HALLS AND STAIRCASES
The hall is of particular moment in the design of a house. There guests
are welcomed to the fireside, and there their first impressions of the
home are formed. The architectural treatment of the hall sets the
keynote of the entire home interior, so to speak. Its doorways and open
arches frame vistas of the principal adjoining rooms, and its staircase,
usually winding, affords a more or less complete survey of the whole
house from various altitudes and angles. It is the place where the
master puts his best foot foremost, as the expression goes, and happily
the recognized utilitarian features of the typical Colonial hall permit
a notable degree of elaboration at once consistent and beautiful.
Throughout the feudal period of the Middle Ages the hall was the main
and often the only living, reception and banquet room of castles,
palaces and manor houses. It was the common center of home activities.
There the lord and family retainers, servants and visitors were
accommodated, and all the common life of the household was carried on.
In early times there were, besides the hall, only a few sleeping rooms,
even in the greatest establishments. Later, more retired rooms were
added, and gradually the hall became more and more an entranceway or
passageway in the house, communicating with its different parts.
When houses began to be built more than a single story in height, the
staircase became an important feature of the hall, and balconies were
also introduced overlooking this great room, which was often the full
height of the building. In fact, balconies were for a time more
conspicuous than staircases, which were frequently located in any
convenient secluded place. However, as builders came to appreciate more
fully the attractiveness of this utilitarian structure, when embellished
with suitable ornament, the staircase was accorded a more prominent
position. Eventually it became the most important architectural feature
of the hall, for the most part supplanting the balcony, which was in a
measure replaced by the broad landings of broken, winding and wing
flights.
Throughout the Georgian period of English architecture, the hall of the
better houses retained something of the size and aspect of the great
halls of feudal days, while at the same time accommodating the staircase
and serving as a passageway leading to the principal rooms on the
various floors. In the more pretentious houses of the period they were
the scene of dancing and banqueting on special occasions, and for that
reason were of spacious size, often running entirely through the
building from front to back with the staircase located in a smaller side
hall adjoining. Where space or expense were considerations, or where
spacious parlors and drawing-rooms rendered the use of the hall for
social purposes unnecessary, the staircase ascended in various ways at
the rear of the main hall, usually beyond a flat or elliptical arch,
where it added very materially to the effectiveness of the apartment
without detracting at all from the use of the front portion as a
reception room.
Such halls as the latter are as typical of the better Provincial
mansions of Philadelphia, especially its countryseats, as of the
plantation houses of Virginia and the early settled communities farther
south. In the city residences of Philadelphia, built in blocks as
elsewhere, the halls were of necessity narrower, mere passageways
notable chiefly for their well-designed staircases, which consisted for
the most part of a long straight run along one side with a single turn
near the top to the second-floor passageway directly above that to the
rear of the house on the floor below. In a few of the earlier country
houses there are, however, halls reminiscent of medieval times, for the
influences of the mother country were very strong in Philadelphia, and
its Colonial architecture displays marked Georgian tendencies, some of
it the very earliest Georgian characteristics still somewhat influenced
by the life and manners of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
At Stenton, the countryseat of James Logan, to which detailed reference
has been made in a previous chapter, there is a hall and staircase
arrangement such as can be found only in some of the earliest
eighteenth-century country houses. This great brick-paved room
wainscoted to the ceiling, with a fireplace across the right-hand
corner, reflects the hall of the English manor house, which was a
gathering place for the family and for the reception of guests, as
instanced by the reception tendered to LaFayette in the great hall at
Wyck on July 20, 1825.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXII.--Inside of Front Door, Whitby Hall;
Palladian Window on Stair Landing, Whitby Hall.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIII.--Window Detail, Parlor, Whitby Hall; Window
Detail, Dining Room, Whitby Hall.]
Admirable bolection molded wood paneling of the dado and wall space
above, a heavy molded cornice and high, fluted and slightly tapering
pilasters standing on pedestals flanking the entrances on all four sides
indicate more eloquently than words the charm of white-painted interior
woodwork. As in many houses of equally early date, the absence of a
mantel over the fireplace is characteristic, yet it seems a distinct
omission in beauty and usefulness. Through the high arched opening in
the rear, with its narrow double doors, is seen the winding staircase in
a smaller stair hall beyond. In this hallway stands an iron chest to
hold the family silver, the cumbrous old lock having fourteen
tumblers. Above there are wooden pegs in the wall on which to hang hats.
