Monday, February 12, 2018

A Colonial Window Door


This window is actually a door. From the outside of the house, where it was pouring rain, it would look just like a door into the house. But on the inside, it was disguised as a window to give an illusion of symmetry with a real window on the same side of the room. This is the Hammon-Harwood House in Annapolis, Maryland. Here is an explanation from the Wikipedia article about this house.
The Hammond–Harwood House is a five-part brick house with a five-bay two-story central block, two-story end wings and one-story connecting hyphens on either side. The central block has a shallow hipped roof. The wings project toward the street with three-sided hipped-roof bays. The hyphens are rendered as a blind arcade, with the central bay a door opening with a pediment above. There is little decoration, with plain rubbed brick flat arches over the windows. Ornament is confined to the central bay, whose door is framed by engaged Ionic columns and topped by a fanlight. Above the door the second floor window is framed with a surround and entablature. 
The interior presents the appearance of symmetry where it is in fact not symmetrical, using false doors where necessary to maintain the illusion. The main rooms are the first-floor dining room and the second-floor ballroom immediately above, at the rear of the house overlooking the garden. The dining room features an opening, centered in the facade, that is treated as a door on the outside and as a window on the inside.
Because of the rain, you will have to wait for any photos of the exterior. 

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