Masonry experts lead talk on Millbrook’s historic stonework

MILLBROOK — Village historian Peter Devers, along with masonry experts Skip Ciferri and Dirk-Jan Rosse, enlightened a standing-room-only crowd to the history of stonework across Millbrook at the Millbrook Library Thursday, Oct. 16.

The crowd of 80 attendees listened as Peter Devers started the eveningshowing two rocks from the stonewall: a structure at his home that was built in the 1800s. This led to discussing the history of building fences and walls while showing photo examples, many that can be found around Millbrook. He explained the progression of fence design, starting when the original fences were built from branches that had been cut down and cleaned to straight sticks, to tree stump fences from the 17th and 18th centuries, all the way up to rubble fences made from piles of stone.

The bedrock under the Town of Washington is between 1.5 billion to 400 million years old and the large stones that can be found in the area were left by receding glaciers. The field stone found in many walls and buildings had been dug up in plowed fields or taken from walls used to create small paddocks that were now becoming larger paddocks.

Skip is a fourth-generation contractor and his grandfather, Rodrigo Ciferri, was one of the masons who helped build many of the stone buildings still standing in the village today. He talked about builds from the 1920s and 1930s that Rodrigo had done and his involvement in bringingItalian stone masons to the area. He mentioned a 1929 Ford car handle that his grandfather placed in a stone wall and the entry to the Miles Standish Estate entry gate that needed to have stones of the same color.

The talk delved further into the history of the large estates across Millbrook, the designers of the buildings and the laborers that completed the work. The talk was recorded and is available to view online at www.millbrookhistoricalsociety.org or the historical society’s YouTube channel.