The finished Williams Room at The Williams School, New London — cherry-paneled walls, granite fireplace and coffered ceiling, built by Sapia Builders to a Centerbrook Architects design

The Williams School · New London, Connecticut

The Williams Room

A 1950s assembly room taken back to the studs and rebuilt as a paneled hall — in one summer, between the last day of school and the first.

Centerbrook Architects designed it. The room is the school's main assembly and board room, and it had been a mid-century space of its era: acoustic tile ceiling, drapery, chandeliers. Centerbrook lined it in cherry — walls, coffers, columns, sills and door surrounds.

The aluminum window wall, the hollow-metal door frames and the concrete slab all stayed, and the new power was cut into the slab. None of it was plumb, square or level, and every piece of cherry in the room was scribed to it.

Demolition started June 7th. Asbestos abatement followed, by others, with the building closed to anyone under eighteen. Coffered ceiling was still going in on the ninth of August. The room opened with the school year.

What Was There

The Williams Room before renovation — acoustic tile ceiling, chandeliers, drapery and painted walls — Before. Acoustic tile ceiling, chandeliers and drapery.

The original painted colonial mantel and slate hearth before renovation — The old painted mantel and slate hearth.

The room stripped to studs and ceiling grid, window wall exposed — Stripped out.

Masonry fireplace opening exposed, layout lines marked on the slab — Masonry opened up. Layout on the slab.

Existing ceiling structure and ductwork exposed above the grid — The ceiling opened above the grid.

II.

Working Around What Stayed

Deep cherry windowsill running the length of the window wall with a bronze linear register set into it — Deep cherry sill the length of the window wall, bronze linear register set into it.

Cherry wrap built around an existing hollow-metal door frame — Cherry wrapped over the existing hollow-metal frames. The doors never moved.

Projection screen and audio-visual rough-in in the open ceiling before the coffers were closed — Screen, speakers and projector roughed in before a single coffer closed. Nothing surface-mounted afterward.

Panels: Cherry veneer with cherry 1×3 stiles and rails, inset sticking at every panel
Kick: Cherry 1×6 at the typical wall; 1×3 at the window wall, held 3″ off the floor for air circulation
Windows: Existing aluminum, retained — cherry mullion caps and column wraps

Acoustics: ½″ fabric-wrapped mineral panels above the wainscot
Ceiling: Coffered beams, painted, with AV and lighting integrated
Power: Trenched into the existing slab; outlets laid horizontal in the base

III.

Cherry

Completed cherry wall paneling below a painted coffered ceiling — Coffers in, panels up.

Cherry veneer sheet showing book-matched grain — Grain matched before anything was cut.

Stain samples laid out on cherry boards — Stain samples, laid on the actual stock.

Finished stained cherry panel with inset sticking detail — Finished panel. Inset sticking, mitered.

The Williams Memorial Institute seal cut into the granite fireplace jamb

Williams Memorial Institute, 1891

The school was founded in 1891 as the Williams Memorial Institute, endowed by Harriet Peck Williams as a memorial to her son and built to advance the education of girls. It moved to Mohegan Avenue in 1954 and became The Williams School.

The fireplace surround is granite out of a stone yard in Salem, twenty minutes up Route 82. The Institute's original seal was carved into the jamb stones for this job. A cherry mantel sits over it, and the existing masonry opening was widened to take the new firebox.

IV.

The Room

The finished room in use, board table and chairs under the coffered ceiling — The finished room, board table under the coffered ceiling.

Finished cherry mantel over the granite surround with the school seal — Mantel and surround.

New cherry door set into the building's existing granite masonry wall — New cherry door set into the existing granite wall.

IndexAll projects