The Mystery Of The Copper Topper — Revealed!

How did an antique roof from a New Haven bridge tender’s house end up in an East Shore backyard?

That’s what some of Chuck Mascola’s East Shore neighbors wanted to know after spotting a distinctive copper roof atop a little guest house in the rear of his home. A curious onlooker contacted the Independent to get to the bottom of the mystery.

We found out that Mascola (pictured above), who runs a PR firm in town, managed to salvage a distinctive piece of the old Tomlinson Bridge and repurpose it as the topper to an outbuilding on his seaside property.

In the process, he kept a piece of history in New Haven — and prevented it from becoming a gazebo in California.

On a recent afternoon in his Cove Street backyard, Mascola gave a tour of ​“the little house,” as his family calls it, and shared the full story. He pointed first to two framed original 1922 blueprints for the Tomlinson Bridge. Those plans show two little houses atop the bridge with distinctive arching copper roofs.

One of those buildings was a bridge tender’s house. The other was probably used for storage, said Kevin Nursick, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

The old Tomlinson Bridge (pictured) was a double-leaf bascule bridge with hinged drawbridges, Nursick said. Railroad tracks ran down the middle of the bridge with nothing separating trains from cars. That wasn’t such a great situation, Nursick said. Between 1993 and 2003, the bridge was replaced by a stronger vertical lift bridge with tracks off to one side behind a barrier.

It was some time during construction that a copper roof caught Mascola’s eye as he drove across the bridge. (He’s fuzzy on the exact dates.) When Mascola saw the bridge tender’s house was being taken down, he was struck with a need to salvage a bit of New Haven history.

“Oh my god, what’s happening to that roof?” Mascola recalled thinking.

He talked to construction workers, who told him the roof had already been claimed by an antique dealer in Clinton.

The roof was the contractor’s to sell, said Kevin Nursick, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation DOT. On all DOT construction projects involving historic elements, the department analyzes materials to see if they should be re-used or if they have historic value, Nursick said. If the state finds it has no use for an element, it becomes the property of the contractor, who can ​“throw it on the the scrap heap or take it and throw it on eBay.”

With the roof sold by the construction company, Mascola thought he’d missed his chance.

A year later he found himself at a music festival in Guilford with a friend. Jeffrey Bradley, a Clinton antique dealer, walked by. Mascola’s friend pointed him out as the guy who got the roof. Mascola approached him and found the roof was safe and sound in a warehouse. However, it had already been claimed by a Californian who wanted to ship it to the West Coast to be the roof of a gazebo.

Undaunted, Mascola asked if the Californian had put down a deposit. He hadn’t. Mascola offered the antique dealer a higher price, and sealed the deal.

“I just couldn’t let this thing leave,” Mascola said. He said he couldn’t stand the thought that a piece of local history would end up somewhere in California. He wanted it for his backyard, where it could still adorn the edge of the harbor.

Then he had to go home to his wife and explain that he’d just spent a lot of money on an old metal roof.

Bradley Remembers

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“Aah, Chuck Mascola. I think I sold him a piece of the Tomlinson Bridge,” said Bradley the antiquer, recalling the deal in a phone conversation.

Bradley said the roof caught his eye just the way it had Mascola’s, only sooner.

“As a kid, I fished off the Tomlinson bridge with my uncles,” he said. When the bridge was being rebuilt, Bradley zeroed in on the roof. ​“I took a look at it and said, ​‘What a nice piece of ornamental copper that is.’”

“It had the right patina, the right lip. I’ve got a great art eye. I said, ​‘I have to have that,’” Bradley said.

He arranged to buy it and had it transported to his warehouse in Clinton. Then his friend and fellow salvager Arthur Rossomando connected him with Mascola.

“Chuck came here and looked at it and said, ​‘Mine.’ I said, ​‘Sure, it’s yours,’” Bradley recalled. ​“Since then I’ve never heard from him.” Bradley said he wondered what had happened to the roof.

Mascola Builds

What happened is Mascola had the roof transported to his house on a flatbed truck, then lifted into place on top of a little structure specially built to accommodate it. Years later, the guest house has become a treasured feature of Mascola’s beachfront property.

Inside, all the original beams are still intact. Mascola has outfitted the cozy space with a fold-out couch and chairs and attached a bathroom. His in-laws regularly set up in the guesthouse during the summer, he said.

The best part, he said, is the outdoor shower out back offering views of the ocean. He said he uses it all summer long instead of his shower inside.

The building’s distinctive roof serves as an attraction for people walking by, whether it’s in boats off the shore or walking by on Cove Street, Mascola said. He said he’s always happy to show it to anyone who’s curious.

As for whereabouts of the other copper topper that gleamed atop the Tomlinson Bridge? That, Mascola said, he could not explain.

Bradley couldn’t either. ​“I don’t remember a second bridge tender’s house.”

The Tomlinson Bridge copper topper was just one relic of Bradley’s 40 years of experience salvaging ​“architectural fragments.”

“If there’s a Dumpster, I’m there,” he said.

Bradley has picked up other bits of New Haven history along the way. He said he salvaged 18th century panels from a re-do of the Yale alumni building and turned them into three huge tables. Two he sold to Yale alums, but he’s still got the third, which is 38 feet by 8 feet.

“It’s a real honey of a piece,” he said.

Bradley said he was speaking from a 1740 house in East Haddam that was being torn down. He’d just discovered ​“the most remarkable fireplace” in the basement.

“It’s rare, rare, rare. It’s handbuilt stone. You could drive into it,” he said. ​“Maybe Chuck wants a fireplace.”

(Note: The first eight comments were posted on an earlier version of this story, in which readers were asked to guess where the roof came from.)