Recreating a Missing Staircase
/A Meeting About Floor Repair Leads to a Remarkable Discovery
At the end of last October, architectural historian Willie Graham, along with John Gaver, Matt Culp, and Joel Jaimes with Lynbrook of Annapolis, gathered upstairs at Cloverfields to discuss floor repairs. They pried up a few boards from a patch in the southwest chamber to inspect the condition. Secured with what appeared to be hand-forged nails, Graham initially thought the floor repair dated to the eighteenth century. The first surprise of the morning came when the nails turned out to be hand-headed, but with a specific type of machine-cut shank that indicated a manufacturing date no earlier than the 1830s. Next, on the wall beneath the floor patch, the group saw a diagonal line of plaster above the ghost for a missing baseboard, clear evidence of a former stair. By a stroke of luck videographer, Joe Stephens, who has documented the restoration for CPF from the start, was on site that day and talked with Graham about the unexpected discovery.
Above and Below: A removed patch of flooring revealed an Angled cut in the plaster and missing trim from a former corner stairway. Photos by Willie Graham.
Building Archaeology
Historic buildings read much like archaeological sites, with layers of accrued material serving as a timeline for change. After examining the layers, Graham determined that the future Col. William Hemsley (1736-1812) put in the southwest corner stair in the 1750s, likely at the same time he added a second story to the two rear rooms his father constructed in 1728. As Graham explains, physical evidence proves the stair was present before 1769 when, according to dendrochronology, Hemsley enclosed the doorway connecting the dining room and the southwest room.
Staircase rebuild in progress. Wall Lath at left shows where the doorway to the dining room was enclosed in 1769. Photo by Pete Albert.
A further examination of the building fabric also allowed Graham to conclude the staircase's removal and enclosure of the opening took place no earlier than the 1840s. Supporting this conclusion are technological time stamps, such as the previously mentioned nails of a type not available until the 1830s. Furthermore, plaster repairs made to the walls after removing the stair used circular-sawn lath as the base. As circular-sawn building fabric first came into use in this area in the 1840s, the earliest date for removal was pushed forward into the following decade.
The Rebuilt Staircase and under-stair closet near completion. Photo by WIllie Graham.
first-floor southwest room, including staircase, after Restoration. The Hemsleys probably used this well-appointed but less formal room as a study or private gathering space. Photo by Pete Albert.
Completed Staircase and second-floor southwest bedchamber after restoration. The doors at each end of the staircase blocked noise and prevented heat loss during Cold Weather. Photo by Pete Albert.
The Formans at Cloverfields
The 1840s removal date makes sense when examined in the context of family history as it coincides with the coming of age and marriage of William H. Forman (1820-1868), the grandson of Col. Hemsley. Forman and his younger brother, Ezekiel, inherited Cloverfields while still young children. According to county tax records, the boys' guardian, Judge Ezekiel Chambers, rented out the farm on the childrens' behalf until at least 1841.
By 1847, William had married, returned to Cloverfields, and taken up the much-need repair and remodeling of the aging building. Having divided the estate with his brother and taken possession of the house, William remained at Cloverfields until his death.
Neither physical evidence nor family history reveals why Forman removed the staircase, but it was nearly a century old and potentially in poor condition.
View of the 1705 quarter-turn staircase where it ascends to the attic. Note the scored limestone wash on the plaster walls. Photo by Sherri Marsh Johns.
Cloverfields in Winter
Take an aerial tour of Cloverfields after the season's first snowfall.
By: Sherri Marsh Johns
For: Cloverfields Preservation Foundation
Video By: Joe Stephens, StratDV Video Production
Social Climbing: Staircases and Status
Why did William Hemsley build a steep, narrow, and winding set of stairs when the second floor was accessible by the much more elegant and easy-to-ascend main stair located just a few feet away? (For information on the 1705 staircase, see the March 16, 2020 newsletter). Graham contends it was not put in, as one might think, primarily for servants' use. As the new stairs connected a small first-floor room (probably a private study or parlor) with a second-floor sleeping chamber, servants hauling ash buckets or chamber pots would be less likely to interrupt the family by carrying out such tasks via the main staircase.
The new stairway undoubtedly offered convenience. The bedchamber's occupants could reach the study during the winter months without going through the unheated stair tower. It also protected modesty. During the heat of the summer, should the Colonel choose to remain in his linen dressing gown or Mrs. Hemsley opt to loosen her stays, they could discreetly alight up the stairs before an untimely visitor discovered them in an embarrassing state of semi-dishabille.
View of the reconstructed corner staircase from the 1705 stairs. ONly family and servants would have occasion to use the back stairs. Visitors would have paraded up and down the decorated space of the stair tower. Photo by Sherri Marsh Johns.
