Company Overview and Preservation Mission of deGruchy Masonry


deGruchy Masonry, Inc. specializes in the restoration of historical brick and stone masonry structures since 1984.

 

 

deGruchy Masonry is taking this proactive approach toward Historical Restoration and Green Building in order to promote the sense of "community" which is rapidly decreasing along with the condition of our vintage buildings.

How Can You Get Involved ?

William Penn called Penn's Woods his "Holy Experiment." Here's how you can help us with our "Holy Experiment" to facilitate a Preservation Training/ Green Building workshop and work toward saving an old structure or building a sustainable new structure:

- Hire us as consultants to put together a Masonry Restoration/Green Build plan and proposal for your church or historical building. This supports our company's yearly budget that includes the goodwill work we do. It will give you a starting point and a qualified opinion of what should be done whether you use our company to actually carry out the work or not.

- Hire us to perform the proposed work for your building. This helps us carry out our mission even more. Consider our offer to hire us to coach and monitor your project with your own crew doing the work. We can even help you select the crew. We believe in sharing the project because we feel it encourages other crews to continue to use the methods and materials that we will demonstrate to them on other similar applications in their region, thus furthering preservation.

- Make a commitment to become aware of the work that a non-profit historical society, church or green advocacy group is doing in your community by clicking on the "Awareness Link" found at the end of this document. If you are not involved with a society then consider involvement or making a tax deductible donation sent to them "earmarked" for their structure's restoration work. Partnering with them with active involvement or choosing to be a silent partner and just help them with your funds will help them love their building back to life and strengthen the fabric of community.

 

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An ever-increasing number of historical landmarks in the U.S.A. are falling into disrepair and neglect. deGruchy Masonry has remained proactive in coming to the aid of historic buildings, especially ones owned by non-profit groups. deGruchy Masonry has been truly honored to work on prestigious sites such as Pennsbury Manor of Bucks County; Stroud Mansion of Monroe County; The James Hoban Memorial, (architect of the White House), District of Columbia; and numerous vintage homes and places of worship in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey. However, our desire to facilitate the preservation of important buildings throughout the U.S.A. has taken us as far away as Puerto Rico to review specifications or many other states to run workshops where local crews will do the work. We are paid in many cases for running workshops but since we also believe in the work that volunteers do to save old buildings, we have also volunteered our time to help guide them.

As a company we maintain our "for-profit" business position by contracting on local work to provide for our families and to keep us strong enough to do this volunteer work. With God's help we will be able to continue to do both.

By following the example of the Apostle Paul as recorded in 2 Thessalonians 3:8, "Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working...so that we might not be a burden to any of you," deGruchy Masonry, Inc. has taken on the position of being an advocate to historic preservation, green building and the conservation of ideals often housed by the presence of a treasured historic structure in a community. We will continue to budget annual funds that cover our own expenses enabling us to provide training for local crews to restore buildings or build new ones using appropriate lime mortars if a society has the volunteers but is short on funds. We attempt to do this for little or no cost for at least one historical structure owned by a non-profit society with a 501 (c) (3) designation under the IRS Code each year.