Director and producer Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 masterpiece, “Rope,” begins deceptively, with fine lilting music and scenes of an idyllic New York City block. A woman walks her baby in a stroller, a car glides down a one-way street, and a policeman escorts two boys through the light traffic. Despite omnipresent brick, glass, and concrete, the view is almost bizarrely pastoral.
Then as the credits finish, a fierce scream is heard, but all too briefly. The scene changes and two young men in a plush Manhattan apartment are strangling a third.
“Strangulation has more vivid pictorial qualities,” Hitchcock explained in macabre detail. “It is considerably more horrifying to watch a man struggle and strain under the agonizing pressure of an effective throttling, than to see one slump and flow with bullets in his midriff or a shiv between his ribs.”
Their task completed, the two young men stuff the dead body into a chest. Exhausted and exhilarated, one of them sighs deeply and lights a cigarette while the other stares in stunned bewilderment and confusion. Not only have they just murdered their close friend, David Kentley, but they have also invited his family, his fiancé, his closest friend, and their old prep school housemaster to a dinner party, to be held almost immediately after the murder. They even serve dinner from atop the chest in which Kentley’s body now lies.
“Good Americans usually die young on the battlefield, don’t they?” one of the murderers rhetorically asks. “The Davids of this world merely occupy space, which is why he was the perfect victim for the perfect murder. Of course, he was a Harvard undergraduate. That might make it justifiable homicide,” he smugly jokes.
The Technical Details
Based on “Rope’s End,” a 1929 play by Patrick Hamilton (itself thought to be loosely based on a real 1924 murder case), the rest of the story follows the dinner party’s several participants in real time. That is, the film’s action takes place entirely within a continuous 80-minute span of a single evening.
Hitchcock admits that the whole idea was a bit experimental, as each scene in the movie—with not a single break outside of the street scene run under the opening credits—happens in consecutive 10-minute segments, exactly the capacity of each individual film canister.
I undertook “Rope” as a stunt; that’s the only way I can describe it. I really don’t know how I came to indulge in it. The stage drama was played out in the actual time of the story; the action is continuous from the moment the curtain goes up until it comes down again. I asked myself whether it was technically possible to film it in the same way. The only way to achieve that, I found, would be to handle the shooting in the same continuous action, with no break in the telling of the story that begins at seven-thirty and ends at nine-fifteen. And I got this crazy idea to do it in a single shot.
Almost as important, “Rope” was Hitchcock’s first color movie. Color was no mere gimmick for the great director, but rather a necessity to highlight the dramatic qualities of the murder, the story falling into twilight, and ultimately the dark night. “I wouldn’t make a Technicolor picture just for the sake of using color,” Hitchcock admitted. “I’ve waited 17 years to find a story of my type in which color actually plays a dramatic role.”
The employment of color was, Hitchcock said, all about mood. “We must bear in mind that, fundamentally, there’s no such thing as color; in fact, there’s no such thing as a face, because until the light hits it, it is non-existent,” Hitchcock believed. “There is no such thing as a line; there’s only the light and the shade.”
Hitchcock had not only directed the movie, he had—through his new but short-lived company, Transatlantic Pictures—produced it as well. Sadly the movie failed to show well at the box office, and reviews of it at the time were mixed.
“At all events, the picture takes on a dull tone as it goes and finally ends in a fizzle which is forecast almost from the start,” lamented The New York Times in 1948.
Less prestigious papers, such as The Post-Standard out of Syracuse, claimed that “Rope” held “some of the best acting, directing, and photography in Technicolor that has recently slipped across the local screen,” while Abilene Reporter-News proclaimed that “the expert use of Technicolor and Hitchcock’s wizardry at building a plot to explosive excitement make ‘Rope’ one of the screen’s most sensational films.”
In 2021, looking back over the history of movie making, it’s extremely difficult for any cinephile to understand The New York Times’ dismissal of the film. Not only is “Rope” a great Hitchcock movie, it must also be one of the greatest movies in cinematic history. The direction is compelling, the acting is extraordinary, the dialogue is crisp, and the unraveling of the murderers’ arrogance is downright gripping.
The Lesson Learned
In hindsight, it’s also impossible not to be struck by how objectively moral the story is.
