For many visitors, the tropical forest in Highland Park's Lamberton Conservatory is an unforgettable steamy mix of colors and scents. But the conditions that allow the orchids, bromeliads, and palms to flourish - extreme humidity and daytime temperatures in the high 80's - have severely damaged the conservatory's frame, requiring major restoration.

County engineers have started examining the steel frame of the conservatory's tropical-forest chamber - the center section of the conservatory, with the high dome ceiling - to determine whether the rusted bolts and deteriorating joints and seams can be salvaged. But the damage is so extensive, says the county's parks director, Larry Staub, that much of the structure will have to be replaced: a restoration that will cost nearly $1 million.

"Right now, we are still in the initial planning stages," says Staub. "But ideally, we would like to strip off the rust and decay and restore it, saving as much of the original structure as possible. But the conditions in this room, as you can see, are brutal on steel. So we have to think of the practicality of it and whether we will go through all of this work only to be revisiting it again a few years from now."

Glass houses, as they were called, had become enormously popular in Europe and the US by the mid-1800's. The Lamberton Conservatory arrived in Rochester in a box as a glass-house kit created by Buffalo-based Lord and Burnham. Built in 1911, the conservatory was named after Alexander B. Lamberton, the city's parks commissioner from 1890 to 1919.

The Lamberton is Highland Park's main attraction - after the lilacs - and it drew more than 40,000 visitors last year. In addition to the tropical forest, there are displays of desert, house, and crop plants. The seasonal garden, on the west side of the conservatory, changes five times during the year.

"This is the place to work," says Fran Bato, the Lamberton's receptionist. "I tell people that I have the best job in the city, because I get to welcome people to this wonderful place. People come in, and they may be a little anxious or depressed, but they'll walk out of here smiling. It's like therapy, especially in the winter."

This won't be the Lamberton's first restoration. The original conservatory was smaller than the current structure. Widespread deterioration required a renovation in 1988 that replaced the glass and metal frame of both wings. The exterior appearance from Reservoir Avenue changed very little, but with the addition of a visitors center, the entrance was moved to the rear of the building. And the wings of the conservatory were expanded so that they connected, allowing visitors to follow a circular path through different botanical environments.

"The tropical rainforest here under the dome is the only original part of the conservatory," says Staub.

The upcoming restoration had to be planned around the Lilac Festival. "We would like to begin the work immediately," says Staub, "but there is still research that needs to be completed, and all of this has to be handled in a way that doesn't interfere with the festival."

The day after the Lilac Festival ends in May 2008, all of the plants will be removed from the tropical forest and stored in other greenhouses, Staub says, except those that are just too big to be moved. The conservatory will re-open in November, before Thanksgiving Day.

"All of the glass will be removed," says Staub, "and the frame will be stripped of paint and disassembled in some places." About 80 percent of that part of the conservatory's glass is the original. It won't be reused, though, because it's a safety hazard.

"When this glass falls or cracks, it really shatters," says Staub. "And it can break for any number of reasons." It'll be replaced with safety glass, which, says Staub, "doesn't look any different from the other glass." Twenty percent of the existing glass is safety glass.

The conservatory's frame is made of wood and steel. "Most people don't realize it," says Staub, "but the outer skin of the frame on the exterior is believed to be cypress wood. And it has held up incredibly well after all of this time, when you consider that it is exposed to seasonal changes."

The cypress isn't strong enough to hold the glass and the entire structure in place, however. The frame needs the metal reinforcement.

"You can see that's where all the weight is," says Staub. "And that's going to be the real challenge - taking this all apart."

In Rochester, as in many cities, talk of work on a historically significant building like the conservatory sets off alarms. Staub recognizes that.

"Oh, we know how important this place is to the public," he says. "And we're glad that the county has appropriated the funds to preserve it, because these are very tight economic times."

The building isn't a historical landmark. It is, however, located in the city's Mt. Hope-Highland Preservation District, and the area is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"The conservatory has the same level of protection as Highland Park, because it is part of the district," says Cynthia Howk of the Landmark Society. The question, she says, is whether the restoration changes the appearance. "If it's not going to look in kind, then maybe that would have to be reviewed by the city's Preservation Board," says Howk.

