Walkabout: The Allure of Fire: Part 2

Read Part 1 of this story.

The fireplaces and mantels of our brownstone and Victorian homes are the icing on the cake of old-house ownership. Whether we use them or not, most of us love them, want them, and seek them out when shopping for homes.

Last time, I reviewed the styles and materials of houses built before the 1870’s. What came after our classic marble fireplaces, icons of the traditional brownstone?

As the Neo-Grec, Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles gained popularity in the late 1870’s through the 1890’s, marble gave way to wood.

This is the age of Eastlake and the Aesthetic Movement, and the age of beautiful and natural woodwork and trim. The fireplace, as the focal point of the room became the most elaborate and decorated piece in the room.

Gas would replace coal as fuel, with fake logs and flames imitating the wood fire of old. This was pure decoration, at this point, with plumbing, central heating, and by the end of the century, electricity in most homes.

A fireplace helped warm a room, but few were depending on it as their only source of heat. But what decoration they had!

Fine woods, elaborate over-mantels with shelves often rising to the top of tall mirrors, turned wood and carved elements are common during this period.

Unlike earlier fireplace mirrors, the mirrors are now a part of the mantel, not just hanging above it. Carved lions and other animals often bared their teeth on upper and lower shelves, and bright ceramic tiles adorned the fireplace during this period.

In more expensive homes, tiles by Minton and other famous tile companies formed the surround. These tiles usually had floral and animal themes, human portraiture or famous events retold.

Beautiful tinted glazes gave the fireplace a burst of color, while sometimes the tile even told a story, or immortalized family members or famous people or events.

Hunting scenes were popular, as were blue and white Delft tiles, and classical swags and bouquets. The fireplace was truly a thing of beauty during this period, echoing the Aesthetic and High Victorian mode of surface decoration wherever possible.

As the focal point of the room, the mantel, with its shelves and nooks could hold many of the popular decorative objects so loved by the Victorians; picture frames, vases, statues and figurines, and other manner of bric-a-brac.

When the gas was not in use, the mantel shelf could also be covered with a fabric cover, often with fringed edges, tassels, scalloped or dagged edges, with gold couching and embroidery. Remember, for a middle and upper class fascinated with buying the multitude of decorative goods available, more is more.

Just when you think the architects of the day couldn’t do anything more with the classic mantel, having shelved and mirrored and over designed the fireplace into something totally unrecognizable as an enclosed pit for fire, some architects in higher end homes began to play with the fireplaces themselves.

We find the fireplace placed diagonally in corners, back to back in parlors or transformed them into inglenooks, a very popular arrangement for those adhering to Englishman William Morris’ Arts and Crafts philosophies.

Since our row houses often didn’t have room for all of that, a popular nod to the inglenook was the roofed mantel. This was a favorite in Montrose Morris’ decor, as well as Magnus Dahlander, and others, and was a precursor of the American Arts and Crafts Movement which was gaining popularity towards the end of the century.

The turn of the century brought changes to the fireplace. The Renaissance Revival style, ushered in by the return to the Classical mode by the White Cities Movement begun in the early part of the 1890’s, meant the end of the overly carved and ornamented fireplace.

Many Renaissance Revival homes have the beginnings of Colonial Revival interiors, with very classic lines, and lots of columns, even on the fireplace mantels.

Axel Hedman’s homes in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Park Slope and Crown Heights come to mind. Columns are a must for this style, and oak and other woods were used to form all kinds of mantelpieces, those with tall columns rising to support the mirror frame, often oval in shape, or shorter squat columns supporting the mantel shelf.

Natural and painted wood were both used. Compo, a sawdust and resin material that could be pressed into molds was used extensively.

Most of the decorative carved garlands and swags, Classical urns and vines that adorn not only fireplaces, but door frames and other woodwork in houses of this period are actually compo components glued to the wood.

Compo is available today, in the same shapes and patterns, often by the same companies as a hundred years ago.

Tile work became much plainer, with glazed 1x 4 tiles the norm, covering below the mantel shelf and around the opening of the fireplace.

Patterned tiles are out, these tiles are glazed in beautiful shades of the same color, like a deep maroon, Kelly green, or mauve pink. Sometimes a mottled pastel glaze in green and pink was used, as well.

Occasionally, an even smaller half inch by five inch tile shows up on surrounds of this period. These fireplaces are usually gas, usually with a free standing iron basket with ceramic logs that produced flame-like patterns.

The hearth is decorative, and usually has the same tile work on the floor of the fireplace, with a cast iron fire back. Highly decoratively carved cast iron covers are used to cover the opening when the fireplace is not is use.

Today, these are highly prized, and expensive to buy in salvage markets.

The Arts and Crafts Movement was also happening at this time, and it is interesting to see how the two styles, A&C and Colonial Revival, are mixed in Brooklyn homes.

Pure A&C lines are found in the 2 family Kinkos houses of Crown Heights North and Park Slope, and also in some of Axel Hedman’s houses of the turn of the century, such as in several of his Ocean on the Park houses.

Many homes in Victorian Flatbush have Arts & Crafts interiors, with large 4×4 tilework in the fireplaces, hand forged hardware, and simple mantelpieces held to the wall with simply shaped brackets.

The A&C movement was all about the simpler past, so we find a lot of wood burning fireplaces again. What I find most interesting are the houses that incorporate elements of the Colonial Revival with Arts and Crafts, resulting in an A&C tile surround and hardware within a mantel that is more Colonial Revival, or seems to be at first glance.

A Magnus Dahlander home in Crown Heights is a perfect example, with large tiles, classic Craftsman detailing in the surround in an upstairs fireplace, while in the parlor, a classic Colonial Revival fireplace takes pride of place.

As the 20th century progresses, fireplaces began to disappear in NYC. Floor and wall space began to be more important to buyers than decorative and unused fireplaces.

Developers who specialized in the large middle and upper middle class apartment buildings of the 1920’s and 30’s often put their fireplaces, not in the apartments, but in the lobbies of their buildings, thereby showing class, but not wasting space.

If there was a fireplace in the apartment, it was in the dining room or study, they were no longer in every major room. Apartments for the rich still had fireplaces, but they were amenities that waxed and waned in popularity.

For everyone who loved a fireplace, there would be someone who found them archaic and un-modern. The Modernists and the builders of the Deco apartment buildings in all the boroughs did not design fireplaces.

Today, they are undergoing a comeback. For some, the ability to have a roaring fire in the winter is worth any expense, for others, the decorative mantelpieces and the fireplace itself as a decorative element and a period detail are important to the old house experience.

And for some, the opportunity to use the fireplace, whether wood, gas, or coal, or as a stove surround, is a chance to reduce high heating bills and live in simpler times. And some people love the exposed brick, no mantelpiece at all, plain fire box as a minimalist element.

Whatever the look or the reason, the fireplace, and the mantelpiece, are as popular as ever.

See my Flickr page for photographs, many from local houses.

[Photos by Suzanne Spellen]