As teenagers, the two murderers had spent many late-night hours discussing ethics and morality with their housemaster, Rupert Cadell (Jimmy Stewart). As a follower of Friedrich Nietzsche, Cadell had taught them that morality and ethics existed only to keep the masses in check. The elite—or the supermen—were above and beyond good and evil, and furthermore had the privilege of not just believing, but acting as such. After all, victims are “inferior beings whose lives are unimportant anyway.”
Who then are the elite? According to one of the murderers: “The few are those men of such intellectual and cultural superiority that they’re above the traditional moral concepts. Good and evil, right and wrong were invented for the ordinary average man, the inferior man, because he needs them.”
When Cadell figures out what his two former students have done, the reality of his teaching and philosophy becomes unbearable for him.
Justice, it seems, is absolute. So is the greatness of Hitchcock’s “Rope.”
Bradley J. Birzer is Russell Amos Kirk chair in American Studies and professor of History, Hillsdale College.
The Virginia State Capitol rendered in an 1830 watercolor by William Goodacre. (Public Domain)
In 1784 Thomas Jefferson found himself in France as our first ambassador. While he was there he fell in love. Arrested by its striking classical beauty, the patriot became smitten with a small Roman temple in Nîmes known as the Maison Carrée (square house). Describing it as “the most perfect model existing of what might be called cubic architecture,” Jefferson sketched a design for the Capitol of Virginia, to be built in Richmond. “Very simple, noble beyond expression,” he continued in praise of the original, as he and French architect Charles-Louis Clérisseau collaborated on their new design. Completed in 1788, it was, according to architectural historian George Heard Hamilton, “the first building to be so called in modern times, and the first since antiquity specifically intended for republican legislative functions … the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia.”
The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France, became Thomas Jefferson’s inspiration for the Virginia Capitol in Richmond. (Krzysztof Golick, cc license)
But Jefferson had not actually visited the temple in Nîmes when he designed Virginia’s Capitol—he had only seen it in a lithograph. Two years after he drew the plans, he visited Nîmes and found himself “gazing whole hours at the Maison quarée, like a lover at his mistress,” he wrote at the time. It is a fitting beginning for America’s love affair with classical architecture. Jefferson is known primarily as a founding father and statesman, but in his day, men of letters were often schooled in the principles of building design. As a prominent landowner, he would have directed the construction of his house and farm buildings, while as a civic leader, he would have done so for important public buildings as well. The Virginia State Capitol’s story really began in 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Director of Public Buildings sent a letter to Paris, asking Jefferson for an edifice design. It was to be built on Shockoe Hill, overlooking the falls of the James River, in Richmond. Jefferson considered the site to be a perfect location for a “temple to Liberty or Justice,” and studied a number of Greek and Roman temples as potential models.
The 18th-century excavation of Pompeii had led to the publishing of some wonderfully illustrated books that became widely available in print for just such a time as his. The rich engravings of “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”), by Bernard de Montfaucon, and Andrea Palladio’s “I quattro libri dell’architettura” (“The Four Books of Architecture”) would inspire America’s first classicists. When Jefferson designed the Virginia Capitol building in collaboration with Clérisseau, he based his design on just such an engraving. The bibliophile Jefferson found in France a wealth of material to inspire him, but how could he adequately convey his designs to builders an ocean away?
The builders in Virginia were skilled in working with native materials such as clay-fired brick and carved wood, often working with minimal plans as they replicated the Georgian architecture brought from England. Virginia’s Capitol would require much more guidance. Architectural model-making was already a high art in France, so Jefferson commissioned Jean-Pierre Fouquet, a master modeler, to construct a 1-60 (where 1 inch equals 5 feet) detailed model in plaster of Paris. Fouquet didn’t work cheaply, so Jefferson apparently ordered only the front and sides, leaving the back to be added later. He was compelled to explain that it was “absolutely necessary for the guide of workmen not very expert in their art.”
