I IO 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1905 



Principles of Home Decoration 



II — Concerning Halls 



By Joy Wheeler Dow 



'F WE were speaking of the halls of con- 

 ventional city houses on conventional city 

 lots or the halls of apartment houses, I do 

 not know that anything need be said further 

 than to keep them as little furnished and 

 as unobtrusive by decoration as possible. 

 Superficial embellishment of these halls only tends to adver- 

 tise their architectural deformity, which no decoration can 



1 — The Hall of Hoghton Tower, Lancashire, England, Showing Vast Size and Height 



cover up; for, architecturally, they are not halls at all — " pas 

 sages " is the better word. There used to be some old-fash 

 ioned city houses which had main passages 

 so amplified by breadth, and by placing the 

 staircase in a staircase-hall toward the rear, 

 sometimes, as in the older parts of Phila- 

 delphia, leading to a mezzanine dining- 

 room in a back building, as to deserve being 

 dignified as halls. But in this paper I am 

 presupposing the most important institution 

 in the plan of an Anglo-Saxon dwelling- 

 house, which, if not always the principal 

 room, is always the axis morally, whether 

 mathematically or not, of the house 

 scheme. And this, to plagiarize a catchy 

 refrain from " The Runaway Girl," " I 

 think is quite the kind of hall we care 

 about." 



Now, every good American with the 

 least ambition looks forward to some day 

 when he shall have a country seat in which 

 there is pre-eminently a hall, not necessarily 

 so splendid an apartment nor inclosing the 

 vast cubic space inclosed by the hall at 

 Hoghton, in Lancashire, England, but a 



hall with every inch as much home significance. That is the 

 thing! And I only wish that the wealth of the United States 

 was such, and economic differences so nicely adjusted, as to 

 permit every individual citizen whose free education has 

 created and cultivated the want, to acquire equally good archi- 

 tecture for his dwelling place. 



To most of my readers this single object lesson of a hall 

 will be sufficient without a word relative to its merits in detail ; 



but to give my illustration still 

 greater power and influence I 

 can do no better than to follow 

 the good illustration by one 

 which has been marred by over- 

 crowding. 



In plate No. 2 is shown the 

 main hall of an imposing man- 

 sion not far from New York 

 City. It has been enriched with 

 every decorative device that 

 wealth could suggest. Still, the 

 effect produced is not altogether 

 satisfactory. The architect is 

 largely to blame for the results 

 produced, as he has too much 

 duplicated the use of the arch, 

 until the eye is wearied with the 

 effect and the observer is re- 

 minded of the endless rows of 

 arches in the temple at Cordova, 

 fascinating though that arrange- 

 ment may be for a Moorish 

 mosque. It will be observed that 

 the three Greek orders have been 

 indulged in on the supporting 

 columns. It would seem less 

 confusing to have adhered to 

 either the Corinthian or Ionic order and to have left the 

 other forms alone. Then, too, the winding of scarves about 



2 — Hall Marred by Over-Profusion 



