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[156] 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.
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[157] 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[158] 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[159] 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[160] projections of the treads. Altogether this is one of the most notable halls of this type in Philadelphia.