The Virginia Capital as it appears today—a “temple to Liberty or Justice.” (Public Domain)
Fouquet had an impressive résumé. Jefferson wrote of him: “an artist who had been employed by the … ambassador of France to Constantinople, in making models of the most celebrated remains of ancient architecture in that country.” Indeed, his work would inform the high design of L’École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts). It also informed the work of Virginia’s most celebrated architectural amateur. Fouquet’s model for the Virginia Capitol was quite detailed, right down to the positioning of tie rods. It was shipped to Virginia as a guide for the artisans—a proportional representation of Maison Carrée to be sure. But today it shows one major change that Jefferson made: the fluted Corinthian columns of the original have been replaced with simpler Ionic columns. Perhaps this was a kindness to the artisans who had to build it. Perhaps it was a matter of taste. At some point in the 1870s, Jefferson sketched a design concept for a future Virginia Capitol that featured the Ionic order.
Jefferson himself would not return to Virginia from France until 1789, meaning his most prominent civic design was built entirely without his direct supervision. The builders, possibly led by Samuel Dobie, eliminated the front stairs, opting instead for a couple of smaller side entrances. This was done to provide better lighting for the basement offices. The result was a grand portico awkwardly perched on a raised foundation. Jefferson’s interior design was radically changed as well. A gallery was constructed in the meeting space, supported by brackets. There would be no columns—Jefferson had wanted columns. This design change would prove disastrous when it collapsed in 1870, injuring 251 people and killing 62.
Initially, the Virginia Capitol and Jefferson’s other works were not painted white. Tan- and sand-colored paint added contrast between pilasters and panels, mimicking the colors found in antiquity. Stucco and white paint were added around the turn of the century. In 1904, classical architect John Kevan Peebles designed two wings to house the assembly chambers, attached by hyphens to each side of the original building. The front stairs envisioned by Jefferson were added as well. Peebles would later distinguish himself by designing pavilions for the 1907 Jamestown Tercentennial Exhibition, Virginia’s first world’s fair. One thing that has remained constant in the Virginia Capitol building is the display of the 1788 life sculpture of George Washington, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, which has remained in the central rotunda since its arrival in 1796.
If 19th-century engravings are any indication, the building seems to have indeed become symbolic of Jefferson’s civic ideals. It rises above the bustle of the city like the Parthenon above Athens in a number of artistic representations. Jefferson would continue to influence American civic architecture. Both his Monticello estate and his subsequent design for the University of Virginia’s Academical Village are directly inspired by Andrea Palladio’s illustrations of Roman villas. The Pantheon inspired his central building at the University. As these classical forms took shape in brick and wood, Jefferson became a hands-on manager. He would make numerous changes to Monticello, tearing down and rebuilding whole portions of it. He personally designed three Virginia county courthouses, as well as a number of private homes. His enduring work has inspired legions of Virginia builders since.
Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Beautiful little girl looking fascinated eating popcorn watching a movie at the local movie theatre snack bucket junk food tasty childhood entertaining entertained emotions kids concept
Night. Somewhere in Northern Europe. (8,000 B.C.)
Picture a cave with a fire burning just outside its mouth. Prehistoric men, women, and children are seated on the cave floor, every face alit with awe and wonder, under the spell of a master storyteller. Before them, an elder, dressed in animal skins and a headdress with antlers stands near the flames, gesturing and talking. He’s retelling the story of a recent hunt. The fact that everyone already knows how it ends doesn’t spoil it; if anything, it enhances it. It’s all there: the suspense of the stalk, the rush and fury of the kill, the sustaining power of life-giving flesh, gained at the cost of animal life, and perhaps the life of one of their own. One of their number, moved by the power of the imagery, illustrates the story on the cave wall, trying to hold onto some of the magic lest it be forgotten.
This scene from a “movie”—one made countless millennia before our current form of movies was invented, and replayed countless millions of times throughout those lost eons, is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that we aren’t even aware of it. Yet many of us moderns have had similar experiences in our youth: sitting cross-legged with siblings or friends around a campfire, parents or counselors telling stories by the magical light, sparks rising to the stars, our imaginations transfixed and painting the pictures of the story on the cave walls of our minds.
Mankind’s need for storytelling is timeless and universal. Stories connect us with myths and legends, tradition and history; they tell us truths about ourselves and where we come from, and give us common ground with our fellow man. By sharing triumph and tragedy, love and hate, fear and courage, sadness and joy, stories show us the meaning of life and our place within it. They show us how we should act and choose and the rewards and pitfalls of those acts and choices. Priests, preachers, politicians, and public speakers throughout the ages have all known that nothing drives home the point of their message like a good story. We even do it to ourselves, instinctively assigning the significant events of our personal lives to various “stories,” whether it’s the story of our getting our driver’s license, going off to college, and finding or losing love. Everything fits into some sort of story.
