THIRD FLOOR RENOVATION

The third floor has undergone an extensive renovation revealing its original ballroom and billiards room, with intricately inlaid wood floors and trompe l’oeil art on the ceilings.

The renovation needed to adhere to National Register of Historic Places standards, as well as State Parks preservation guidelines. For a long time, the last known history of the third floor dated from Governor Earl Warren’s time which began in 1943, and continued through the Pat Brown era of 1967.

“We were going to re-create the Brown-Warren era on the third floor,” Tim Gellinck, State Parks Restoration Specialist said. “Our general plan that said if we found anything historically significant up there, we could take it back to the 1877 Gallatin era instead.”

Repairing the crown molding in the billiards room, he scraped away a patch of paint and found the original paint colors: pale pink walls with curlicue line art in hot pink. Beneath the ceiling’s crumbling plaster was artwork of crossed cue sticks and billiard balls. In a closet that housed an ancient water tank, Gellinck pulled out another hunk of old plaster crown molding, which had the same style of line art but in green and purple.

A historic analysis revealed the appropriate paint colors and plaster molding for each of the third-floor rooms, which include the billiards room, ballroom, a small game room and wide entry hall. New Victorian-era carpet has also been installed.