Robert Mills's Architectural Drawings for the New London Custom House
Eleven watercolor drawings for the New London Custom House have survived on the premises since Mills drew them in 1833. At the suggestion of Custom House Maritime Museum director Susan Tamulevich, Gene MacMullan fashioned a handsome clamshell box for the folio in 2019.
Robert Mills is best known for designing the Washington Monument, the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Patent Office in the nation's capital. Among other government buildings he designed Custom Houses for Middletown, Conn., and New Bedford and Newburyport, Mass., in addition to New London. He is the subject of the first exhibit in this series: choose Browse Exhibits at the top of these pages and scroll down to Robert Mills, The Greek Revival, and New London's Historic Custom House.
Because the Mills drawings are large and the folio is thin, the protective box had to be both sturdy and shallow. To prevent warping, Gene fashioned double-layered boards for the top and bottom panels.
