The Mountain View Cemetery is located in the Oakland Hills district of Oakland, Ca. It is a stunningly beautiful location with gorgeous landscaping and architecture throughout. The 226 acre cemetery and mausoleum was established in 1863 and is the resting place of many historical California figures.
Our project took place in the Mausoleum/Columbarium building. One of the main hallways of the mausoleum was constructed with a “barrel” skylight ceiling. Much of the skylight was constructed so that one piece of glass with no “leading” sat in one frame opening. These are flat pieces of glass sitting in a barrel shaped frame but looking at them from the floor they appear to be bent to fit. Other than in need of cleaning, these needed no repair or restoration.
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There are five rows of three stained/leaded glass pieces running across the barrel and spaced evenly the full length of the hall. Each of these was 36” x 36”. The 15 panels had suffered a great deal of sagging and bowing and were in danger of falling out. The stress of the sagging had caused damage to the glass and the lead. Our project was to remove these, repair, restore and re-install them. Additionally, we cleaned the upper side of all the glass of the barrel ceiling and completed a few other repairs and re-builds while there.
The original design of the panels was flawed. Not enough support was built into the lead structuring. We solved this by adding 4 new support pieces to each panel as we repaired and re-built them.
I have included several pictures of the project from beginning to end. Salvaging and restoring stained glass is a passion of ours. We enjoy nothing more than knowing we have restored art to its’ original glory.
For more interesting information on the cemetery, including notable in burials see the Wikipedia Article and the Mountain View Cemetery Web Site.