The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

HOMEWOOD, NEAR BALTIMORE.

Southern Georgian, second phase in transition to third.

accompanied by Wilton and Cipriani, afterwards so well known as an artist and decorator. He also brought Italian sculptors to carve the marble mantelpieces he introduced into English houses.

“These were made from his own designs, and the ornament of figures, scrolls, and foliage was free in character. Strange to say, these mantelpieces, designed and made by an architect, were yet the means of taking away this important part of interior decoration from the hands of the architect altogether and causing it to become quite a separate production, made and sold along with the grates.

“In former times it had been an integrant portion of the room, reaching from floor to ceiling, balanced and made part of the wall by having its main lines carried round in panelling and enriched friezes. It was the keynote of decoration and the master builder of the times grew fanciful and exerted his utmost skill upon its carving and quaint imagery, centralising the whole ornament of the room around the household shrine.

“Mantelpieces had gradually come down in height, though still retaining much of their fine proportions and classic design. Many causes had contributed to this, the chief being the disuse of wood panelling and the preference given to hangings of damask, foreign leather and wall-paper. In the reigns of Queen Anne and the Little Dutchman the custom of panelling was partially kept up but the lining was only white painted deal, after the fashion in Holland. At this time the upper part of the chimney piece was still retained, but only reached about half way up the wall. Gibbs, Kent and Ware kept the superstructure as much as they could, but Sir William Chambers dealt it the most crushing blow it had yet received by copying the later French and Italian styles and giving minute detail more consideration than fine proportion. He discarded the upper part altogether and helped to make ‘continued chimney pieces’ things of the past.”

The much used Adam oval found expression even in the shapes of rooms, and besides the oval ballroom at the Woodlands, we frequently find in houses of the third type rounded or elliptical hallways and chambers.

At the Highlands, in the Whitemarsh Valley, we see the front of the house adorned with tall Ionic pilasters rising from base course to cornice, which is itself elaborately wrought. The woodwork inside is excellent, but unfortunately the Adam mantels with their compo decoration have been removed and now grace another house some miles distant. At Upsala, in Germantown, however, we are in better luck, for there the Adam mantels have remained untouched. The illustrations show the rest of the house and make further specific comment unnecessary, save to remark, regarding the windows, that here, as in other houses of this latest type, larger panes of glass than in the two earlier types are met with in not a few instances.

Before proceeding further in the course of comparison, a word ought to be said about the colour of the paint used for interior woodwork of the Georgian houses of all three types. For some reason there seems to be an impression abroad that white was employed to the exclusion of everything else. There was, it is true, a preponderance of white but its use was by no means universal. A close examination of successive layers of paint on some old woodwork reveals various shades of greys, blues, drabs, brownish yellows and other hues beneath one or more coats of white. Grey seems to have been one of the earliest variants from white and, in some places, nothing else was ever used. At Graeme Park, for instance, the first coat of paint was grey, and no other colour ever adorned its panelling and door and window trims. At Stenton, on the other hand, the taste of the occupants dictated a change of colour from time to time and we find a good deal of variety in the successive coats. During the prevalence of the second Georgian type white seems to have found more general favour. With our last type, delicate colours again began to be used.