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2 0 | M A C O N M A G A Z I N E A P R I L / M A Y 2 0 1 8 HAY HOUSE SPRING STROLL Enchanting gardens and historic home interiors await your discovery during Spring Stroll of Macon Houses and Gardens, hosted by Hay House on May 4-6. Amble at your leisure through blooming private gardens in the Stanislaus neighborhood during the ever-popular Garden Tour. Explore blooming landscapes featuring all manner of outdoor spaces, many replete with various water features, all within walking distance of one another. On Sunday, after the last garden tour, The Stanislaus Morning Gardeners will sponsor a specially ticketed High Tea at the renowned Villa Theresa. The Historic Interiors Tour will include properties throughout InTown Macon as well as Vineville and Cherokee Heights. This year's tour features houses and churches by local Macon architects, dating from 1836 to 1940. Ticket holders will receive a complimentary tour of Hay House, which will feature the Florabrilliance Flower Exhibit – unique flower arrangements by local florists on the main levels of Hay House. Also happening during the event are a free garden market on the lawn, along with free garden seminars. Hay Lore An ongoing series about Hay House lore, traditions and history THE GREAT STAIRCASE WINDOW, called the "Lord Byron Window," is just one of the many features that draws visitor interest at the Johnston-Felton-Hay House. Documented as original to the house's construction, it appears in a photograph taken of the rear of the newly-completed mansion about 1860. e window incorporates both enameled glass (painted and fired) in its larger panels, and true colored glass with painted decoration in the centers, as well as the painted portrait in the top circular pane of George Gordon, Lord Byron. It has long been assumed that this portrait was placed in the composition because of Anne Tracy Johnston's passion for the poetry of Lord Byron. Indeed, lines from these works appear in her travel journal from the 1851 Grand Tour. However, a 1925 article from the Macon Telegraph, discovered by Hay House board member Julie Groce, indicated that this circular pane with the Byron image was actually a replacement for an original "canopy" lost or broken in shipment of the window. e window has suffered many vicissitudes including the tornado of 1954 when some panes were lost (replaced by painted, unfired glass imitations). e window was restored in 2006 with replacement of the unfired glass pieces but with some portions of the window "archived" and replaced with copies of the panes. In July 2016, tragedy struck the piece once more when a severe thunderstorm and high winds shattered a number of panels in the lower sash. With some funds raised to supplement insurance proceeds, Hay House accepted a proposal for restoration from Nigel Johnson of Cohoes Stained Glass in Cohoes, New York. Johnson, who trained in stained glass conservation at Canterbury Cathedral in England, has restored many important historic windows in the U.S., such as those of St. omas Episcopal Church in New York, Trinity Church on Copley Square in Boston, and of various state capitol buildings. e project took 14 months, in which time, the entire window was disassembled and then put back together, completely re-leaded and re-camed. Shattered pieces were edge-glued and those few that could not be restored were replicated. e leading expert on American stained glass studied the window in Johnson's studio and adjudged it to be the work of the first American stained-glass makers: the Scottish Gibson brothers, who established a manufactory in New York City in 1833. Johnson determined that the Byron image was indeed unrelated to the rest of the window in artistry or form and obviously the work of another maker. e Lord Byron window has returned to Hay House cleaner and brighter than before and its mirror image once again projects in late afternoon sunlight on the adjacent wall as it did for 156 years before the storm. – JONATHAN POSTON, DIRECTOR OF HAY HOUSE Briefs