Greek Motives in Historic Doorways 
By MYRTLE HYDE DARLING 
G REEK architectural details have been scattered 
widely through modern house-budding. We 
are so accustomed to the Greek form that a 
difficulty arises in realizing its presence. The Greek 
methods in use in our period date from the later 
eighteenth century, and were not known to be copied 
before then. While their 
art was free and sponta¬ 
neous, modern copies are 
generally formal, rigid, and 
correct. Some old New 
England cities and towns 
have many dwellings which 
show some motive from the 
Greek as decoration. Style 
is character, and while the 
people of the Middle Ages 
never thought of it as such 
in adapting the beautiful 
and simple lines of their 
columns and temples, they 
had one, the purest and 
most interesting type of 
architecture, which now 
enters in modified form 
into the Colonial, (or eight¬ 
eenth century Renais¬ 
sance) and modern Colo¬ 
nial buildings. The most 
interesting survivals of 
Greek detail are seen in 
the old dwelling-houses in 
the Eastern States, where 
the Grecian influence is 
often limited to the treat¬ 
ment of a porch, a door¬ 
way, or a facade. The 
buildings of these times 
were honest and intelli¬ 
gent, and the classic detail 
well adapted to use in 
wood, because of its sim¬ 
plicity, beauty and power. 
There seems to be in the 
ordinary modern house as 
little character, real char¬ 
acter, in the entrance and 
doorway, as there is beauty 
in that feature of the hu¬ 
man face, the nose. Most 
doorways are ugly things 
at best, and a really 
beautiful entrance is rare. There was once a precise 
New England lady who asserted she could place any 
family by the look of its hallway, and if most of us 
are to be judged by our doorways, we should be 
found sadly lacking, at least in good taste. 
In the quaint old city of Salem, Massachusetts, 
are some of the most fas¬ 
cinating doorways, all of 
them doubly interesting 
in that they belong to 
houses of historic associa¬ 
tion and ownership. That 
of the Cabot-Endicott 
house, erected in 1745, 
shows a remnant of the 
surmounting gable-roof 
form of the Greek temple, 
underlaid with carving, 
and the depressed or sim¬ 
ulated Doric column. This 
is the earliest of the Greek 
designs. The shaft of the 
columns had no base but 
rose directly from the 
smooth pavement or stylo¬ 
bate, and the Doric capi¬ 
tal was plain. The glass 
in the door is protected 
by extraordinarily beauti¬ 
ful wrought iron panels. 
Some of the romantic his¬ 
toric points of interest con¬ 
nected with the house is 
that of the famous Cabot 
garden of Colonial days, 
and its collection of seven 
hundred varieties of tulips, 
when a grand reception 
was held to exhibit the 
flowers n bloom. Later 
it was owned by the Hon¬ 
orable William Endicott, 
Secretary of War during 
the Cleveland administra¬ 
tion, a descendant of that 
stern Puritan, Governor 
Endicott. In this house 
was born Mary Endicott, 
who [marrie d the Right 
Honorable Joseph Cham¬ 
berlain. The house has 
now 'passed into other 
PICKMAN-LORING-EMERTON HOUSE, SALEM, MASS. 
Erected 1818 
185 
