When you step into a pre-1900s home, it’s like you’re stepping into a time capsule. These architectural marvels, with their unique features and quirky designs, tell stories of a bygone era.
Just like the hidden passages in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, these homes hold secrets waiting to be discovered.
Here are 15 fascinating elements you’ll only find in homes built before the 20th century. You might be surprised by what you find behind those ornate facades and creaky floorboards.
1. Carriage Houses: The Original Garages
Before the automobile revolution, wealthy homeowners needed a place to store their horse-drawn carriages. Enter the carriage house – a smaller building next to the main residence, complete with large arched doorways spanning the entire facade.
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These structures, often more ornate than modern garages, could house one or two buggies.
2. Root Cellars & Ice Doors: Nature’s Refrigerator
In the days before electric refrigeration, homeowners relied on ingenious methods to keep food fresh. Root cellars, often built into hillsides or basements, provided natural cooling.
Some homes even featured ice doors – special entrances for ice deliveries to stock the icebox, much like how milkmen would later deliver dairy.
3. Transom Windows: Ventilation Innovation
Above doors, you might spot small, horizontally-hinged windows called transoms. These clever additions allowed for improved air circulation and extra light, especially useful in the era before air conditioning.
4. Sleeping Porches: Outdoor Snoozing
In the sweltering summers before AC, many homes featured sleeping porches. These screened-in areas, often on the second floor, provided a cooler place to catch some Z’s on hot nights.
5. Parlors: The Heart of Social Life
The formal parlor was the crown jewel of a 19th-century home. This room, often the most elaborately decorated, served as the center for entertaining guests and hosting social gatherings.
6. Butler’s Pantries: A Room for Silver & China
Wealthy homes often featured a butler’s pantry – a small room between the kitchen and dining room. This space was used for storing fine china, silver, and linens, as well as for food preparation before serving.
7. Dumbwaiters: The Mini Elevators
Some multi-story homes included dumbwaiters – small elevators used to transport food and other items between floors. These handy contraptions saved servants from constantly trudging up and down stairs.
8. Speaking Tubes: The Original Intercom
Before electronic communication, some homes used speaking tubes – a network of pipes that allowed occupants to communicate between rooms or floors by speaking into wall-mounted mouthpieces.
9. Widow’s Walks: Rooftop Lookouts
In coastal areas, you might spot a railed platform on the roof called a widow’s walk. While romantically associated with wives watching for their seafaring husbands, these features were primarily used for spotting fires and enjoying sea breezes.
10. Elaborate Cornices: Crowning Glory
Pre-1900s homes often featured intricate cornices – decorative molding at the junction of walls and ceilings. These ornate details, sometimes made of plaster or wood, added a touch of elegance to interior spaces.
11. Coal Chutes: Fueling the Home
Many older homes had coal chutes – small doors on the exterior that allowed for easy delivery of coal to fuel furnaces and stoves. These chutes led directly to coal storage areas in the basement.
12. Pocket Doors: Space-Saving Sliders
To maximize space and add a touch of elegance, many 19th-century homes incorporated pocket doors. The large sliding doors could disappear into the walls, allowing for flexible use of space.
13. Hitching Posts: Parking for Horses
Outside many pre-1900s homes, you might find hitching posts – sturdy poles used for tethering horses. These were the equivalent of today’s parking spots, ensuring your ride stayed put while you visited.
14. Servants’ Quarters: Hidden Spaces
In larger homes, separate areas for domestic staff were common. These quarters, often tucked away in attics or basements, included bedrooms and sometimes separate staircases for discreet movement through the house.
15. Octagonal Rooms: Eight-Sided Wonders
The mid-19th century saw a brief fascination with octagonal structures. Some homes from this period feature eight-sided rooms or even entire octagonal floor plans, believed to offer better ventilation and more efficient use of space.
Davin is a jack-of-all-trades but has professional training and experience in various home and garden subjects. He leans on other experts when needed and edits and fact-checks all articles.