The broad staircase with its plain rectangular box stair ends is one of
unusually simple stateliness, yet typical of the sturdy lines of
Philadelphia construction, the window with its built-in seat on the
landing being an ever pleasing arrangement. Severely plain square newels
support an exceptionally broad and heavy handrail capped with dark wood,
while attractive turned balusters of distinctive pattern complete a
balustrade of more than ordinarily substantial character. A nicely
paneled dado with dark-capped surbase along the opposite wall greatly
enriches the effect.
About the middle of the eighteenth century wide halls leading entirely
through the center of the house from front to back were common in large
American houses. Where country houses had entrance and garden fronts of
almost equal importance, with a large doorway at each end of the hall,
the staircase was usually located in a small stair hall to one side of
the main hall and at the front or back, as happened to be most
convenient with respect to the desired floor plan. Where a small door at
the rear opened into a secluded garden, the staircase was located at the
rear of the main hall with the door under the staircase. In either case
the staircase took the form of a broken flight, with a straight run
along one wall rising about two-thirds of the total height to a broad
landing across the hall where the direction of the flight reversed. The
landing was usually lighted by a large round-topped Palladian window
which provided one of the most charming features of the interior as well
as the exterior of the house. Inside it was often graced by the "clock
on the stairs", a handsome mahogany chair or a tip-table with
candlesticks for lighting guests to their rooms.
Whitby Hall at Fifty-eighth Street and Florence Avenue, Kingsessing,
West Philadelphia, offers a notable instance of this latter type of hall
and staircase. The wide hall extends entirely through the western wing,
the main entrance being on the flag-paved piazza of the south front. On
the north front there is a tower-like projection in which the staircase
ascends with a broad landing across the rear wall and a low outside door
beneath. This unusual arrangement permits side windows on the landing in
addition to the great Palladian window in the middle, so that both the
upper and lower halls are flooded with light.
A great beam architecturally embellished with a complete entablature
with pulvinated frieze, the soffit of the architrave consisting of small
square molded panels, spans the hall over the foot of the stairs along
the line of the rear wall of the western wing. It is supported on
opposite sides by well-proportioned fluted pilasters with nicely tooled
Ionic capitals and heavy molded bases. Thus the staircase vista from
the front end of the hall is framed by an architectural setting of rare
beauty. The heavy cornice of the beam, with its molded and jig-sawed
modillions, continues all around the hall ceiling, the turned and molded
drops of the newels on the floor above tying into it very pleasingly
over the stairs. A molded surbase and skirting, with a broad expanse of
plastered wall between, provides an effective dado all around the hall.
Where it follows up the stairs, it corresponds to the handrail of the
balustrade opposite. The molding is the same; there is the same upward
sweep of the ramped rail, and it is also capped with dark wood. On the
landing dainty little fluted pilasters support the surbase, their fine
scale lending much grace and refinement. One notices there also the
beautiful beveled paneling of the window embrasures, the paneled soffit
of the Palladian window and its built-in seat. The balustrade is of
sturdy conventional type characteristic of the period. Two attractively
turned balusters grace each stair, their bases alike and otherwise
differing only in the length of their tapering shafts. The newel
treatment is especially appropriate, inasmuch as it reflects the Ionic
order, the balustrade winding scroll-fashion about a slender fluted
colonnette, and the first stair tread taking the outline of the rail
above. Graceful scroll brackets adorn the stair ends beneath the molded
projections of the treads. Altogether this is one of the most notable
halls of this type in Philadelphia.
The oldest part of Whitby Hall as it now stands was erected in 1754 by
James Coultas, wealthy merchant, shipowner, soldier and enthusiastic
promoter of many public and philanthropic enterprises. In 1741 he
established himself in a house then existing on the plantation that
corresponds to the present east wing, which was reconstructed with rare
fidelity in 1842 to match the western wing erected by Colonel Coultas.
The walls of the entire present house all around are of nicely squared
and dressed native gray stone, and to afford extra protection against
prevailing winds a penthouse with coved cornice runs along the northern
and western ends at the second-floor level. The gables of the west wing
face north and south with quaint oval windows to light the attic. A
flag-paved piazza extends across the south front, forming part of the
main entrance, while in a tower projection on the north front is located
the staircase already described. Both the hall doorway and windows in
this tower have brick trim, an unusual feature, while the bull's-eye
light in the tower pediment, also set in brick trim, was a porthole
glass from one of Colonel Coultas' ships.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXIV.--Ceiling Detail, Solitude; Cornice and
Frieze Detail, Solitude.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXV.--Independence Hall, Independence Square Side.
Begun in 1731.]