Yet just as universal as our need for storytelling, is our need for those stories to be received in the company of others. Aristotle described the appeal of theater in his “Poetics,” the first serious study and analysis of drama. He contrasted it with the performance of the sacred mysteries, yet ascribed to it a similar conveyance of insight, purification, and spiritual healing through visions, called the “theama.” Thus the location of such a performance was named “theatron.” In other words, Aristotle defined theater as the place where humanity receives the wisdom of stories through visions. And much of the power of drama comes from its communal nature—the fact that we consume it as part of an audience, which attains its own collective consciousness for the duration of the presentation.
For plays, the “truth” of a particular presentation was necessarily limited to one particular time and place. And the quality of the experience varied immensely, based on whether Hamlet was being played by Olivier, or Fred the neighborhood butcher. But for films, where the same presentation can take place over vast reaches of time and space, and where we can all make a claim to sharing the same experience, we all have a chance to belong to the same tribe. We all get to share the same sense of wonder as we enter the massive gates of Jurassic Park, and see those giant dinosaurs made real—even if we intuitively know they’ll soon be hunting our emotional stand-ins—the cast—so convincingly that we’ll forget about our popcorn until the action lets up for a moment.
The motion picture experience is never funnier, never more terrifying, and never more satisfying than when we experience it as part of an audience. But now, as we emerge from this global pandemic, we have to ask ourselves: Are we on the verge of losing the primordial impact of film in theaters? Will our fear of contagion bring about the demise of this extraordinary experience and its potential to inform and inspire mankind? Might the so-called progress of internet-streamed “entertainment” inure us to what we’ve become used to this past year: consuming endless hours of it, sheltered in the safety of our homes?
For our part, we hope not. Because if we decide that we’re no longer willing to venture out to join our local tribe in a dark cave and receive the true power of story by the light of a flickering flame, then we will have lost something. It’s been said that sooner or later we become the stories we tell. But maybe it’s even truer that we become the stories we’ve shared. And no matter how many times we revisit a favorite movie in the comfort of our own home, we’ll always fondly remember the first time we saw it—the when, where, and with whom—in a theater.
Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman have been writers and producers in the entertainment industry for 30 years. They have worked with Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony-Columbia, and 20th Century Fox.
"A Map of the State of Virginia," 1827, by Herman Böÿe, engraved by Benjamin Tanner, features this illustration of the University of Virginia's Academical Village, as seen in 1826. (Herman Böÿe’s 1859 Map of Virginia. Library of Congress)
If you had traveled with the Marquis de Lafayette to the Piedmont region of Virginia in 1824, you would have been amazed to come upon a beautifully proportioned village being built in the finest tradition of Renaissance planning. Ten pavilions connected by colonnades extending from a great building resembling the Roman Pantheon rose impressively above the rolling fields of Albemarle County. Lafayette had come as the guest of Thomas Jefferson to the University of Virginia’s nascent Academical Village, Jefferson’s last major architectural project. Lafayette and Jefferson dined together with James Madison and almost 400 dignitaries on the top floor of the still-unfinished Rotunda (the recreated Pantheon) and savored the view of the surrounding countryside.
R.D. Ward wrote of the occasion: “The meats were excellent, and each eye around us beamed contentment. It was contentment arising from the performance of the most sacred, the most grateful duty. It was the offering of liberty to him who had gratuitously aided to achieve it. In the language of Mr. Madison, it was ‘Liberty, where virtue was the guest, and gratitude the feast.’”
