Rumbled Beale Street pavers were chosen for a “new old looking” patio as the ideal complement for an 1894 Victorian home. The project is on the PBS program, “This Old House,” West Roxbury episode, airing soon.

From a paver plant in Madison, North Carolina to a neighborhood in Bahston, we have just one thing to say:

 

We’re baaaack – y’all.

All photos: Carly O’Brien. Above This Old House personalities Mark McCullough and Jenn Nawada placing Rumbled Beale Street pavers. Below: McCullough laying a 45 degree herringbone pattern.

Last December, we worked closely with producers of PBS’s This Old House, landscaper Jenn Nawada and mason Mark McCullough on a patio project.  We donated English Edge Full Range pavers, along with crusher run and sand, for the repair and renovation of a fire-damaged triple-decker apartment building. We wrote about it here, here, and here.

The building was home to Carol Wideman, a retired accountant who raised her own children and foster children in the house, then shared it with her two sisters and three nephews.

 

In all, Wideman lived in the house for 39 years before it caught fire as the result of fireworks in the neighborhood during a July 4th celebration. No one was injured in the fire but Carol and her family were forced out of the house for over a year.


Notably, the weather played a role in the production. Not surprisingly for New England, a forecasted December blizzard turned everyone on the crew – from on-camera talent to carpenters to plumbing and electrical experts – into paver installers for a day as they moved double-time to get the patio installed.

A new season in West Roxbury

This time around, the timing, the location and the pavers have changed. This time, Pine Hall Brick shipped five cubes, or 520 square feet, of Rumbled Beale Street pavers to West Roxbury, a Boston neighborhood that’s about a half-hour’s drive west of Dorchester.

Nine years ago, Derek Rubinoff and Robyn Marder bought their home, a single-family Victorian that was built in 1894 on former farmland. It was the first home built in a new subdivision and for much of its life, was a single-family dwelling.

 

Fifty years after it was built, the second floor was converted into living space for extended family. When it was converted back, the kitchen cabinets upstairs were taken downstairs but not reattached. The original pantry and wainscoting are worn out, the original windows need to be refurbished or replaced.

Rubinoff himself is an architect and he has drawn up plans to open the wall between the dining room and kitchen and to put in a master suite, a bathroom and a walk-in closet upstairs.

But the outdoors haven’t been overlooked.  Just before Thanksgiving, McCullough, Nawada and workers from Kelstrom Landscape put in a rectangular patio in the backyard.

Beforehand, once the base was in place, three field mock-ups showing a basketweave, a 90-degree herringbone and a 45-degree herringbone, were laid out on the ground to show the homeowners what the possibilities were for the installation. Of the three, the 45-degree angle, all enclosed by a sailor course, won out. The plan is to use more of the pavers for a matching walkway out front from the street to the front steps.

The best part? The rest of the crew took it easy this time out – sat in chairs, drank coffee, did some early Christmas shopping on their smartphones, talked about the Patriots game – as McCullough, Nawada and others did the hard work. Not a snowflake in sight.

The second-best part? We’ll get to see it. This Old House says the plan right now is for the episode on the patio installation to air on PBS in February 2022.

We’ll get the word out when it airs.  .

Check local listings for air times. In North Carolina, This Old House is aired on PBS North Carolina at 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Once the episode airs, it will be available for streaming the following day on PBS.org.

 

Until then, stay tuned.