BRIGHTON -- In the 99-year-old refectory of St. John's Seminary in Brighton, a cavernous hall with chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling and Italian Renaissance sculptures gracing the walls, there are 11 stately windows to let in sunlight. When the seminarians were sitting down for lunch on Sept. 16, only one of the windows did not illuminate the grand chamber. It was cloaked in a red curtain.

In the summer of 2023, the window fell out of the aging lintel holding it in place, and onto the rector, Msgr. Stephen Salocks. Luckily, he was unhurt. Msgr. Salocks caught the window with his hands, held it above his head, and placed it onto the ground.

"That's not a light window," Peter Silva, former director of facilities for the Archdiocese of Boston, told The Pilot.

The incident with the window was one of many close calls that have been happening at the seminary, which celebrates its 140th anniversary this year. Loose pieces of masonry have had a tendency to fall from the top of the main building, which was constructed in 1884. The masonry of the seminary's Romanesque chapel, built in 1899, is so eroded that construction workers can stick their hands between the stones. Outside the chapel, three little blocks of wood are the only thing holding up a pile of stones slipping away from one of the buttresses.

SJS Vice President for Finance and Administration Tricia Fraser put it succinctly: "The masonry is all out of whack."

"When you have an asset like we do here with this building, the longer it goes without maintaining it, the worse it's going to be," she told The Pilot. "I mean, it could come crumbling down."

A 2019 engineering study found that the masonry and roofing of St. John's Seminary were in serious need of repairs, to the tune of $4.7 million. Earlier this year, Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley managed to secure the funds from an anonymous benefactor.

"It was such a godsend," Fraser said.

The renovation, by Folan Waterproofing and Construction Co., Inc. and Professional Roofing Contractors, began in March. It is scheduled for completion in summer 2025, depending on how harsh the winter is. The hope is that with these repairs, the seminary will last for another 140 years.

"It's a beautiful building, and it's really the heart of where the priests come from," SJS Vice President for Mission Advancement Tomasz Kierul told The Pilot. "So, for His Eminence, it was very important to make sure that we continue our mission of St. John's Seminary, of creating and shaping the priests for the future of our church in New England."

Repairs to the roof were completed in July. Fraser called the original shingles from 1884 "the best shingles you can buy." Those shingles are no longer being manufactured, but the contractor had some in stock from previous renovations of historic buildings. Despite their age, they looked like new. The windows in the refectory will be caulked, cleaned, and repainted. Some of them, originals from 1925, will be replaced.

"You don't just buy them on Amazon," said Silva, who is overseeing the project. "They're custom-made."

On Sept. 16, when The Pilot visited the seminary, the courtyard was filled with cherry pickers shooting to the sky in every direction. Stone saints listened from their pedestals to the din of workers drilling out the old grout connecting the masonry of the faÇade. The removal created thick clouds of dust.

"The grouting process is very intricate," Fraser said.

After the grout is drilled away, the masonry is power washed and a new coat of grout is applied and left to dry. Sometimes, multiple applications are required. Any spoiled or damaged stone will also be replaced.

As the drills roared, Fraser, Silva, and Kierul walked around the perimeter of the seminary and admired its architectural details. Windows high above the ground are framed by intricate decorative carvings that most passersby never notice.

Fraser said that while the seminary's puddingstone and concrete exterior needs repairs, "the bones of the building are good."

"You can't build anything like this anymore," she said.

Project foreman Michael Salotto, who has been working on historic buildings for over 30 years, agreed.

"The older buildings were built to last," he told The Pilot. "The new buildings they're building nowadays, even schools they're spending hundreds of millions on, they will only have a shelf life of 30 years. And these buildings have been around for over 100 years, so the construction and the craftsmanship when this was built is superior."

Salotto grew up near St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. His mother wanted him to be a priest, but he became a construction worker. Covering his left and right arms are reminders of his Catholic roots -- tattoos of St. Michael and Our Lady of Guadalupe.

"I finally made it to the seminary, but not as a priest," he said. "But we're very happy to be working on these types of projects, because you get a lot of gratitude."

The workers start their day at 6:30 a.m., half an hour before the seminarians enter the chapel for morning Mass.

"They're waking them up," Kierul joked.

The drilling stops during Mass. Much of the drilling of classroom walls was done during the summer, so classes are not interrupted. Now that classes are in session, the drilling is happening elsewhere in the seminary.

"One challenge would be to maintain the integrity of the building while you're doing it," said Silva, "and also to allow the activities within the building to continue as if there's nothing going on."

The work must be done carefully so as not to damage anything, especially the historic stained-glass windows. Salotto said that when the stone is replaced, it should be so seamless that it is impossible to tell the new from the old.

"When we do finish the project," he said, "we don't want people to even know we were here."