In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier—dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading—sparkled in the dim.

It was afternoon before we sat down at the dining-room table under a cobwebby gasolier.

Also intact in the house is an original gasolier, said library director Karen Enderle.

The gasolier was the product of scientific and technological development that was financed by entrepreneurs with the main goal of selling it to the largest number of people possible.

The program shows him shopping for gasolier globes and ransacking salvage yards as well as supervising some spectacular transformations. spoke with Pinchot about the series, his attitude to “restoration,” and whether his homes are his friends or his harem.