On August 16, 2001, I visited the Pierre Menard Home in Ellis Grove, Illinois, near Chester and across the Mississippi River from historic Kaskaskia,
to begin research on the project.

Actual work on the ornament began on October 3, 2001, with the construction of a scale model made of lightweight pasteboard. Working from photographs and an inexact floorplan, I developed a version of the house which is true to the original structure, down to the uneven spacing of the windows, doors, and stone columns.
A total of 60 hours went into the construction of the piece,
not counting research, documentation, photography,
and development of packaging for shipment.

The Pierre Menard Home ornament was constructed on a framework of foamcore board. It measures about four and one-half inches deep and seven inches long, and is four and one-half inches tall at its highest point. It is covered with commercial printed cotton fabric to simulate the stone foundation, basement walls, and supports.

The siding consists of nubby white fabric fused to polyester batting and quilted in horizontal lines about one-eighth inch apart to simulate wood siding. The porch is covered with red felt and lined with white-painted toothpicks as columns. The porch railing is represented with white paint on clear plastic sheeting. The windows, shutters, and doors are commercial cotton prints and woven plaids, glued or fused to the fabric surface. It has three chimneys and six dormers. All components are
glued together and reinforced with silk pins.

The roof of the house was sewn in the manner of the siding, but of woven red-and-black plaid homespun-style fabric. This was chosen, not to duplicate the current shake shingles of the house, but to employ a roof replacement done a few decades ago for the festive nature of its application on a piece intended, after all, as a
Christmas ornament.

Sealed under this red roof are:

This quilted ornament was finished on the 15th day of October, 2001,
and I am honored that it graced the Blue Room Christmas tree
and takes its place in the
White House permament collection.