Postcard view of North Street, showing the Metcalfe house and partiel view of the Butler mansion at right. c 1910.
Image source: private collection.
Stair Hall today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Curtain at right conceals doorway to what would be the parlor.
Detail of the basket-weave pattern on the wall of the staircase, suggesting a Japanese screen.
Critics described the interior of the Metcalfe House as the best part of the design. The dining room and library were
re-installed at Buffalo State College. The stair hall is installed in the American Wing
of the Metropolitan Museum. Some believe that the Metropolitan received the better part. |
Looking from the Inglenook through the bannisters, showing the indirect lighting of the stair hall from the windows on the landing.
The American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum has 25 furnished rooms on display, covering 300 years of American
domestic architecture and interior design. The Metcalfe House stair hall is in distinguished company that includes
the living room from Frank Lloyd Wright's Little House, originally in Wayzata, Minnesota. |
View from the stairway, looking toward what would have been the entry to the house, at left.
The Metropolitan Museum required nearly 10 years to complete the conservation and installation, some of which were needed to remove layers of blackened varnish from the oak woodwark
and to restore the room to its original appearance.
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Front view of the Inglenook
The cozy inglenook, with its Siena marble fireplace, warm oak woodwork in Renaissance patterns, was intended to be used as an informal gathering area. Two of the windows at left were returned by Buffalo donors; they had been moved to other additions to the house in earlier years and were thought lost.
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