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Updated: June 19, 2025
A drawing-room is the logical place for the elegancies of family life. The ideal drawing-room, to my mind, contains many comfortable chairs and sofas, many softly shaded lights by night, and plenty of sunshine by day, well-balanced mirrors set in simple paneled walls, and any number of small tables that may be brought out into the room if need be, and an open fire.
But we have such a wonderful store of woods, here in America, it is worth while to panel our rooms, copying the simple rectangular English patterns, and it is quite permissible to "age" our walls by rubbing in black wax, and little shadows of water-color, and in fact by any method we can devise. Wood paneled walls, like beamed ceilings, are best in great rooms. They make boxes of little ones.
The walls were not the log walls of our lodge, chinked with moss and topped by a bark roof. On the contrary they were grander than the inside of St. Regis church where I took my first communion, though that was built of stone. These walls were paneled, as I learned afterward to call that noble finishing, and ornamented with pictures, and crystal sockets for candles.
An interesting fenestration scheme, with paneled shutters at the lower windows only, is enhanced by the pleasing scale of twelve-paned upper and lower window sashes having broad white muntins throughout. Opening the front door, one finds himself in a wide hall with doorways giving entrance to large front rooms on each side. Beyond, a beautifully detailed arch supported by pilasters spans the hall.
The floors are of polished teak wood; the walls are paneled with brocade and tapestries, and are hung with historical pictures, including full length portraits of the kings and queens of England, all the viceroys from the time of Warren Hastings, and many of the most famous native rulers of India. In one of the rooms is a collection of marble busts of the Cæsars.
A flight of steps closed in by a paneled oaken partition descended from this gallery to the ground, and on each step was the straight demure figure of a carved saint in a pointed arch like a shrine. At the foot the stairway was closed by a door of seasoned oak reenforced by wrought iron hinges extending almost across its width.
By a sullen glare in his deep-sunk eyes Mr. Mahaffy seemed to bid him go on. "Back east " the judge jerked his thumb with an indefinite gesture "back east at my ancestral home " Mahaffy snorted harshly. "You don't believe I had an ancestral home? well, I had! It was of brick, sir, with eight Corinthian columns across the front, having a spacious paneled hall sixty feet long.
After that, he sat in a corner, smoking and languidly looking about, for he had been hard at work since early morning. Two or three subaltern officers from a neighboring camp stood by the table, besides several other men whose sunburned faces indicated a country life. The carpets and furniture were getting shabby, but the room was large and handsome, with well-molded cornices and paneled ceiling.
Many of the doorways had fluted pilasters, heavily molded casings and carved broken pediments. The doors were of mahogany as was likewise the wainscoting of the staircases. The sides of the rooms where fireplaces were located were completely paneled to the ceiling, and above the fireplace openings were narrow panels on which were hunting scenes done in mastic.
The round-arched, deeply recessed doorway has the usual paneled jambs and soffit, but the reeded casings and square impost blocks are of the sort that came into vogue about the beginning of the nineteenth century.
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