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• THE LONGACRE COMPANY CONTRIBUTES TO CHALLENGING RENOVATION AT THE HILL SCHOOL |
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The Longacre Company recently completed work that was part of a major renovation at The Hill School in Pottstown, an historic boarding school founded in 1851. The focus of the renovation was The Hunt Upper School Dormitory, an all-boys’ hall located in the heart of the School’s campus. Originally constructed in 1910, it is the oldest and most majestic residence hall on campus.
The Longacre Company worked in conjunction with a general contractor to renovate the fourth floor of the hall. Although floors one through three had been inhabited since the building was constructed, the fourth floor had been vacated decades before when it was determined that access to the floor was inadequate. The construction portion of the renovation included the addition of a new elevator that services all four floors.
According to Longacre Company Vice President, Steve Longacre, his company was contracted to provide installation of the plumbing, heating, electrical and fire-protection systems for the project. “This was quite a challenging project,” said Longacre. “We were working in a very large building that is well over 100 years old. To get the new utility services to the fourth floor we had to run everything from the basement through three finished and inhabited floors.”
Longacre’s Tim Kratz played a key roll in the project. “Working in a building that was more than a century old posed a lot of challenges,” said Kratz. “The framing consists of rough-cut post-and-beam construction joined with wooden pegs. Running the plumbing was a particular challenge as we had to weave it through floor joist that ran in different directions and through walls of thick stone and brick that were out of square.
“Installing heat in the fourth floor was an additional challenge as we could not gain access through the third floor ceilings because that floor was occupied. We also battled space constraints which made it difficult to achieve code compliance while still respecting the historical integrity of the structure. The Borough of Pottstown and their inspectors were instrumental in allowing us to complete this project in a timely fashion considering the number of inspections that were required with attaching to existing plumbing that is in use.”
Longacre began their phase of the renovation in May and completed it in November. Upon completion, the renovation added another valuable level of living space to the hall including faculty apartments, dorm rooms, shared bathroom facilities and common meeting rooms. |
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