Andrea Palladio inspired the ‘Academical Village,’ a Renaissance village in frontier America. (Bob Kirchman)
The university that Jefferson so proudly presented to his compatriot in the cause of liberty was a project that the third president had long cherished in his heart. The seeds were first planted when Jefferson himself was a student at the College of William & Mary, located in Williamsburg, the capital of Colonial Virginia. Jefferson began acquiring what would become his extensive collection of books—and the first library of the University of Virginia. He purchased a treatise on classical architecture, in a shop close to the college, and so began his study of the art of building. He would eventually acquire “A Book of Architecture” and “The Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture,” by James Gibbs; “Parallèle de l’architecture antique avec la moderne” (“A parallel of the ancient architecture with the modern”), by Roland Fréart de Chambray and Charles Errard; as well as “The Four Books of Architecture,” by Andrea Palladio. He was certainly also acquainted with Bernard de Montfaucon’s “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”), which features a detailed illustration of the Roman Pantheon. These were the guiding texts for America’s most prolific amateur architect as he set to work designing an institution of higher learning.
The Pantheon was the model for Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda. Bernard de Montfaucon’s “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”) provides a detailed drawing. (L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée by Bernard de Montfaucon, public domain)The Rotunda is actually smaller than the Roman Pantheon. (Bob Kirchman)
When young Jefferson attended William & Mary, it was essentially housed in one large building, the Wren Building, which still dominates one end of Duke of Gloucester Street today. Jefferson had proposed an addition to the College of William & Mary in the late 1700s, along with a few proposals for reform of that institution—they weren’t well-received by the administration, leading Jefferson to pursue his vision in Charlottesville, Virginia, as his career drew to a close. The villa designs of Palladio, the great Renaissance architect, had inspired Jefferson’s own home, Monticello, and furthermore, on a plot of land visible from the “Little Mountain,” would also inspire a new kind of college campus—a fitting “academical village” for a new republic. Renaissance architecture had sought to open up the congestion of medieval towns with plazas and squares, and Leonardo da Vinci had even conceptualized a redesign of Milan along those lines in the wake of deadly bubonic plague outbreaks that ravaged the city in 1484 and 1485.
But it was a French hospital that likely gave Jefferson his most powerful inspiration. The Hôtel-Dieu had a unique problem that Jefferson became aware of when he was in Paris. This hospital in the heart of the city had been the center of France’s health care system since the Middle Ages. It was housed in a single building that was overcrowded and conducive to the spread of disease. Louis XVI had been concerned by reports of its mortality rate. In 1787, plans for four separate hospitals that could replace Hôtel-Dieu were drafted by Jean-Baptiste Le Roy with assistance from scientists Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and the Marquis de Condorcet, both of whom were friends of Jefferson. Le Roy’s plans called for a series of pavilions connected by colonnades, with a Palladian site plan for each campus. Though they were never actually built, these campus designs might have inspired Jefferson to write in support of the hospital model for Virginia’s new university: “An academic village instead of a large and common den of noise, filth, and fetid air. It would afford the quiet retirement so friendly to study and lessen the dangers of fire, infection, and tumult. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace, and quiet.”
Pavilion VII, view at the colonnade. (Bob Kirchman)
By 1817, Jefferson had laid out his campus in an open “U” similar to Le Roy’s designs, collaborating with Dr. William Thornton and Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The Rotunda would command one end of his lawn, flanked by 10 pavilions connected by two colonnades. The other end would open to the rolling hills of Albemarle County. He said of it: “Now what we wish is that these pavilions they will shew themselves above the dormitories, be models of taste and good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lectures.” Indeed, each featured a distinctive employment of one of the classical orders in columns and entablature. The lower level of each pavilion would house classrooms, and the upper story would be an apartment for a professor. “Each unit, identified with one of the 10 ‘sciences useful in our time’ was to be inhabited by a professor who taught that subject.” Students were to be housed in rooms that opened into the colonnade. An outer series of buildings known as the Range provided additional housing and kitchens.
A view down the colonnade connecting the pavilions. (Bob Kirchman)
The University of Virginia was still being constructed when Lafayette visited in 1824. Classes began the next year, with five professors (all recruited from Europe) and a few dozen students. The faculty eventually expanded with the hiring of American teachers. As the student population grew, the need for more space prompted the building of a four-story annex to the Rotunda in 1851. This huge addition created precisely the kind of structure Jefferson had sought to avoid, but he had passed in 1826 and was no longer there to guide improvements. In 1895, the Rotunda Annex burned to the ground. In an attempt to save the original Rotunda, the portico connecting it to the burning annex was dynamited. The fire was still able to leap to the Rotunda and it was gutted. Though students and faculty rushed in to salvage books and artworks, much of Jefferson’s library was lost. Today the Rotunda stands after many restorations, still very much a “temple of knowledge and enlightenment.”