Staub refers to the project as "a combination of restoration and repairs."

"We probably won't be able to keep all of the original materials to a purist's standards," he says. "But like I said, you really won't be able to look at this and see any difference from the exterior. Nothing is being added or changed in that sense."

Many of the nation's conservatories are more than 100 years old, so the Lamberton isn't the only one that has needed extensive restoration. One of the largest projects was the four-year, $25 million restoration of the conservatory in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

"This glass structure has had some prior work done," says that conservatory's spokesperson, Nina Sazevich. "But in 1995, we had a wind storm with such force it just literally blew the thing apart. It just looked like it had exploded. The frame - everything - was destroyed. And to make matters worse, there were no documents of how it was constructed. No blueprints, nothing."

As with the Lamberton, the Golden Gate Park conservatory's original glass was replaced with safety glass.

"With all respect to the historical designation, today it really needs to be safety glass," she says. "You've got the public standing in there almost every day of the year, and we wanted to know that we could throw a brick at it and it would bounce off. We never want to go through this ordeal again."

The plants of the forest

Caring for the Lamberton requires at least two full-time employees. Most of the work is still done by hand, says Mark Quinn, the county's superintendent of horticulture. And the restoration won't change that.

"Nothing is on computers or timers or any of that," he says. "It's all manual."

It takes about an hour and a half to two hours every morning to water everything in the tropical-forest area alone.

"Then we fertilize every two weeks, because the tropical plants are very heavy feeders," Quinn says. Fertilizer, heat, and humidity are vital to the tropical forest.

"We'll even hose down the sidewalk in here on a hot day like today," Quinn says, standing in the tropical forest area as the temperature outside heads toward 90, "because it will increase the humidity, and the plants just love it."

While the plants in the Lamberton's tropical forest are not rare, Staub says every effort will be made to retain the current collection, which includes several palms, golden bamboo, a white bird-of-paradise, a 15-foot snowflake tree, heart-shaped red and pink anthurium, and a creeping thunbergia with its trumpet-shaped lavender blooms.

"This is an exotic tropical collection, but they are pretty common plants," says Staub. "None of them are botanically or historically important."

"Remember that this is the perfect environment for the plants in this collection," says Mark Quinn, the county's superintendent of horticulture. "We usually don't have a problem with plants dying. If anything, they'll grow a little out of control. We have to do some periodic heavy trimming, because they will go right out the roof."

The fronds of the Chinese fan palm, the largest specimen in the tropical-forest, can be seen from the street right now.

"During the warmer months, we'll leave the ceiling panels open for some extra air circulation," Quinn says. "The palm will peek through, and some of the vines will get up there, too."

During restoration work in 1988, the county installed a generator to start the two boilers that heat the conservatory in power outages.

"It may be 90 in here right now," says Quinn, "but come November, it will drop down to 30 outside. Glass houses cool off real quickly, so if we lost power it would be freezing in here within a few hours. Things would die off in no time. We could lose the entire collection in a day or two."

Quinn tries to control pests using natural methods as much as possible. He doesn't like using fungicidal and herbicidal sprays.

"We're open all the time, so we don't want the public coming in contact with that," he says. "I can't even remember the last time we sprayed anything in here."

But fungus and insects are not his major pest problem.

"Chipmunks: those guys are the worst," Quinn says. "They come in and make their little burrows into everything. It's a test of wills around here to see who will get to the ripe bananas first."

They've also had woodchucks, rabbits, and birds. And then there was the iguana.

"About 10 years ago," says Quinn, "visitors started coming up to us or leaving notes that said things like, ‘We love your big lizard.' We kept thinking, What the heck are they talking about? But sure enough, someone had come in and decided this was the perfect new home for their pet iguana."

Fortunately, vandals aren't a problem, says Quinn. Neither is plant theft. Instead, says Quinn, visitors sometimes leave plants that have gotten too big for their house. But an iguana was a little more than he was expecting. One of Quinn's co-workers adopted it and took it home with her.

"She had it for quite a few years after that," he says. "The darn thing grew to be 5 feet long. One day it dashed out of her house and got hit by a car. But we did our best to give him a good home."