A four-poster bed hung with white fringed linens sits at left. A caned two-seat bench sits at the foot of the bed on a wide-planked floor; a white chamber pot sits on the floor at the foot of the bed. At right are walls covered in bright, cheery leaf-patterned wallpaper in greens and whites, a double-hung window with white shutters, and white wainscot. Below the window is a window seat. Caned side and arm chairs matching the bench sit along the right wall. An antique highboy chest sits in the back right corner.

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The Delights of Historical House Museums

July 26, 2023December 5, 2023 by Laura Grey No Comments

When I visit a new region, one of the first things I want to know is where to find the historical house museums. They’re full of beautiful old treasures and architectural choices I’d never find elsewhere. Houses tell us fascinating stories about their place in history. Guides or placards explain what you’re seeing and what’s unusual or important about it. They also share intimate details and moving or surprising stories about the people who lived there. These explanations give each element deeper meaning and connect it to the former occupants and their time.

New England, my adopted home, is rich with marvelous house museums. In my travels, I’ve visited simple 17th century cottages, stately 18th century colonial manses, and 19th century seaside palaces. I’ve even enjoyed homes created by and for mid-20th century modern masters. I’ll share a few with you below.

A Peek at Private Lives of the Past

A highly detailed red-brick home with decorative woodwork, brickwork, and colorfully patterned shingles on the roof. It includes an area of bay windows with a round peaked glass roof, a covered octagonal porch, and an octagonal turret. — *Sam Clemens lived in this Hartford, CT, house. Built in the American High Gothic style, it’s been called one of the 10 best historic homes in the world | Laura Grey*

In an old house museum, you can see how tools like knife cleaning machines and leather fire buckets were used. Visitors learn what made these tools so important to the people of that region or period. You may even wonder why they went out of fashion.

Elegant villas may show us the most intricate and elevated wood- or stone-carving technique, or the grandest gardens. Political leaders’ homes let us see where they planned battles or campaigns. The homes of celebrities show us glimpses of the people behind the characters we’ve come to love. By walking through historic homes, we can imagine ourselves in the walking in the footsteps of heroes and artists.

Homes of celebrated artists and writers

In Hartford, CT, we learn that Samuel Clemens (who used the pen name Mark Twain) often wrote in bed in his gorgeous Victorian mansion. He truly loved his ornate home. Yet despite being a best-selling author, his poor investments left him unable to afford its upkeep. In Western Massachusetts, visitors to the Norman Rockwell Museum spend time in the artist’s studio. They view the tools he held and the paintings he created in his original workspace. A walk through Orchard House, the childhood home of Louisa May Alcott in Concord, MA, brings to mind the four sisters in Alcott’s greatest novel, Little Women. That’s not surprising—those sisters and their adventures were based closely on the lives of the Alcott sisters who lived in this house. Paintings by May, a talented artist, can be seen in her sister Louisa May’s room.

Some house museums show us how our favorite writers or artists lived while they were creating masterpieces. Others give us insights into the lives of members of the LGBTQ community in ages past. Standing in someone’s home lets us imagine how that person, dined, created, grieved, or celebrated. It’s an intimate and unique experience.

A paneled room with an arched paneled wooden door features a soft medium green on all the millwork. Shutters flank the windows, and several walls are covered in murals showing what the neighborhood might have looked like in the 18th century, including two houses and a road with a horse and buggy. Before the fore is a small table set with a tea set flanked by two upholstered wooden chairs sitting on an antique Persian carpet. Against the back wall is a table set with glasses and candles, and a deck with the cabinet door down, showing drawers and cubbies inside.

A dining room in a home in the Webb Deane Stevens Museum features a round table and four mismatched wooden chairs around a table set for dinner with a tureen at center and two crystal decanaters. The walls are olive green wood paneling, and the bottom of a grandfather clock can be seen in the corner. A small table set with china decorated with Masonic symbols sits between the two windows at back. A side table set with bowls and platters of food sits at right. A large rug featuring a dark blue and white checkerboard pattern covers the rough wooden floor.

Views of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum, which comprises three colonial-era houses in Wethersfield, CT, decorated with authentic 18th century furnishings (click photos for details) | Laura Grey

It Isn’t All About Grandeur

A rustic brick fireplace, tall and open, is hung with a black kettle. A simple wooden mantel and wood-paneled wall surrounded it. A photo of the Melville brothers sits on the mantel, along with a simple lantern, horseshoe, and two vases filled with feathers. A simple rustic chair sits at left. — *The hearth in the kitchen of Arrowhead, writer Herman Melville‘s modest Western Massachusetts home from 1850-63. Melville wrote* Moby-Dick *here*. *His brother painted passages from Herman’s story “I and My Chimney” above the mantel | Laura Grey*

It’s fun and edifying to imagine life upstairs versus downstairs in a marble mansion. After all, servants made living in a grand home possible, safe, and beautiful. Some of the best house museums now feature upstairs/downstairs tours. These present behind-the-scenes details about servant’s lives and tasks.