The curved brick walls of the Rotunda. (Bob Kirchman)
Benjamin Henry Latrobe II’s Thomas Viaduct from ‘The United States Illustrated,’ 1858, by Charles Dana. (Public Domain, Republished by Library of Congress)
Charles Carroll of Carrollton might well have been the Elon Musk of his day. The last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence was certainly an influencer. Carroll sponsored advances in agriculture, and, encouraged by his partnership with John, George, and Andrew Ellicott, Carroll promoted the use of crop rotation and pulverized limestone on his large Maryland estate. In 1828, he also laid the cornerstone for one of America’s first railroads, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O).
At the time, as connection to the West was a major concern for many in the young nation, Carroll had already helped found the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company (C&O Canal). That canal began in Washington, D.C., and followed the Potomac River west. Likewise, George Washington helped build the James River and Kanawha Canal, which was designed to connect the Ohio Valley with the coast by way of Richmond, Virginia.
Canal boats on the James River and Kanawha Canal even had cabins for passengers making the journey. Sketch by J.R. Hamilton, published in Harper’s Weekly. (Library of Congress)
Without such connections, trade would logically flow to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, bypassing the former British colonies altogether—but there were the mountains to reckon with. The Great Falls of the Potomac stood in the way for the C&O Canal as well. The James River and Kanawha Canal made its way through the Blue Ridge Mountains following the path cut by the James—but then there were the Alleghenies.
A terrazzo map of the James River and Kanawha Canal on the floor of the James Center, in Richmond, Va. (Bob Kirchman)
An incredibly complex system of locks, canals, and even tunnels would be necessary to connect the two watersheds. Each lock was an amazing bit of masonry and wood construction, allowing boats to rise and descend between levels of the canal. Remains can still be seen along the Maury River in Rockbridge County, Virginia, today.
The coming of the railroad opened up new avenues of westward commerce. No longer dependent on a regularly flowing system of waterways, and requiring less excavation, railroads could facilitate travel across the entire country. They needed no complex locks to cross the mountains, only a steady grade, and that required bridges and tunnels.
The B&O wound its way out of Baltimore along the Patapsco River on a gentle grade, while ample locally quarried granite allowed for the construction of some fine viaducts and other necessary structures.
The Oliver Viaduct, across Tiber Creek, in Ellicott City, Md. This was the first terminus of the B&O. (Bob Kirchman)
A Roman arch was employed in America’s very first railroad bridge, the Carrollton Viaduct, named after Carroll’s estate. Initially the tracks had no ties; instead, straps of iron were laid on top of continuous granite pieces that ran along the length of the road, allowing a smooth path for the horses that pulled the first railway carriages.
The completion of the first 13 miles of track, to Ellicott’s Mills, created a popular excursion for the residents of Baltimore.
In the early days of the B&O, the motive power was provided by horses, but horsepower would soon become a standard instead of a literal fact. Although it lost its famous race with a horse-drawn carriage, Peter Cooper’s small locomotive “Tom Thumb,” with its upright boiler, would—together with steam engines in general—define the future of railroading.
In the interim, however, even wind power was considered. Evan Thomas of Baltimore constructed an experimental wicker railroad car with a sail, which he named the Aeolus. When there was enough wind blowing in the right direction to make it functional, it was operated on the tracks between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills.
The Russian Ambassador to the United States, Paul von Krüdener, came to observe the operation of the experimental car, and actually handled the sail on the trip. In return, the president of the B&O presented the ambassador with a model of the car. The occasion led to an exchange of American engineers who helped construct Russia’s rail system.
In England, nobility resisted the building of railroads. The Duke of Wellington said of civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western Railway, from London to Bristol, “It will encourage the working classes to move about!”
America’s leaders, on the other hand, chartered railways with enthusiasm, knowing that westward movement would be essential to the building of the republic. The B&O pressed on to Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia), and the Ohio River. A line was built between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., for which Benjamin Henry Latrobe II, son of America’s first formally trained architect, designed the elegant Thomas Viaduct to carry trains across the Patapsco. A curved viaduct of Roman arches, it remains in use today.
