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BENEVOLENT HOBBYIST BETHLEHEM MAN'S HISTORIC MINIATURES WILL BE PRESERVED AT MORAVIAN MUSEUM

Morning Call - Allentown, Pa. Author: KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS, The Morning Call

Copyright Morning Call Oct 18, 1998

Robert W. Wendler's eye on history comes in small packages.

For more than 20 years, the 87-year-old Bethlehem resident has been preserving Lehigh Valley history in painstaking detail in his foot-high recreations of historic buildings.

What started as a plan to create 40 -- 10 for each of his grandchildren -- mushroomed into a decades-long passion for the retiree, and now Wendler is donating all 101 of his miniature houses to the Whitfield House in Nazareth.

"We think this is a great opportunity and we are looking forward to having them and using them in out exhibits," says Susan Dreydoppel, executive director of the Moravian Historical Society which runs the museum.

Wendler says he decided to give the collection to the museum after he was injured in a fall last spring.

"I'm phasing them out," he says. "I'm working on them when I have time, but it's hard to find time."

Wendler who had displayed his miniatures regularly at crafts shows and arts festivals over the years hasn't shown them since last December.

"It's a lot of work to pack them up and show them," he says. "I'm not getting any younger."

The Moravian Historical Society has valued the collection at more than $500,000, a sum that embarrasses the self-taught Wendler who quickly notes he never received any formal training and only went as far as ninth grade.

"Experience is my best teacher," he says. "Every time I made a building I learned something new."

Although Wendler was making model buildings from old catalog pictures as far back as his childhood in Fountain Hill, he didn't start building historic reproductions in earnest until he retired from Laros Printing Co. in Bethlehem in 1977.

That was when a calender picture of the Henry boarding house in Jacobsburg caught his eye. With his nephew in tow, he went to the building to check out the details.

From there the hobby quickly grew, as Wendler became fascinated with the history behind local buildings. Before starting each model, Wendler would do extensive research to maintain historical accuracy.

Working with his preferred bass wood in his basement "studio," Wendler wielded chisels, X-acto knives and tweezers to assemble tiny tiles, wooden shake shingles and minuscule hand-turned posts. As his collection grew, Wendler became a popular speaker with local groups discussing the history behind his houses.

Wendler recreated both existing historic buildings and those that had been destroyed from Nazareth, Bethlehem, Bath, Easton, Hellertown, Northampton and Quakertown.

His actual total hovers around 160 but many he has given away as gifts including a model of the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and Lower Saucon Church School which he made for the school's rededication. His pride and joy is a reproduction of the Single Brethren's House in Bethlehem. The house with its 118 windows took Wendler three and a half months to complete.

"It was used as a hospital in the Revolutionary War making it perhaps the most historic building in Bethlehem," he says.

Wendler's houses became a regular attraction at Whitfield House's summer Arts and Crafts Festival where he displayed them each year.

"There are always people who come to see them," says Dreydoppel. "People look for them at the Arts and Crafts festival."

When Wendler mentioned to Dreydoppel he'd like to see all his houses displayed together before he dies, she organized a display of the complete collection at the Whitfield House in 1996.

"They filled up three rooms and the hallway," she says. "This place was full of buildings."

In gratitude for the museum's interest in his work, Wendler told Dreydoppel he was going to leave the collection to the museum in his will, so she was surprised when he announced he was donating the collection now.

"They were very good to me," Wendler says of the museum.

Wendler says he offered the buildings to his grandchildren but they said they didn't want to see the collection broken up.

According to Dreydoppel the buildings will be stored in the third floor of the museum and used in changing displays. The model of Bethlehem's Burnside Plantation will be featured in an exhibit on the farmstead's upcoming 250th anniversary. Others will be incorporated into permanent displays such as the model of the Henry Gun Works which is being used in an exhibit about the Jacobsburg factory's guns.

"We'll show them not only as really neat model buildings but also as parts of other exhibits," Dreydoppel says. "In another couple years, we'll bring them all out again."

She says every summer a different group of the models will be displayed, with the exception of the Whitfield House model and the nearby Gray Cottage in Nazareth which will be included every year.

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