February, 
1914 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
IOI 
A heavy four poster, with chintz drapery, once the property of Lafayette, is placed in the guestroom along with the com¬ 
fortable shield-back Windsor chairs so serviceable even for modern conditions 
block front chest of drawers, 
and some rush-bottomed chairs. 
A peculiarity of this room is a 
closet bed, probably suggested 
by some old Dutch bedroom. 
When the doors are closed the 
room alters its appearance of a 
sleeping apartment and be¬ 
comes a living-room. Probably 
the arrangement was made by 
one of the family to counteract 
the cold drafts of the unheated 
chamber. 
Opposite the drawing-room 
or parlor is the dining-room, a 
large, spacious, well-lighted 
room. The old-fashioned wall 
paper here is most unusual. It 
is a Chinese paper, portraying 
Chinese villas. The present 
tendency to revive the Chinese 
Chippendale designs has led to 
the reproduction of just such 
paper, and a very good repre¬ 
sentation of this design may be 
found in the decorators’ shops. 
The original is brown and 
white in coloring. It matches 
the scheme of the furnishings. 
At one corner of this room is 
a wonderful buffet, finished in 
a rare example of the old-time 
shell pattern. It represents seventeenth century work. Many of 
the pieces of china here are historic, including dinner plates which 
were used by John Hancock; a teapot wherein was brewed the 
tea which Washington 
drank when visiting this 
house. 
The large, old-fash¬ 
ioned fireplace, dating 
back to 1750, shows an in¬ 
teresting fire back, and is 
surrounded by blue and 
white tile. These are 
originals, but their like 
appear in reproduction 
that can be found in the 
market to-day. 
A wide, plain wain¬ 
scot relieves the wall 
paper, and with the heavy 
wooden shutters gives the 
requisite amount of wood¬ 
work to frame a paper of 
this sort. Every detail of 
this room is consistent, 
giving a harmonious 
whole. 
The rush-bottom chairs 
are evidently of the Chip¬ 
pendale period. Several 
have the solid splat, while 
o'thers have open-work backs, and the arm chairs are of a par¬ 
ticularly interesting ladder-back design. All, however, are con¬ 
sistently used in combination. The table is of later workman¬ 
ship, and shows Empire motives, but it is a particularly interesting 
form. In reality, it consists of three separate tables. The two- 
end pieces are of the drop-leaf order, with four fixed legs and one 
movable one; the middle section has two drop leaves. Because of 
this structure the tables 
are easily taken apart and 
disposed along the wall — a 
point that recommends its- 
use where a dining-room 
is to occupy other pur¬ 
poses than those of per¬ 
taining to the service of 
meals. 
Back of the dining¬ 
room, and one step lower,, 
is the old kitchen, a part 
of the original house that 
was built by Coddington. 
It has been kept intact,, 
showing the rough-hewn 
beams just as they came 
from the builders’ hands. 
Light comes from small- 
paned windows made 
from glass manufactured! 
in the first glass factory in 
America. It was about 
the time of its building; 
that a guild of Hollanders 
settled in Quincy, Mass.,, 
then Braintree, and 
erected the first glass factory in the new country. 
A feature of the kitchen is the enormous fireplace guarded by a 
wire mesh curtain which did not exclude the heat and pYevented 
( Continued on page 134)"' *;■' ■ 
The tutor's bedroom had a bed built into a closet, the doors of which concealed it entirely from 
view and permitted the room to be used as a study or sitting-room 