Grand mansions may be imposing and fascinating, but modest homes uncover their own hidden charms. I’m thinking of cozy built-in inglenooks, personal inscriptions, and clever multi-use spaces. It’s touching to see 200-year-old children’s cradles and toys or steep or circular stairways. Evidence of people’s daily lives helps me imagine myself in others’ times.

Simpler house museums are often the most personal. Herbs hang from lofts and pots from hearths in the rough cottages at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth, MA. Henry David Thoreau may have been a towering philosopher, but his tiny home in the woods of Concord, MA, is utterly simple. A writing desk, a couple of chairs, and a bed are nearly all that fill a modern recreation of Thoreau’s space near Walden Pond.

Two small wooden houses, one with a thatched roof, sit next to a small fenced-in garden area. The houses are backed by trees at left; a bit of a waterway can be seen in the distance at right.

A sturdy wooden table sits on a dusty wood plank floor. On the table is a Turkish style rug topped with large and small leather-bound books. Two sturdy, handmade wooden arm chairs flank the table. Overhead are beams; vertical wood planks hold up the back wall, which is filled in with plaster between the planks. Small shelves hang from the back wall and hold pewter dishes and cups, a ceramic plate, about six books,and three ceramic tankards.

Left and center: Houses at the Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth, MA, on the site and in the style of the Pilgrim settlement of the 1620s. They sit on the former site of the indigenous Patuxet people. A reproduction of a Wampanoag village is located nearby on the museum grounds. Right: A reproduction of the cabin Henry David Thoreau lived in on Walden Pond in Concord, MA, 1845 – 47. (Click photos for details) | Laura Grey

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Going over the Top Is Fun

Two ornate side chairs and a matching loveseat and oval table are made of shimmery white mother of pearl and upholstered with vibrant purple and silver brocade fabric. A large four-poster bed is at left, topped with a white floral satin coverlet. Purple curtains cover the windows and the walls are painted a soft chartreuse green. — *Doris Duke’s opulent mother of pearl furniture decorates Rough Point, her mansion in Newport, RI*

I enjoy imagining the outrageously luxurious (albeit highly regimented) lives of grande dames of the past. I get a kick out of the lifestyles of historical celebrities, too. For example, the many children of prosperous but hard-working silversmith and patriot Paul Revere filled their relatively modest Boston house in the late 18th century. I visit his 17th century home in the city’s North End every few years. I love to imagine how full of hubbub and noise the Revere home must have been.

Anderson Cooper’s unimaginably wealthy 19th century Vanderbilt ancestors lived in enormous palaces. At The Breakers in Newport, RI, the family relaxed in a marble and mosaic-covered, ocean-themed billiard room. This room is one of many in Newport’s mansions featured in the HBO series The Gilded Age.

The Curse of Great Wealth

This extraordinarily detailed and opulent dining room mantel decoration features a sculpted bronze smiling face surrounded by graves and leaves and swags of bronze floral garlands spread across and carved white and grey marble mantel topped by a gilded sculpture of clouds and sun rays topped by a crystal globe carved with a map of the world. Above all that is a ceiling painting of gods and goddesses floating overhead in a blue sky, surrounded by gilded and painted decorative moldings. — *Opulent gilded bronze, marble, and crystal mantel decoration in the dining room of Alva Vanderbilt’s late Victorian summer mansion, Marble House, Newport, RI* *| Laura Grey*

I imagine dining from Sevres porcelain on Chippendale chairs in a grand dining room would be a thrill. But house museum guides remind us how challenging the lives of the homes’ inhabitants could be. Despite enormous privilege, life for the grander families during what Mark Twain derisively called the Gilded Age could be tedious and circumscribed. Women might waste time changing outfits six times a day to meet social expectations or risk being ostracized. Wealthy young folk had to marry people their parents chose for them to fulfill economic alliances or risk disinheritance. Being seen entertaining or even speaking with “the wrong sort of people” could permanently ruin a reputation. Unfortunate associations could destroy chances to marry, wreck fortunes, or end careers.

For women especially, being a young member of a prominent family was often a curse. It could mean giving up nearly all freedoms and possessions once married. A woman who didn’t marry might need to live with resentful relations if she had no money of her own and no marketable skills. Upon marriage, women had to enter into new families that might not respect or even like them. When they did, they lost legal rights to look after their own finances, lives, health, and even children. Husbands had the final legal say over what they wore, where they went, or who they saw.

