Refurbished Green Hall Doors Will Be Returned To Campus This Fall

If you’ve visited Green Hall sometime in the last few weeks, you may have noticed a change to the exterior. The doors located on the Academic Quad side of Green Hall were removed late this summer and replaced with temporary doors. The original doors, which have been taken to an architectural preservationist's shop for repair and refinishing, will be returned later this fall.

The beloved entry doors, which are likely original and therefore date back to around 1931, are currently in the hands of preservation specialists M&A Architectural Preservation and well-known preservationist Richard Muckle. M&A Architectural Preservation has previously done work on the Wellesley campus, including restoring doors for Claflin hall, and has also done work for Harvard, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Old State House and Symphony Hall in Boston.

To prepare the doors, many layers of paint and primer had to be stripped. “A building paint analysis... revealed a fairly thick chronology of paint coatings totaling approximately 22 layers comprised of four or more exterior color paint schemes,” said Jon Alvarez, Wellesley’s Director of Design and Construction. When the doors return to campus this fall, they will likely again be their familiar dark green. 

In addition to the door refurbishment, preservationists and specialists from various organizations will clean the stone façades surrounding the door exteriors as well as the interior window frames and flooring. The corridor leading from the exterior entries to the Susan and Donald Newhouse Center for the Humanities lobby will also be repainted this fall.