From Monasteries To McMansions

Scagliola stone may be a manmade faux stone, but its durability and quality blend with its Old-World charm to deliver artistry fit for a castle

By Chuck Ross
CTW Features

Manmade scagliola stone can match the intricacy of carved limestone at a fraction of the cost. Image courtesy of Wells-Vissar

As today’s new homes assume increasingly castle-like proportions, many homeowners are drawn to the Old-World materials and craftsmanship once found in, well, castles. Natural stone in slabs and tile is one such now-standard upgrade, with granite kitchen counters and marble bathroom floors reaching near-cliché status.

However, another Old-World touch is just emerging from truly high-end status, combining stone’s natural stylings with one-of-a-kind artistry to create a truly unique alternative to more mundane finishes.

Scagliola – pronounced “scal-y-ola” – is a faux-stone technique with origins reaching back to Egyptian times. Historians say that 17th Century monks perfected this art, in which a mixture of powdered gypsum, marble chips and pigments can be styled into surprisingly realistic imitations of marble, limestone and other stone materials.

Labor costs weren’t a factor for the monks, who developed scagliola to patch their monasteries’ aging surfaces. As the art form developed, however, practitioners began creating expensive inlaid furnishings and luxurious interiors in faux finishes that far exceeded the friars’ humble DIY efforts. Scagliola reached its peak in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s and early 1900s, adding to the opulence of robber barons’ palaces – and creating a sense of formal authority in statehouses across the United States.

Streamlined mid-century tastes nearly did scagliola in, and its techniques and formulas nearly disappeared. But combined interests in historic preservation and natural-stone finishes have helped resurrect it in the last several decades.

Kathleen Vissar’s scagliola obsession began in the mid 1980s, when she and her former business partner, Amy Wells, landed a job aiding the restoration of the very formal Benjamin Franklin Dining Room at the State Department in Washington, D.C. Scagliola covers double-height columns lining either side of this impressive space.

Image courtesy of François & Co.

The duo, partners in the company Wells-Vissar that Vissar now owns, then scoured out the Library of Congress for formulas, and mixed up innumerable batches of chips, gypsum and pigments in search of just the right combination. The high-end design community quickly recognized the appeal of a manmade stone that could be custom blended to match even the most ornate marble’s patterning – as well as any room’s décor.

“Our first client was Mark Hampton,” Vissar says, dropping the name of the decorator who, in the 1980s and 1990s, helped promote country-home classiness in his plans for Barbara Bush’s White House and innumerable East Coast summer “cottages.” “He bought a ton of it. That gave us a lot of confidence to keep going.”

Thierry François, owner of Atlanta-based François & Co., grew up surrounded by old stone in his native France. And, with half of his family drawing on Italian roots, he also was exposed to the work of the earliest scagliola practitioners, in the churches and monasteries where they had practiced their trade originally. Studying with an Italian master of the craft, François learned the difference between the craftsmanship needed to make this unique material, versus that which was involved in creating cast-stone products.

“You can form stone today, but scagliola is all about the quality of the finish,” he says. “And you can only get that quality by hand.”

François offers a line of mantels and stove hoods, with classical lines that would be equally at home in a French chateau as in any modern McMansion. In fact, many of these products are directly modeled on original pieces from several centuries ago. François frequently purchases mantels and other pieces from European sources and uses these originals to form the molds that become his scagliola creations.

“We’re doing some amazing replicas of pieces that are 500 to 600 years old,” he says.

While the lines and details may match those of centuries-old originals, these new mantels also can be tinted to match the surrounding décor. And the material can offer savings over carved-stone creations, François says. For example, an intricately patterned mantel carved from real limestone could cost up to 40 percent more than a scagliola version, he says. His scagliola mantels start at $2,500 and range up to $15,000.

But scagliola’s stone-like charms aren’t limited to large-scale mantels, panels and hoods. François also offers smaller corbels, which can be used as decorative architectural accents. And Wells-Vissar has developed several lines of tile and tile accents that could be used to create a luxe look that’s uniquely your own. Though certainly more expensive than ceramic products, or even most natural-stone field tiles, the products can be customized to match your color scheme and add a hand-crafted feel to any kitchen or bath.

“You can buy your $6-per-square-foot field tile and embellish it” with scagliola, Vissar says. Her 4-by-4-inch field tile runs approximately $60 per square foot, with decorative moldings starting at approximately $50 per linear foot. “So you’ve taken an installation that’s very plain and turned it into a Roman bathroom – it becomes ornamental and Old World.”

This is the approach adopted by customers selecting scagliola from Tampa, Fla.-based Marla Davidson Tile and Stone Co. Though the material can be used to create stunning stove hoods – François & Co. offers models starting at $5,000 – Davidson’s customers have opted to simply trim their hoods in scagliola-crafted accent tile, according to Janice Froelich, a Marla Davidson associate. The added investment provides wow-factor returns her customers appreciate.

“What’s so great about it is the feel of it – it’s very tactile,” Froelich says. “Also the look – it gives a lot of dimensionality.”

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