Stories of the families of Newport’s mansions are full of heartbroken women trapped in miserable marriages. Tales of men who spent their wives’ dowries on mistresses and gambling are legion. Women who lived in grand mansions may have had exquisite homes, but many lived sad lives.

Revolutionary Design in a Private Space

The stairwell of the Gropius House Museum just outside of Boston was built by Bauhaus leader Walter Gropius in 1938, shortly after he moved to the US from Germany | Laura Grey — *The entryway of the Gropius House includes a statement stairwell, but also a no-frills open closet | Laura Grey*

Some of the most interesting and original house museums are relatively small, with little ornamentation. Walter Gropius’s family home (built in Lincoln, MA, in 1938) is both modest and mind-bendingly bold for its time. It shows the architect’s original and influential use of modernist geometric shapes and lines.

Gropius was the co-founder of Germany’s influential Bauhaus art school. He was a hugely influential innovator whose work from the 1910s onward set the stage for modernist architecture. In turn, early modernist style was a major influence on the midcentury modern style that sprung from it.

Balancing function, style, and comfort

Gropius often used materials and construction methods usually reserved for institutional spaces. He balanced function and modernist design in his spare, angular house, and placed it in a natural wooded setting.

His home has impressive features but surprisingly simple, homey details. For example, Gropius kept a bed in the living room so he could rest near his family after work. His modest dining room had a small, round table that seated just four or five people. He shared his office and its single long, built-in desk with his stylish and creative wife, the writer, editor, and artist Ise Gropius.

There is nothing lavish about the Gropius House. The impressive circular staircase that greets you just inside the door is quite modern, but not huge. It feels grand, but was made with simple materials, and it feels airy and open. It stands next to an very simple coat closet with no door, so Ise’s coats and hats are always on display.

Visiting modernist house museums like the one Gropius lived in shows how minimalist style can be used in a welcoming way. It also helps us humanize a towering architect and designer. It’s mind-expanding, yet humbling to see daily living through the eyes of a visionary.

A Different Way to View Interior Design

An elegant parlor with a stone floor coverd by a simiple beige carpet features delicate plaster garlands on white ceiling and pastel walls. A large 18th century tapestry hangs on the wall at right, and Chinese vases stand on small shelves as well as on a plinth. A topiary tree sits in a square planter near a tall pair of French doors flanked by tall yellow drapes. A simple rolled-arm upholstered sofa and chair sit at left next to a small side table topped with Chinese sculptures. Two carved wood armchairs with brocade upholstered seats and backs sit facing a carved wood and upholstered brocade sofa at right. — *The Mount—Edith Wharton’s serene French-style home in Lenox, MA. It features classic furnishings with more subtle decorative flourishes than the opulent style preferred by* nouveau riche *upstarts of the period | Magicpiano (CC BY-SA 3.0)*

Growing up, I knew of Edith Wharton, the early 20th century writer, from her novels, such as Ethan Frome. I didn’t know she was also a major influence on 20th century interior decoration.

Wharton’s 1897 book The Decoration of Houses (cowritten by Ogden Codman Jr.) explained the classic elements of mostly French architectural design and style. This was what Europeans and wealthy, educated North Americans considered the epitome of good taste. Her book is strange to read in light of modern ideas about taste and style. It’s quite prescriptive, and classes some design elements as inherently stylistically superior or inferior. It’s a reminder that the elite of the time often believed that following formal French design showed not only stylistic but moral superiority. But at the time, Wharton was seen as providing a fresh perspective. She defied the popular late-Victorian excesses of Gilded Age interior design. In contrast to that dark, overstuffed aesthetic, Wharton and Codman recommended a simpler, lighter, less-cluttered style. This was more in tune with earlier European stylistic traditions.

Judging people by their surroundings

A grand room decorated with ornate Gothic-style ceiling, fireplace, carved wood-framed stained glass windows and paneling, Gothic-style chandeliers, and red brocade walls. Dark wooden Gothic revival furniture of the Victorian period surrounds the decorated Christmas tree. — Alva Vanderbilt’s beloved Gothic Room at her 1888 Marble House mansion, Newport, RI. The home features the kind of highly detailed decoration Edith Wharton found too extreme to be truly tasteful | Laura Grey

The tiny signifiers that “well-bred” people read into the smallest element of an interior during Wharton’s time could make or break a reputation. Being too lavish could be considered gauche and a sign of a less-elevated mind. But being too stingy with the niceties of design was seen as evidence of lack of sophistication. This could lead people to assume that a lack of refined taste showed a coarseness of spirit. That in turn might lead to a lifetime of social snubbing.

We see the extreme social cost of original behavior or thought in the actions of Wharton’s characters in her novel The Age of Innocence. The beauty and excesses of the time are superbly displayed in Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation. The main characters are under constant social scrutiny. Any diversion from the straight and narrow could lose them everything they hope for. In fin de siècle society, decorating one’s home incorrectly could lead to social suicide.

