Rescued Monument

Progress has always been the great bulldozer, demolishing Greek temples for paving stones and palace walls for slums. How in the New World is the graceful Georgian mansion to withstand the shopping center, or the columned grandeur of Pennsylvania Station to prevail against the flat, glass-curtain wall?

But all over the U.S., citizens are increasingly concerned to hand down to future generations some of the architectural heritage of America's past, and are joining forces to find the ways and means. Their latest victory, and one of the most notable of all, has just been won in the Connecticut industrial and commuting town of Norwalk. There Civil War Profiteer LeGrand Lockwood spent about $1,500,000 to build himself a 60-room chateau that is perhaps the finest example of Victorian architectural extravagance still standing.

Untidy Warren. The four-story granite house is composed of a series of suites grouped around a central rotunda, lit by a skylight that is invisible from the ground. No expense was spared on the interior fittings. Wrote William J. Murtagh, director of education of the National Trust for Historic Preservation: "It has the best frescoed walls I have ever seen in this country, and the lavishness of the marble and wood inlay work almost defies description."

Lockwood finished his chateau in 1867, barely in time for the financial panic of 1873, which ruined him. Sold in 1876 to Manhattan Soft-Drink Magnate Charles D. Mathews, it remained in his family until 1938, when his maiden daughter died and the city took over. The mansion soon served as an untidy office-warren for several city agencies. Voting machines jammed two rooms, old schoolbooks cluttered the marble entrance hall, and the Italian suite was stacked with city records.

It was inevitable that the city begin thinking, as cities do, how nice it would be to have a lovely new steel-and-concrete city hall there, with lots of glass and air conditioning and plenty of electrical outlets for the IBM machines.

Group Effort. At this point, some of the citizens in what is normally a civically unconscious town began to realize what was happening. Led by Manhattan Magazine Editor Carroll Calkins, some 20 of them started what they called the Common Interest Group, which went to work rounding up popular support to save the mansion from the 20th century and for it.

It was a bitter blow for the organizers when the city council decided to pass the buck and put the issue to the voters. Restoration and preservation of the mansion, with the extra money it would cost and the need to find other space for city office work, would certainly be defeated at the polls, they thought.

But when the ballots were counted, the results were 8 to 6 in favor of keeping the Mathews mansion as a historic site. Said Calkins last week: "What happened on election day shows that Americans have a far livelier sense of obligation to the past--and to posterity--than many of our bureaucrats have realized."

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