Exhibit Tour Next Page - Exhibit Home - Return to Museum

A Web Exhibit produced by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

Stairway

Gracing the center hall at Belle Grove, an elegant three-story stairwell complete with hand cut scroll work and wood-grained paneling provided the perfect dramatic backdrop for several generations of Rockingham debutantes.

Features of note:
open-well, dog-leg style
open-stringer with carved brackets
wood paneling
classic Georgian styling
faux woodgraining throughout

Separating the kitchen wing from the main house was the service stair. Less elaborate and more narrow than the main stair, it allowed servants, or perhaps slaves, to access the second floor bedrooms in addition to keeping the noise and heat of the kitchen apart from the formal living space. The simplified scrollwork of the service stair is seen at left.

open-well - flights on contiguous floors are spaced away from one another so that an open space, or well, is maintained between them.
dog-leg stairs -two2 flights of stairs parallel to one another, broken in the middle by a landing.
open stringers - edges of the treads and risers exposed.

Definitions are from:
Lounsbury, Carl R. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

©Harrisonburg - Rockingham Historical Society. All rights reserved. The "Star" is a trademark of HRHS.