For more than 100 years, the golden dome of the old Farmers and Mechanics Bank has watched over the intersection of Wisconsin and M Streets in downtown Georgetown.
As with most things that are hundred years old, time and weather have taken their toll on the golden dome. The PNC Bank, which owns the building today, is having it re-gilded.
“This is such a landmark location for all of Washington, DC, and we wanted to do it right. It wasn’t a place we would build for a half dollar. We wanted to make the right investment for a landmark location that we have here in Washington, DC,” said Jermaine Johnson, regional president of PNC Bank.
The work is delicate, laborious and expensive.
Local Gilders Studio, known worldwide for its work, is re-gilding the dome.
“We’re native Washingtonians and we’ve been looking at this dome for years. When it started to deteriorate 10 to 15 years ago, we thought, ‘We really want to do this.’ We’re so glad we were able to do it. And it’s here in DC, it’s on site,” Gilder Studio’s Michale Kramer told News4.
The gilders are craftsmen who have received special training in the time-honored technique.
Kramer has been a goldsmith for over 40 years and has worked on many landmarks in the greater Washington DC area during that time.
“We did the entire interior of Union Station a few years ago after the earthquake. We also did the Mormon Temple right next to the Beltway. We did all the towers and the angel Moroni,” he said. “We also did the State Library in the old Executive Office Building, which consisted of over 70,000 different ornaments that all had to be individually gilded.”
The gold leaf that Kramer and others applied to the dome of the Georgetown Bank is 99% pure gold.
“It’s very heavy gold that we had manufactured in Italy specifically for this project. That’s about a third of a gram of gold per square foot up there,” Kramer said.
Like most artists, gilders use highly specialized tools, including one made of squirrel hair.
“It’s a squirrel hair brush, it costs over $100. … and it doesn’t scratch the gold,” Kramer said.
The scaffolding around the bank’s dome will soon be removed. Kramer said the cost of the gold leaf is about $60 per square meter.
