Chapter 10 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.154 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 were155 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 marked156 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.

Plate LXXII.-Inside of Front Door, Whitby Hall; Palladian Window on Stair Landing,

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, the157 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.

Plate LXXIII.-Window Detail, Parlor, Whitby Hall; Window Detail, Dining Room,

Whitby Hall.

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 the158 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 Ionic159 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 molded160 projections of the treads. Altogether this is one of the most notable halls of this type in Philadelphia.

Plate LXXIV.-Ceiling Detail, Solitude; Cornice and Frieze Detail, Solitude.

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.

As a merchant and in numerous other private enterprises, Colonel Coultas amassed a substantial fortune. From 1744 to 1755 he was the lessee of the161 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.

Plate LXXV.-Independence Hall, Independence Square Side. Begun in 1731.

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 the162 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 gutt? of the mutules, the triglyphs with paneled metopes between, and the gutt? 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 are163 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 being164 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.

Plate LXXVI.-Independence Hall, Chestnut Street Side.

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 fa?ade. 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 keyed165 arch of which springs from the entablatures. It is a design which has never been improved upon.

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.166

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-sweeping167 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.168

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.169