The Thomas Viaduct still carries freight and commuter trains to this day. (Bob Kirchman)
Around 1853, Charles A. Dana published a beautiful lithograph of it in his book, “The United States Illustrated,” writing of it:
The “Pons Narniensis,” whose framer was the imperial Augustus; the arches of Trajan over the Danube, and the bridge of Alcantara across the Spanish Tagus, have long been famous in ancient history, whilst America, for the accommodation of no imperial cortege, but of the masses of the people, has rivalled them all in her numerous railroad viaducts, and especially in the Starucca Viaduct upon the Erie Railroad.
The one given in the engraving was of the first built in the country, although exceeded by the one above named in length, breadth, height, and the span of the arches, it is not surpassed for beauty of location and compactness of execution.
Claudius Crozet was born on Dec. 31, 1789, in Villefranche, France. He studied at the École Polytechnique and became an engineer in the French Army, serving under Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1816 he resigned his commission and came to the United States, where in 1858 he completed what was at its time one of the longest railway tunnels in the world. Measuring 4,237 feet, it was one of a series of tunnels that Crozet designed to carry the Virginia Central Railroad through the Blue Ridge Mountains and on into the Alleghenies. The Western Portal of the Blue Ridge Tunnel is a magnificent stone arch; it’s a parabolic arch rather than a strictly Roman one, to allow for locomotive stacks and ventilation.
As late as 1874, the B&O was still building stone viaducts as it advanced a railway line through Virginia to Lexington, Kentucky. One particularly fine example may be seen by travelers on Interstate 81 as they drive through Augusta County in Virginia.
Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife, Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Pianist and composer Eric Genuis has played nearly 1,000 concerts in prisons, including hundreds in youth prisons. (Kirsten Butler Photography)
There was a gang member who had been in prison all his life, who said he’d never once cried in all his years. He’d buried his mother, he’d buried his father, and he saw the door to his future close when he was sentenced to be locked up for decades, maybe the rest of his life. But then, in prison, he heard a chamber music concert, and he cried.
“This one man stood up after the show, covered in tattoos, the whole nine yards, and he said: ‘I’m overcome with emotion. I’ve had no control over my tears for the last two hours during the show. I’ve never cried in my life. Never. My mom died, my father died, I was sad but I never cried. What is it?'” said Eric Genuis, the composer of the music that man heard.
“I remember being really taken by this,” said Genuis, a pianist and composer. “Here’s a man who spent his whole life in prison, tried and convicted as a teen, and is now close to 60. Well, what is it? It’s the human heart.”
Genuis has seen countless such reactions. In Massachusetts, another prisoner said: “I’ve killed a lot of people in my life. After hearing this, I’ve had a higher encounter with my humanity. I’ll never hurt another person again.”
“Now, that was really beautiful, but why did a prisoner stand up in front of other prisoners and demonstrate a certain vulnerability? That’s a no-no, right? He comes up after the show and he starts talking about it: ‘This is how cold I became in life, I was able to do this and it didn’t affect me, I was able to do that,'” Genuis said.
“There was another man, 90 years old, in a walker. He said, ‘I’ve lived with the pain and suffering that I’ve caused when I was a 19-year-old man.”
“My concert invites deep emotion,” Genuis said. “But it’s the music that invites that. It’s not just me walking in and talking to them, and they feel comfortable with me. You’ve broken down a barrier—music is very disarming. It allows them to have an encounter with their own humanity, maybe things that have been buried forever that they’ve been invited to sort of resurrect and rethink and ponder and heal from.”
Early in his career, Genuis decided he would go wherever there was a demand for his music. He’s played private concerts for movie stars, and he’s played under a bridge for homeless veterans. His guiding philosophy is to write beautiful music, music that communicates hope, and he works tirelessly to bring it to other people because he has seen the need.
“There is something mysterious about beauty, and it’s why everybody should be immersed in beauty,” he said.
His guiding philosophy is to write beautiful music, music that communicates hope, and he works tirelessly to bring it to other people because he has seen the need. (Kirsten Butler Photography)
Starved of Beauty
For nearly three decades, Genuis brought his music to places without hope—rehab centers, prisons, inner-city schools—on his own time and out of his own pocket, using the proceeds from his regular concerts. A few years ago, Genuis realized that wouldn’t be enough and started his foundation Concerts for Hope to further the mission.
