A 104-year-old Baltimore business has been saved, thanks to a trio of new buyers for a niche-market enterprise. This is the kind of place that still uses an anthracite coal stove for heating.
The Baltimore Finishing Works on Huntingdon Avenue in Remington is unique in a city of eccentricities. And after a century of family ownership, the keys to the place have moved on to three new partner-owners on Sept. 30.
Awaiting a chemical dip is the fancy iron gate from the house where novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald lived on Park Avenue in Bolton Hill. Not far away are legs to a table for the Clifton Mansion in Clifton Park. The massive front windows from one of the mighty Mount Vernon Place homes are awaiting treatment to remove lead paint.
And when the much critically acclaimed The Wren opened in Fells Point, part of the bar’s cabinetry was made by Nick Petr, one of the business’s brand-new owners. Petr, a cabinet maker and master carpenter, is a third-generation Baltimorean who was raised in his father’s and grandfather’s Old Harford Road furniture restoration shop called Pelham Studios.
His partners at Baltimore Finishing Works are Tim Horjus and Nick Cairns, owners of C&H Restoration, a Baltimore-based business that specializes in restoring landmarks such as the Clifton Mansion, the Ship Caulkers’ houses in Fells Point, the Peale Museum and the Star-Spangled Flag House.
“It’s crucial for anyone involved in hands-on historic preservation that this business remain open,” said Tim Horjus, one of the new owners.
The three realized this business was a crucial link to the nuts and bolts of historic preservation in Baltimore, a city of old houses whose components are often held together by old paint and gunked-up hardware.
Baltimore Finishing Works acted like a combined hospital and emergency room for the windows, doors, radiators, and mantelpieces that needed to be stripped of old paint. These pieces can then be sealed and repainted.
“A man walked in last week with 22 doors,” said Petr, who, a few minutes later, retrieved a cleaned-up mantlepiece for two women customers.
Awaiting his work are six windows from a vehicle in the collection of the Baltimore Streetcar Museum on Falls Road. Another customer was digging and found a wooden gas pipe section. He wants it cleaned up. Rusted garden furniture can also be treated here.
There is plenty of history here. Baltimore businessman Albert E. Thompson opened the main structure at 2507 Huntingdon Ave., just off 25th Street, in 1921. A commercial garage, it served both horse-drawn wagons and autos and trucks.
The business morphed over the years, and by the 1950s, this was the place to go to have your automobile steam cleaned. Worked trucks and tankers were chemically cleaned, and engine blocks flushed. There was also a franchise for Ziebart rust proofing.
His grandson, Richard Reeve, began work here in 1975 and, after 50 years, put the place up for sale. Reeve’s brother, Michael, has agreed to stay on and keep the know-how continuity going.
The finishing works business had established itself as the must-go spot for serious paint stripping.
The old shop, portions of which were constructed in 1912 (there is a gorgeous set of operating barn doors here), has lifts and hoists to deal with 400-pound cast-iron radiators. When a set of massive science lab tables came in from Loyola Blakefield, the owners knew what to do.
The shop’s new owners are also expanding their lines of work. They will undertake furniture refinishing and restoration under one roof.
“It’s essential to have old windows you are trying to save cleaned down to the wood because even though the window looks good, there could be rot in there,” said Nick Cairns, another of the new owners. “And the rot can be dealt with and the window saved.”
As the business moved from old-fashioned, family-owned, there were some changes. The place now has internet access and accepts credit cards.
So who wants to save old windows? Think about the Homewood Museum on the grounds of Johns Hopkins University. Who would toss out Charles Carroll of Homewood’s front windows?
The new owners say their Baltimore Finishing Works is ready for every challenge that gets carried through its front doors. It’s now open Monday to Friday and will soon have Saturday hours.
“The backbone of the work is from homeowners all over the city,” said Cairns.
Have a news tip? Contact Jacques Kelly at jkelly@baltsun.com.
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