The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia

by Frank Cousins; Phil M. Riley

At Whitby Hall there are two interesting and characteristic examples of embrasured windows with paneled jambs and soffits, and molded architrave casings. In the dining room the embrasures are cased down to the window seats, while in the parlor the casings with their broader sections at top and bottom do not extend below the surbase, although the embrasure continues to the floor. In this latter room one of the Colonial builder's favorite motives, ever recurring with minor variations throughout many houses, occupies the string course of the cornice. This double denticulated member or Grecian fret band is formed by vertical cross cuttings, alternately from top and bottom of a square molding, the plain ogee molding beneath giving it just the proper emphasis.[190]

Conforming to the characteristic panel arrangement of the time, most of the inside doors of Philadelphia have six panels, the upper pair being not quite square and the two lower pairs being oblong, the middle pair being longer than the lower. Like outside doors they were for the most part molded and raised with broad bevels, although occasionally, as on the second floor at Mount Pleasant, they were flat and bolection molded, giving the door a considerably different aspect. Generally speaking, the workmanship was excellent, the beveling of the panels and the molding of the stiles and rails manifesting the utmost painstaking. A simple knob and key-plate, usually of brass, completed the complement of hardware, apart from the H hinges of early years and the butts which soon followed. It will be noted that all of these six-panel doors have stiles and muntins of virtually equal width, any variation being slightly wider stiles. Top and frieze rails are alike and about the same width as the muntin, but the bottom rail is somewhat broader and the lock rail the broadest of the four. Moldings are very simple and confined to the edge of the panels, with the splayed or beveled panels of earlier years gradually being abandoned in favor of plain, flat surfaces.

Plate LXXXIV.—Interior Detail of Main Entrance, CongressHall; President's Dais, Senate Chamber, Congress Hall.

Architrave casings were the rule, sometimes extending to the floor and often standing on heavy, square plinth blocks the height of the skirting[191] beneath its molding. There are instances of both types at Mount Pleasant and Whitby Hall. The thickness of the walls in houses of brick and stone encouraged the custom of paneling the jambs and soffit of doorway openings to correspond with the paneling of the doors, the effect being rich and very pleasing. Generally the architrave casing was miter-joined across the lintel, as at Upsala, but in many of the better houses this horizontal part of the casing was given an overhang of an inch or two to form the doorhead. How pleasing this simple device was, especially when a rosette of stucco was applied to each jog of the casing, is well exemplified by the doors on the first floor at Whitby Hall. Very similar door trim without the rosette is to be seen at Cliveden and in numerous other houses.

At Mount Pleasant, and in several of the more pretentious old Colonial mansions of Philadelphia, this type of door trim was elaborated by a surmounting frieze and heavy pediment above the architrave casing. The first floor hall at Mount Pleasant presents the interesting combination of a pulvinated Ionic pediment with a mutulary Doric cornice and frieze about the ceiling. Here one notices the flat dado and doors with raised and molded panels as contrasted with the paneled wainscot and bolection-molded, flat-paneled doors of the second-story hall. In this latter, also, some of the pediments are complete, others broken,[192] illustrating another whim of the early American builders. Here the cornice is also Ionic with jig-sawed modillions, and the ensemble is generally more pleasing. In proportion and precision of workmanship this woodwork is hardly excelled in Philadelphia. The simple, carefully wrought dentil course of the doorheads lends a refining influence and pleasing sense of scale that seems to lighten the design very materially.

Philadelphia has no handsomer example of the enriched pedimental doorhead than the interior treatment of the entrance doorway of the Blackwell house, Number 224 Pine Street. Above the horizontal overhang of the architrave casing across the lintel two beautifully carved consoles, the width of the frieze in height, support a cornice which is the base of a broken pediment. The familiar Grecian band or double denticulated molding in the string course gives character to the cornice, while an attractive leaf decoration in applied composition adorns the recessed frieze panel. Projections of the cornice above the consoles lend an added touch of refinement. This elaboration of the white wood trim is further emphasized by the dark red-brown painting of the door to simulate old mahogany, which became a frequent feature of the houses of this period.

Round-headed doorways here and there, not only at the front entrance, but elsewhere, as in the hall[193] at Hope Lodge, provided a welcome variation from the customary square-headed types and have been a pleasing feature of Colonial interiors since early times. As framing the glazed doorways of china closets already referred to, they were a charming feature of the interior wood finish. At the front entrance the round-headed doorway was utilized to provide an ornamental yet practical fanlight transom over the door which admitted considerable light to brighten the hall. As contrasted with this more graceful arrangement, the broad front entrance to Whitby Hall, with its severely plain unmolded four-panel double doors and wrought-iron strap hinges, bolts, latch and great rim lock, is of quaint interest. The accompanying photograph shows well the dado effect secured by a surbase and skirting, and one notes with interest the cornice with its prominent modillions and the heavy plinth blocks on which the architrave casings of the doors stand.

Round-headed windows were employed for landing windows in stair halls, as at Whitby Hall, and in the central part of the Palladian windows over entrances, as at Mount Pleasant, where they became decorative interior features of the front end of the second-floor halls.