The brownstone retaining wall beneath the iron fence was cracked and uneven so the masons repaired it as well. I never liked the existing iron fence and wanted to replace it with something that looked more like the original fence that most of my neighbors have. I still had the original gate but was missing the original posts and fence panels.
The image below is of my neighbor’s original fence. I hoped to find this exact design in a salvage yard but didn’t have much luck. The ironworkers did find a matching panel, but it was only panel about 2′ wide. It would have been extremely expensive to custom cast new panels to match the originals, so I decided to find stock decorative iron fence panels that would have the same general look and feel. Since my house is not in a Landmarked district, I was able to choose any fence design I wanted.
Below are some stock cast iron fence panel designs that I considered.
I wanted to mock up a few panels on site before the ironworkers welded everything together. They brought over 4 panels so that I could see the repeat of the pattern. Although this panel design does not match the original fence design, I thought it looked pretty good.
After the metalworkers removed the iron fence, the masons came back to chip off the brownstone retaining wall and apply a new scratch coat. The brownstone finish coat will be applied after the new iron fence is installed.