Wharton’s novel The House of Mirth (and the film version starring Gillian Anderson) also shows a clear-eyed depiction of the cruelty of holding people to impossible standards. Wharton wrote beautifully and painfully about the price people paid for veering outside the rigid lines of decorum. Yet, ironically, Wharton’s own classic book on interior design perpetuated the idea that there was one true, pure, and correct style superior to the leading home decorating fashion of the time.

The Home of a Design Doyenne

A small study with ornate French carved wood and plaster detailing on the walls and in curved niches. The carved walls are painted white. A small but ornate carved marble fireplace surround sits below a tall mirror overhung with a portrait in the French style. Ornate candleholders and a lavish clock sit on the mantel. Two tall wooden cabinets sit in the niches on either side of the fireplace. At left is a peach silk brocade-upholstered and carved wood sofa. At right is a delicate carved lady's desk with gold ormolu, a delicate cane-seated chair, and two ornate upholstered chairs in the 18th century French style. A bronze round marble-topped side table sits in the center of the room on top of a formal area rug in shades of brown, black, and teal over a parquet wood floor. — Alva Vanderbilt’s study in the grand Marble House mansion in Newport, RI, was decorated with fine furnishings, primarily French or in the French style. Though more ornate than Mrs. Wharton might choose, the room gives a respectful nod to classic French decorative style | Laura Grey

Reading Wharton’s descriptions of style is nowhere near as pleasing and educational as visiting her own elegant home. The Mount, built to Wharton’s exacting standards in Lenox, MA, in 1902, is now one of the finest house museums in the Berkshires.

Standing in Wharton’s exquisite home, one sees how she balanced light, color, decoration, and harmonious architectural proportion. Experiencing how she created a sensory experience makes the beauty of her aesthetic views clear. Yet I’m relieved to live in a time when stylistic choices are rarely weighted with moral meaning.

Interior design as an indicator of morality?

As much as I enjoy visiting Wharton’s home, I know that hers is not the only way to create a harmonious and beautiful space. Wharton’s ideals followed French architectural principles, which were in turn based on Renaissance Italian ideals. Wharton and other leading designers of her time believed that “correct” proportions were timeless. They were based in inescapable ancient forms that could not be changed without risk. Classic proportions, colors, and formality were ignored at a designer’s peril. To display a lack of classic taste was to show evidence of innate vulgarity, poor judgment—even suspect morals.

House Museums Remind Us How and Why Styles Change

Dark wood paneling on the walls sits behind a tall burled wood drop-front desk with tall inlaid cabinets on top. Two intricately carved and inlaid side chairs with shell-shaped upholstered seats, possibly Dutch from the 18th century, sit atop an antique wool rug with cream, blue, and red patterns. A side table with two drawers and cabriole legs sits below a lage framed portrait of a woman with a turban. — *Philanthropist and art collector Doris Duke gathered some of the finest historical furnishings from around the world; you can see many of them in her mansion, Rough Point, in Newport, RI | Laura Grey*

Wharton believed that creating the “proper” architectural structure of a room dictated its decoration. We still believe that architecture influences decoration, of course. Seeing a structure in harmony with its decoration often feels especially cohesive and pleasing. Harmonious proportions are still desirable. However, the variety of proportions that we find harmonious has expanded. But taste is so much more individual now. We now see it as a matter of what makes your soul sing and what works for your daily life. No one need follow what a tiny group of tastemakers say is fashionable.

A certain amount of imbalance and surprise—even what one might call a lack of taste—adds personality and energy to a home. And that’s something we admire much more today than Wharton did 120 years ago. Indeed, we may still find a traditional French-style home lovely. But modern designers have shown us how effectively we can decorate even an ornate traditional architectural space with modern art, furniture, and style. Such contrasts can make a room feel more lively and engaging.

Finally, it’s important to note that Wharton’s idea of functionality relies on employing a collection of full-time servants to care for a large space dedicated to a small number of rich and often idle folk. Hardly a sustainable model of practical or sensible living!

Looking at the Past in New Ways

Changing ideals of functionality, beauty, affordability, social standing, and independence have led to different stylistic aspirations over time. House museums show us that during every era, people make efforts to attain similar goals, but with very different results. Visiting homes of the past reminds us that creativity is a constant among human beings, no matter the style of the time. House museums make clear just how many ways people have found to live both comfortably and stylishly over time.

At top:

A light, bright bedroom in a colonial-era house at Strawbery Banke Museum, an engaging village museum featuring 32 authentic houses and other buildings, mostly from the colonial era, and all but four in their original locations, in Portsmouth, NH.

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