration of roofing features such as new crown molding, iron crests and, soon, a tin eagle weathervane that is still in the shop.

The interior of the house, too, boasts a few of those loving details that, we all lament, nobody puts into new houses anymore. The entryway has a striking floor tile pattern and door glass that’s etched in graceful floral designs. Each of the two first-floor living rooms has a (no longer functional) fireplace, and they are beauts — one is carved white marble, while the brick of the other is topped with a mirror whose carved, inlaid wooden frame reaches nearly to the ceiling. And it’s a high ceiling.

Citing research done by Professor Emeritus of Political Science Doug Hodgkin, Rasmussen noted that this former one-family house was first divided into flats during the 1960s. Living space totals about 6,800 square feet, making for generously proportioned living quarters for the new occupants. The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ suites each accommodate three or four in various combinations of one-, two- and three-person bedrooms.

The renovation once again demonstrates the college’s commitment to green building practices and energy conservation. The hot water and heating system uses what’s called a condensing boiler, which extracts more heat from fuel combustion than a conventional boiler.

The new windows, all 68 of them, are high-efficiency thermal units, even the pointy Gothic Revival ones. Local brick was used for brick repairs, Rasmussen said, and general contractor Pizzagalli Construction Co. of Portland recycled the construction debris.

And speaking of green, 10 Frye is associated with another sustainability initiative. Students won’t be the only occupants of the carriage house, Rasmussen noted. While four will live in a brand-new suite upstairs, the ground floor will house the college’s bike-sharing program, including a workshop for maintaining and repairing the program’s 21 green-and-yellow bicycles.

Read the latest news in the renovations of and .

A 19th-century house is ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ newest student residence, the green carpet is rolled out at Garcelon Field and Campus Construction Update is beaming as the steelwork continues at Hedge and Roger Williams halls:

• This fall, 23 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ students will find themselves studying, socializing and sleeping inside a lesson in local architectural history. Acquired by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in 2009, the large brick house at 10 Frye St. is the latest addition to the college’s stock of student residences. But it’s one of the older buildings in the fleet, dating to 1873. .
• The big news in the Garcelon Field renovation these days, of course, is the installation of the FieldTurf playing surface. .
• As this was written, on Aug. 20, Hedge Hall was something to watch as a crane swung long steel beams across the blue sky toward the building. There’s plenty of new steel in Hedge already, but the creation of the building’s framework will become more of a spectator sport as it increasingly happens outside the building’s shell. .

Pipefitters at work on the new steam lines between Hedge Hall and Ladd Library on Aug. 5. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Workers dismantle disused steam pipes next to Roger Williams Hall on Aug. 5. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The east side of Roger Williams Hall was prepared for a new addition in July and August. By Aug. 5, the wall was completely opened up where people will pass between the two sections, and the windows were filled in where there will just be wall. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

New structural steel and wood are visible inside Hedge Hall in this image taken Aug. 3. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The service road between Ladd Library and Hedge Hall was blocked for much of August while new steam lines and other utilities were installed between the buildings. (Doug Hubley/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions, reminiscences and comments about campus improvements. Please e-mail staff writer Doug Hubley at this E-mail, stating “Construction Update” in the subject line.