Supporting History

Swiss-Born Stone Mason and Son Have the ‘Right Stuff’ To Restore Historic Trinidad Synagogue
Father taught son special skills needed to restore 1889 Temple Aaron

Originally published in Colorado History NOW, March 2006

Suspended on scaffolding fifty feet above the ground, master stone mason John Hofmann discovered a way to save one of Colorado’s architectural treasures—Temple Aaron in Trinidad.

Hofmann, 78, learned his specialized craft in his hometown of Bern, Switzerland. He started at age 16, learning how to repair buildings from the 13th through the 16th centuries. Hofmann, who is battling cancer, is passing this special knowledge on to his son Rudi, who is working alongside his father to restore Temple Aaron.

Hofmann’s skills were desperately needed when Temple Aaron’s small congregation came to the State Historical Fund for help to save their historic building. The synagogue was literally falling down.

“The walls were bowing and the building was in urgent need of stabilization,” said Estella Cole, preservation specialist with the State Historical Fund. “It was in such bad shape, we didn’t know how we were going to save it.”

Temple Aaron is the oldest synagogue in Colorado that has remained in the same location, high on a hill above downtown Trinidad. The building was constructed by twelve Jewish immigrant families in 1889 for $8,050. It is a combination of Victorian and Moorish architecture, which is unusual for the area. According to an early article in the Trinidad Daily Citizen, the building was “a thing of beauty, a perfect gem.” Today the temple is a Colorado treasure in need of a multi-million dollar restoration.

“Temple Aaron is vitally important to us because we wouldn’t have a congregation without this building,” said Kathryn Rubin, Temple Aaron member since 1946. “It is the glue keeping us together.”

The State Historical Fund has awarded $400,200 in grants to restore the beautiful landmark; the exterior restoration is about one quarter completed. The masonry repairs are a challenge because the outer layer of brick, or wythe, is buckling away from the building, causing cracked and bowed walls. The exterior wythe of brick needs to be tied back into the inner layers to stabilize the building.

The northwest wall, which was the most deteriorated, was restored last spring, thanks to the ingenious and intrepid Hofmanns and architect Belinda Zink. They employed a specialized apparatus known as the “hydromobile”—a scaffold that reaches more than fifty feet off the ground, can take up to eight tons of weight, and has the capacity to move up and down.

The Hofmanns took the wall apart around the upper story windows, moving the 1,200-pound stone lintel using canvas slings, chains, and a crane. Then they reassembled the wall and the lintel, connecting the layers of brick with specially-made steel brackets that cannot be seen.

“It is some of the most amazing preservation work I have ever seen,” said Cole. “The architect and stone mason team had to figure out how the building was constructed in order to design a plan to stabilize it.”

Danger is part of the job and the Hofmanns are careful to keep themselves safe. “Temple Aaron is tricky because it sits on a hill, so it’s hard to get the scaffolding level,” said Rudi Hofmann. “So you are thirty feet above the street and then fifty feet off the ground, manipulating stones that can weigh about 1,200 pounds apiece. It’s important to go slow and think about what you are doing.”

Another challenge is finding matching stone to replace materials that were deteriorated beyond repair. “The stone for the sills and lintels probably came from a quarry in Trinidad that’s now at the bottom of the lake,” John Hofmann said. “We did some investigation and finally found a place in Longmont that had a boulder from Utah that matched the stone.”

Hofmann has helped restore historic landmarks across the country. In Colorado he worked on the governor’s mansion, the Boulder County Courthouse, and seven buildings in Larimer Square.

Work on the Temple Aaron restoration has been delayed several times because the elder Hofmann was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2003. Chemotherapy treatment has put the cancer into remission, but the thought of losing John Hofmann and his specialized expertise saddens preservationists across the state.

“There aren’t too many people left in Colorado with this kind of expertise,” said Alyson McGee, outreach coordinator at the State Historical Fund. “It is becoming a lost art.”

Happily, Rudi Hofmann has acquired his father’s skill in masonry, as well as the elder Hofmann’s love of preservation. “Ever since I was a little kid I watched my dad work,” said Rudi Hofmann, who also runs a residential framing business in Cañon City. “A lot of historic buildings are out there and I want to see them last.”

“My son is as good as I am at this work,” said John Hofmann.

BY LAURIE DUNKLEE, Public Relations Specialist for the State Historical Fund

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