As a merchant and in numerous other private enterprises, Colonel Coultas
amassed a substantial fortune. From 1744 to 1755 he was the lessee of
the Middle Ferry, where Market Street bridge now stands, and it was
chiefly due to his initiative that steps were first taken to make the
Schuylkill River navigable. He was one of the commissioners who surveyed
the stream and the first to demonstrate that large boats could be taken
above the falls. In 1748 he was a captain of the Associates, a battery
for the defense of Philadelphia against French insolence, and in 1756
during the Indian uprisings he became lieutenant-colonel of the county
regiment. He was repeatedly justice of the peace, high sheriff of the
county from 1755 to 1758, and in 1765 was appointed judge of the
Orphans' Court, Quarter Sessions, and Common Pleas. He carried on a farm
in Blockley, operated a sawmill on Cobb's Creek north of the Blue Bell
Inn, was a devout vestryman and enthusiastic huntsman. He it was who
laid the corner stone of the Church of St. James in 1762, and as a
member of the Colony in Schuylkill and the Gloucester Fox Hunting Club
he was also prominently identified with the more convivial activities of
the community.
On Colonel Coultas' death in 1768, Whitby Hall was inherited by his
niece, Martha Ibbetson Gray, and later passed by inheritance to her
great-great-grandchildren in the Thomas family, in whose hands it still
remains.
Eloquently typical of the broad hall running entirely through the house
from front to back, with the staircase located in a smaller side hall,
is the arrangement at Mount Pleasant to which reference has already been
made in a previous chapter. It is one which affords delightful vistas
through the outside doorways at each end and an ample open space for
dancing on occasion. Handsome doorways along the sides open into the
principal rooms and are notable for their beautifully molded architrave
casings and nicely worked pedimental doorheads. In fact, the woodwork
here, as well as that throughout the house, is heavier and richer in
elaboration of detail than usual in Georgian houses of the North, the
classic details of the fluted pilasters and heavy, intricately carved
complete entablature being pure mutulary Doric and more ornate than the
Ionic detail of Whitby Hall. However, this was quite in keeping with the
larger and more pretentious character of the former. The entablature is
a positive triumph in cornice, frieze and architrave. The moldings are
of good design and carefully worked; the guttae of the mutules, the
triglyphs with paneled metopes between, and the guttae of the architrave
all closely follow the classic order and exemplify the finest hand
tooling of the period.
So similar as a whole yet so different in detail are the staircase hall
of Mount Pleasant and the staircase end of the main hall at Whitby Hall
that they invite comparison. In general arrangement they are much the
same, except that the staircases are reversed, left for right. As at
Whitby Hall a flat arch frames the staircase vista, a great beam bearing
the entablature surrounds the hall at the ceiling, spanning the entrance
to the staircase hall and being supported by square, fluted columns. In
this smaller hall a simple, though only a molded cornice in harmony with
that of the main hall suffices. Unlike the plain dado of the main hall,
however, elaborated only by a molded surbase and skirting, a handsome
paneled wainscot runs around the staircase hall and up the stairs. The
spacing and workmanship displayed in this heavily beveled and molded
paneling could hardly be better. At the foot of the flight, on the
landing and at the head of the stairs, the ramped surbase with its dark
wood cap, corresponding to the handrail opposite, is supported by
slender fluted pilasters which materially enrich the effect. The space
under the lower run of the staircase is entirely paneled up with a small
diagonal topped door opening into the little closet thus afforded. The
scroll-pattern stair ends, balustrade and spiral newel treatment are
much the same as at Whitby Hall. Although similar in pattern the
balusters are more slender and placed three instead of two on each
stair.
On the second floor, as below, the hall extends entirely through the
house, and following a frequent custom of the time was finished in a
different order of architecture, the pulvinated Ionic being chosen, no
doubt, for its lighter grace and greater propriety adjoining
bedchambers. In furtherance of this thought, only the cornice with its
jig-sawed modillions was employed at the ceiling and the flat dado was
paneled off by the application of moldings to give it a lighter scale.
The complete entablature was used only over the archway at the head of
the stairs, where it was supported by square, fluted columns with
beautifully carved capitals. Another mannerism of the time is the
variation in the treatment of the doorways, the pedimental doorheads on
one side being broken, whereas the others are not.
