About the Bricks

When I first moved to Boston, I spent a lot of time in Harvard Square. I fell in love with the ancient, rugged, variegated look of the bricks on the Coop building. So when I decided to take down the existing fir siding and replace it with brick, I knew just what I was looking for.

Boston’s got a good number of brickyards, and I spent weeks running around to all of them, looking for that 18th-century look – with no success. I tried Stiles & Hart, Redland, Old Carolina, York, Glen-Gery, Boral… nothing had the texture and color variety I wanted. I tried ordering samples from the Internet, spending hours with their sales reps, picking custom blends: no luck.

The problem: Modern brick manufacturing is much too good! In the old days, bricks would be overfired or underfired accidentally, and would be contaminated with pine tar and all sorts of other things the EPA doesn’t like. So there’s really no way to make modern bricks that look like old-fashioned bricks. Some of the above companies try, using hand-fashioning methods, and even sputtering extra clay onto the bricks, but it doesn’t look the same.

I was just about to give up when I discovered a guy named John Gavin who goes around digging up old brickyards. He’s got just a few employees, and they often work by hand. The days must be tedious, but the results are worth it. I came across him purely by chance; someone who saw one of my web postings had recently purchased bricks from him. Well, it turns out he’d just dug up a 100-year-old brickyard in Veedersburg, Indiana that might have the bricks I was looking for. Rather than trying to intuit what I wanted, would I like to come see the operation?

Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Indianapolis, and driving a rental for an hour or so. When I got to the middle of nowhere, there was Veedersburg. And there, behind the abandoned car wash, was a big… hole in the ground. And a white pickup truck. And the most beautiful bricks I’d ever seen.

John and I spent about an hour sifting through bricks, picking out samples, talking about just which bricks he’d hand-select for me. More reds and purples? A little less brown, perhaps some yellows? Not too twisted, but just enough to give the feel. I drove back with a big grin and a trunkful of bricks which I somehow convinced the airlines to allow into their baggage compartment. For once, I had some luggage worth paying a porter for; those bricks are seven pounds each.

It took a talented mason and his entire family to lay them properly, with just the right mortar, cutting every brick to a proper length. I lived for six months in tarpaper through the hammering and clanking. But the results? A brand-new, century-old house looks as old as it really is, even though it never really was. I hope you enjoy it.