Bronson Place in 2019, the brick on the corner and the arcade reading as one even cream
Case File 091

Blending the Clocktower Brick at Bronson Place

The brick on this community went up off color, worst of all on the clocktower everybody looks at. The company that made the brick hired the correction rather than see it torn out. It was photographed again twenty-five years later and certified then.

Case No. 091
Structure Community with clocktower
Location Michigan
Stained 1994
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 25 years, Platinum level

1994

  1. A brick clocktower during the 1994 work, the shaft under its two clock faces blotched with pale and grey patches During, 1994 View this photo larger
  2. A single-storey wall on the community during the 1994 work, cream brick with soldier courses banding it above and below During, 1994 View this photo larger

What was wrong

Discoloration, and most of it high up where nobody could miss it. The file names the place: a lot of discoloration in the clocktower and surrounding areas. Under that sat a second fault, directional texture, meaning the faces took the light differently depending on which way each unit had been laid.

The brick manufacturer hired the work. Not the owner and not the mason: the company that supplied the brick treated the color of a finished community as its own problem.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit, in both directions at once. The phrase in the file is lightened and darkened brick to create a better match, which is the part most people do not expect. Correcting a blend means bringing some units down as well as bringing others up. It took over three weeks.

2019, twenty-five years on

  1. The arcaded entrance at Bronson Place in 2019, the brick corner, the arch heads and the wing beyond all one even cream 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The same clocktower in 2019, the brick an even cream on every face from the cornice down to the roofline 25 Years After View this photo larger
  3. Close view of the brick around a bay window in 2019, the units holding one cream range across every course 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The clocktower above the community buildings in 2019, the frame carrying the Brickman Certified stamp After, 2019 View this photo larger

What twenty-five years prove

Same clocktower, same walls, and a blend that is still the blend it was mixed to. On the certification scale that is Platinum, the top band, which covers twenty years and over. As of 2026 the work is thirty-two years old, and the 2019 certification is the most recent record on it.

The signed file

Every certified job gets the same form, signed on the day someone goes back to the building. This is the one for case 091, transcribed beside the scan so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

Scan of the case study form for case 091, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Bronson Place (1994)
Level
Platinum, the top band. The scale runs Bronze at seven to nine years, Silver at ten and over, Gold at fifteen and over, Platinum at twenty and over.
Hired by
The brick manufacturer
Reason for project
Complaint or problem
Issue
"A lot of discoloration in the clocktower and surrounding areas."
What was corrected
"MCI lightened and darkened brick to create a better match."
Storyline
"A lot of directional texture problems and also color issues that we worked on for over three weeks to create a better blend."
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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