But the handsomest features of this upper hall are the Palladian
windows, admitting a flood of light at each end, with their rectangular
sashes each side of a higher, round-arched central window and a
delightful arrangement of curved sash bars at the top. The many small
panes lend a pleasing sense of scale, while the architectural treatment
of the frames adds to the charm of the interior woodwork quite as
materially as to the exterior facade. In working out the scheme, the
entire Ionic order is utilized on a small scale. Both the casings and
the mullions take the form of fluted square columns with typical carved
capitals. These support two complete entablatures forming the lintels of
the rectangular windows and being carried around into the embrasure of
the central window, the keyed arch of which springs from the
entablatures. It is a design which has never been improved upon.
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVI.--Independence Hall, Chestnut Street Side.]
[Illustration: PLATE LXXVII.--Independence Hall, Stairway; Liberty Bell,
Independence Hall.]
The hall and staircase at Cliveden combine distinctive characteristics
of the halls at Stenton and Mount Pleasant. As at Stenton, the hall
itself consists of a large reception room centrally located, and about
which the other principal rooms of the house are grouped. Through an
archway at the rear is a slightly narrower though spacious staircase
hall extending through to the back of the house, where the broken
staircase rises to a broad landing and the direction of the run
reverses. The architecture is as pure Doric as at Mount Pleasant, but of
the denticulated rather than the mutulary order, and altogether more
satisfactory for interior trim in wood. The cornice only is carried
around the room at the ceiling, and in the staircase hall only the
cymatium and corona of the cornice; but over the archway, supported by a
colonnade of four fluted round columns, a complete entablature with
nicely worked classic detail is employed and given added emphasis by
several inches' projection into the reception hall. The columns are
spaced so as to form a wide central archway flanked by two narrow ones,
the effect being a staircase vista unexcelled in the domestic
architecture of Philadelphia. The picture is enriched by a heavily
paneled wainscot and handsome, deeply embrasured doorways with
architrave casings, paneled jambs and soffits.
Except for the single, simple turned newel, the staircase is much like
that at Mount Pleasant. There is the similar ramped balustrade and
paneled wainscot with ramped surbase and dark wood cap rail along the
wall opposite. Little pilasters likewise support this rail, but they are
paneled rather than fluted. There are similar scroll-pattern stair ends
and paneling under the stairs. In this instance the under side of the
upper run is paneled in wood rather than plastered. The turned balusters
are slightly more elaborate than at Mount Pleasant, but are used in the
same manner, three to the stair.
Not built until nearly the dawn of the nineteenth century, Upsala
belongs to a later period than most of the notable houses in
Philadelphia. The lighter grace of Adam design had begun to dominate
American building and is to be seen in the staircase as well as in the
mantels and other interior woodwork at Upsala. The staircase combines
features of the broken flight with a midway landing, such as the
foregoing examples, and of the later development in long halls where the
direction of the flight was reversed by a curved portion of the run
instead of a landing. The breadth and length of the hall made landings
possible and desirable, but instead of one wide midway landing between
the upper and lower runs of the flight, there were two square landings
separated by three steps, the stair stringers, balustrade and wainscot
swinging upward in broad-sweeping curves. The wainscot consists of a
charmingly varied paneling, while the balustrade is lighter in treatment
than was usually the case. A simple dark wood handrail, slender, square
molded balusters and stairs having a low rise and broad treads lend
grace of appearance rarely equaled. Jig-sawed outline brackets of
unusually harmonious scroll pattern placed under the molded overhang of
the treads provide additional ornamentation of a refined character. The
spiral newel is but a simpler form of those already alluded to.
Altogether it is a staircase that charms the eye through its unaffected
simplicity, a quality that never loses its power of appeal whether found
inside the house or out.
Two other stairways with balustrades of slender grace are worthy of
note, especially as instances of a single, small turned newel on the
lower step, the handrail terminating in a round cap on the top. The
simpler of these is at Roxborough and has balusters of unique contour
standing not on the stair treads but on the cased-up stair stringer. The
staircase in the Gowen house, Mount Airy, has a balustrade with three
slender, but more or less conventional, balusters on each step, the
treads, like the handrail and newel, being painted dark. A graceful
jig-sawed bracket of scroll pattern adorns each stair end under the
overhang of the tread, and the space under the stairs is closed in by
well-spaced molded and raised paneling.
Another distinctive scroll outline bracket for stair ends forms the
principal feature of a graceful staircase in the Carpenter house, Third
and Spruce streets. The pattern manifests great refinement and has
excellent proportion. In contrast with these lighter designs for
domestic architecture, it is interesting to examine the stair-end
treatment in Independence Hall, which is equally pleasing as an example
of heavier, richer detail for public work. The brackets are solid, of
evolute spiral outline and beautifully hand carved.