Darryl Branch carries a piece of wood Sept. 20 as workers disassemble one of Connecticut College's steel houses on campus in New London, Conn. Steel panels from the house will be shipped to Philadelphia and rehabilitated there until they're ready to be shipped back and reassembled to look as it did in 1933.

NEW LONDON, Conn. — Shedding paint flakes the size of dinner plates, the rusty steel house huddled in a corner of Connecticut College's campus appeared for years to be more of an eyesore than an historic treasure.

As one of few 1930s steel houses of its type still standing nationwide, though, the prefabricated cottage holds a pedigree on par with many better-known architectural jewels — and now it's getting its chance to shine again.

A crew of restoration specialists spent much of the past week dismantling the boxy two-bedroom, 800-square-foot structure and meticulously marking each piece to be sent to a Philadelphia conservation firm.

Once every panel, beam and other items are cleaned of corrosion and special rust-resistant treatments are applied, they'll be returned to New London next year. Then, it will be reassembled on the same foundation where Winslow Ames had the structure erected in 1933 after falling in love with the so-called “homes of tomorrow” that year at the World's Fair in Chicago.

Ames, founding director of the Lyman Allan Art Museum adjacent to the Connecticut College campus, rented the yellowish-gray painted steel cottage to Navy officers and other tenants until he moved to Missouri in 1949 and sold it to the college.

It was used as faculty housing through 2004, when the cost and trouble of upkeep became so great that the college stopped renting it out and removed the plumbing and heating. It deteriorated quickly as the college, unsure what to do with it and unaware of its historic value, focused its efforts and money on other projects.

“It looked like what people might have thought of as an old rusty shed,” said Douglas Royalty, a conservation specialist overseeing the restoration with the college's art history department chairwoman, Abigail Van Slyck.

“But when I first saw it,” he added, “I could tell that the college had something really special here.”

The restoration project is being funded with more than $100,000 in grants from the Dr. Scholl Foundation, the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation and other donations.

The building will eventually be used to house Connecticut College student groups that encourage conservation, such as its clubs for bicycling advocacy, renewable energy and sustainable gardening.