Social historians would argue that there was more to this new architectural feature than practicality. Specifically, the 1750s stair was part of William Hemsley's overarching effort to restructure the way his grandfather's house functioned. The close proximity of two sets of stairs — one private and one public – plays into a changing social consciousness and ideas about comportment taking place after Philemon Hemsley built Cloverfields in 1705 and the time William Hemsley reached adulthood and entered public life.
The notion prevailing in William's grandfather's day that the rooms of an aristocratic mansion could serve as the combined locus for public entertaining, private pursuits, and work functions was obsolete. Increasingly, architecture reflected English-imported attitudes about gentility by creating formal specialized spaces for each of these activities. High-status families such as the Hemsleys placed a premium on entertaining and public appearance. As polite architecture was about what the visitor did not see as much as what they did, the family moved domestic work and, along with it, domestic workers to buildings in the back of the house.
The Hemsleys 1750s-1769 remodeling of the 1705 house included the creation of a first-floor center passage on either side of rooms specifically restyled and furnished for formal dining and entertaining. The family also transformed one of the two large second-floor sleeping chambers into a drawing room for after-dinner amusements. After a thorough redecoration, the wide passage at the top of the main stair became a convivial sitting area. All told, this remodeling effort saw three-quarters of the first- and second-floor space of the 1705 house given over to hospitality.
View of the 1705 stairs from the sitting area in the second-floor passage. THe Hemsleys redecorated this space as part of the 1750s-1769 remodeling. The Drawing Room is to the immediate left (not visible). The doorway into the southwest bedchamber, containing the second staircase is shown at left, just beyond the archway. Photo by Pete Albert.
Despite having a large family, The Hemsleys chose to turn one of the two main bedchambers into a drawing room. Photo by Pete Albert.
This excessive fixation with presentation seems vain, but consider how many current homes have a formal living and dining room, despite most aspects of family life now taking place in the kitchen or family room. The retention of these barely used shrines to gentility says a great deal about the paramount importance of such spaces when entertaining provided a primary means of signifying status and exercising influence.
William Hemsley (1736-1812), as painted by John Hesselius, probably in the 1760s, when Hemsley was in the midst of remodeling Cloverfields. The painter shows a confident and stylishly dressed young man. Image courtesy of the Cloverfields Preservation Foundation.
The Other Use for Stairs
Another distinctive hallmark of gentry architecture was a handsomely constructed center staircase. Thomas Jefferson famously criticized this architectural feature as a conspicuous waste of space. Jefferson's censure notwithstanding, by the mid-18th century most elegant houses included some variation of this imposing feature. Via the stairs, finely dressed family members descended to the first floor to greet guests or alighted after dinner with company to a second-floor reception room.
The Hemsleys creation of second-floor entertainment spaces meant the 1705 staircase would be, at least on occasion, part of the public sphere and need to bear up to scrutiny. Unlike in other rooms, here, the family chose not to retrofit. While Cloverfields' 1705 quarter-turn stairway was not the straight-flight rise of stairs then the height of fashion, the Hemsleys concluded its width and pitch, combined with a gracefully turned walnut balustrade projected sufficient dignity and craftsmanship to warrant keeping. Instead, they elected to update the space by plastering the walls, which were scored and then limewashed to imitate sandstone.
Ironically, contemporaries would have found the Hemsleys' new winder staircase old-fashioned. Since the early colonial period, occupants in most homes moved between floors by way of that type of steeply pitched enclosed stairs. Usually situated in a corner or beside the fireplace, this purely functional design took up a minimum of space. The doors at each end blocked noise and, more importantly, limited heat transfer. While practical and convenient, leading esteemed guests up such a narrow space would have been out of the question.
The new corner stairway connected the small southwest room with a second-floor bedchamber. The former, a cozy well-lit room, would have been a prime spot for the family to gather informally. Should an unexpected visitor call when someone was untidy, unwell, or uninclined for guests, that person could discreetly relocate to the room above without any embarrassing encounters in the passage.
The Formans at Cloverfields
After the American Revolution and death of Col. Hemsley in 1812, Cloverfields fell into slow decline like many former colonial powerhouses. When William H. Forman and his wife, Marcia Watts, took over in the 1840s, the house had fallen into such disrepair that the northwest corner had either collapsed or was in imminent danger of doing so. The Formans embarked on a campaign of repair and modernization that returned the house to respectability. Their changes included the removal of the corner staircase. The Formans' other costly repairs and improvements show that the removal (rather than rebuilding) was driven by choice and not financial considerations.
Cloverfields, no longer the imposing seat of one of the region's leading families, ceased to function as a setting for entertaining the rich and powerful. On the Eastern Shore, that era had ended or become so dilute as to be scarcely recognizable. The Formans' domestic needs differed significantly from the Hemsleys. William H. Forman was a successful farmer, and during his lifetime Cloverfields transitioned from mansion into a large and elegant farmhouse and would remain so for nearly 170 more years.