Treatment of Colonial Halls 
By myrtle HYDE DARLING 
T he first dwellings of primitive men were such 
as Nature afiorded, with but little work on 
the part of the occupant in fashioning, and 
they were sufficient for his simple mode of life, being 
mainly caverns, huts, and tents. In the due course of 
time, in Northern countries, mechanical art was em¬ 
ployed to make blocks by which rough buildings were 
constructed. Of the progressive steps from compara¬ 
tive rudeness to much elegance of design, and use of 
other materials, there is no absolutely correct his¬ 
torical knowledge. By the due process of art devel¬ 
opments, during which came the utilization of all 
sorts of substances, Grecian architecture became 
evolved, and it was regarded as the most refined and 
stately. 
At the time of the Colonial period of this country, 
there was little leisure for the cultivation of the finer 
graces in home-building, but after tbe cessation of the 
Revolution many residences were erected in the clas¬ 
sic style, employing carefully modified Grecian de¬ 
signs. 
Often, nowadays, the architecture of the interior 
receives no study or thought until some question of 
appropriate furnishing comes up. In the early 
structures, the front door led directly into the living- 
room, and later the use of a hall came into existence, 
for comfort in regard to extremes of temperature; 
and then it was afterward developed to give much 
dignity and desirable cohesion to the rest of the house, 
as life became more complex,—so that the hall now 
stands for the true key-note of the dwelling. 
As our plan of existence varies so much from that 
of our recent ancestors, only by large alterations can 
we make the true Colonial house comfortable for 
modern usage; but as architectural values are of the 
first importance, good proportions, and “good 
scale,” such as are found in the more imposing houses 
of the eighteenth century (and for that matter, not 
only in the regular Colonial mansion, but in the simple 
unobtrusive dwellings), are especially meritorious, 
and their styles should be studied for appropriate 
copying. The entire removal of the old-fashioned 
immense chimney from the center of the house per¬ 
mitted a better and fuller formation of the hall, which 
was built in the wide, spacious, hospitable Colonial 
fashion peculiar to the South. The original plan 
COLONIAL HALL—DANVERS, MASSACHUSETTS 
