Historic Fountain Conservation and Construction Oversight

historic heritage fountain restoration

Latham Memorial Fountain

 
Erected in 1913, French sculptor Raphael Charles Peyre’s Latham Memorial Fountain comprises a granite central structure with bronze relief and sculptural elements. Large granite bowls surrounding the base were intended as horse water troughs. Between the troughs were drinking fountains for people, and the overflow from those ran into smaller basins for dogs. On October 16, 1984, the fountain and the square were designated City of Oakland Landmarks. In 2012, thieves stole two of the fountain’s bronze ornamental skirts.

RLA was contracted by McGuire and Hester General Contractors to protect the historic fabric of the fountain during streetscape renovation and retrofitting of the plumbing system. Once the streetscape work concluded, RLA performed the conservation treatment of original historic fabric as well as overseeing the replication of original bronze skirt panels to replace ones lost to theft.

The aim of the conservation plan was to provide general cleaning, stain mitigation, corrosion removal, patching of losses, and application of a protective wax coating to the bronze. RLA supervised the process of taking molds from the original bronze skirts, and making replacements to install in situ and designing an installation method that would keep them secure, while allowing them to be removed in the future without damage to the original fabric.