For more than 100 years, the gold dome atop the old Farmers and Mechanics Bank has stood watch over the intersection of Wisconsin and M streets in the center of Georgetown.
As with most things a century old, time and weather has taken its toll on the gold dome, and PNC Bank, which now owns the building, is having it re-gilded.
"This is such a landmark space for all of Washington, D.C., and we wanted to do it right. It was not a space that we were going to do kind of half-dollar. We wanted to make the right investment for a landmark space that we have here in Washington, D.C." said Jermaine Johnson, regional president of PNC Bank.
The work is delicate, painstaking and expensive.
Locally-owned Gilders Studio, renowned for its work around the world, is re-gilding the dome.
"We're native Washingtonians and we have looked at this dome for years, and when it started to deteriorate, you know, 10-15 years ago, we really thought, 'We really want to do that, and we're so happy that we were able … to do that, and it's here in D.C. It's local," Gilder Studio's Michale Kramer told News4.
The gilders are artisans who are specially trained in the time-honored technique.
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Kramer has been a guilder for more than 40 years, and worked on many D.C.-area landmarks during that time.
"We did the whole interior of Union Station several years ago after the earthquake. We also did the Mormon Temple right off the Beltway. We did all the spires and the Angel Moroni," he said. "We did the State Library in the old Executive Office Building also, which was over 70,000 different pieces of ornament that all had to be individually gilded."
The gold leaf Kramer and others are applying to the dome at the Georgetown bank is 99% pure gold.
"It's a very heavy weight gold that we had made, especially for this project, in Italy. And it translates into about a third of a gram of gold per square foot up there," Kramer said.
Like most artists, gilders use highly specialized tools, including one made with squirrel hair.
"This is a squirrel hair brush, costs over $100. … and it doesn't readily scratch the gold," Kramer said.
The scaffolding around the bank's dome is set to come down soon. Kramer said the cost of the gold leaf is about $60 per square foot.
