A Greenwich, Conn., home has received top honors for its use of fire-clay brick.
The 7,000-square-foot Georgian Revival was recently awarded Best in Class for the residential category of the Brick Industry Awards for its historically accurate exterior composed of oversized rectangular brick with decorative brick accents. The homeowners asked Greenwich-based Charles Hilton Architects for a classic exterior style that would minimize long-term maintenance cost.
Hilton selected a Glen-Gery brick facade to imbue the large home with an air of permanence and sophistication while remaining consistent in scale and character to neighboring dwellings, he says. He speced a variety of shaped bricks to articulate the home’s exterior details from the watertable base, to decorative bay panels all around the house, to straight and round lintels, to accent panels on the chimneys.
Other decorative and functional elements such as corbelling, was used at the chimney cap, and to hide the joints at each masonry opening, brick-red caulk was applied. Real masonry chimneys vent the indoor fireplaces while the fourth brick veneered chimney was designed to aesthetically conceal HVAC venting. Grapevine joints add further complexity to the masonry surface and additional ties to Georgian tradition.