Genuis says he’s played nearly 1,000 concerts in prisons since he started. This meant he’s also played in hundreds of youth prisons.
In one room of 300 prisoners, all tried and convicted as teens with sentences of several decades, Genuis remembered a young gang leader who sat right up front. He wasn’t interested in being required to attend a classical concert, but when the music began, he became entranced by the violin.
“He put his hand over his heart, threw his head back, and said, ‘That is the most beautiful thing,'” Genuis said. “He said: ‘Why have I never heard that before?'”
“Now, we live in the age of the internet so this boy can hear anything he wants, whenever he wants. We as parents, and as adults, and as schoolteachers and educators, as church leaders—all the leaders of the community have access to this boy, and what did we give him? He knows everything about gangster rap,” he said. “But never did anyone introduce him to something that goes in and moves his heart and uplifts his humanity, and stirs the awe and wonder and creativity in life and elevates him, and realizes the beautiful dignity he has as a person. And that’s the effect of beauty.”
In the United States, there are about 2.3 million people in prison. Across the country, there are pockets of culture that revolve around prison. These young people tell Genuis no one would care if they went to prison; one told Genuis if he ever landed in prison, people would only ask him why it hadn’t happened earlier. He’s spoken to young adults about to get out of prison, asking about their plans, and they’ve told him that they’ll be back in prison in no time. And if they do some serious damage to a rival gang, maybe kill one of their members, it’ll elevate their status once they do get sent back to prison.
“They’re not cared for, nobody cares for this person,” Genuis said. “There’s this whole population that is forgotten, that is abandoned, that has no mentorship, no love, no guidance, nothing.”
He once met a 23-year-old who joked about getting sentenced to three lifetimes. Genuis asked, “Are you OK?” But the young man wasn’t at all bothered.
“It was so familiar to him, so non-devastating, so nonchalant, that I thought, a good part of the population doesn’t look at throwing their life away as devastating, because maybe emotionally and internally, they’ve thrown theirs away a long time ago,” he said. In these places of forgotten people and of no hope, people have forgotten their humanity, and it has little worth for them.
“So what I want to do is elevate, I want to go and bring them hope,” Genuis said. In December 2019, a young woman in South Carolina stood up after one of his prison concerts and said: ‘I’m at the lowest point in my life, I was here, I forgot what it was like to feel human. I feel human right now.’So yes, beauty can uplift humanity.”
After she got out of prison, she wrote him a letter about her renewed hope and added, “This is a turning point.”
He said, “That’s what I want, I want to go and elevate people’s humanity, remind them of their humanity.”
After the pandemic, Genuis plans to focus more of his work on playing in schools and to set up a program called Project Detour for children, in hopes of changing the culture.
“I want to detour them from the idea that prison is just part of life,” Genuis said.
After the pandemic, Genuis plans to set up a program for children called Project Detour “to detour them from the idea that prison is just part of life,” he says.
To Elevate the Soul
Confucius said if one wants to know the morals of a nation, “the quality of its music will furnish the answer.” And Plato said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
“I believe these men were right,” Genuis said. “I believe music is a language that speaks to the heart, mind, and soul in ways words will never touch. Music and beauty have the ability—it is a language, it communicates—to elevate the mystery behind the person, to elevate that essence, to elevate that which animates them—the soul, if you will—but to elevate them and move them.”
“Music can create such awe and wonder in the imagination of people, so I think it is critical in the formation of our young to immerse them in beauty,” he said. There’s a place for fun music, too, Genuis added, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of beauty, which so many in our civilization are starved for.
In another life, Genuis might have stayed a physics teacher, happily on his way to retirement with a good pension by now.
“But when I was in class, I’d often be writing melodies, and then after class, I’d be in the library listening to Beethoven,” he said. Genuis is a talented pianist, but unlike most musicians who pursue music, he was driven to compose.
“I would just write and write and write,” he said. “I never thought I’d do this for a living, or that anyone would ever hear a performance, I’d just write for the sheer love of writing music.”
Genuis knew it was a gift. He believed he had been given this great thing, and it was meant to be shared, so he followed the audience. He found there was such a need for beautiful music and felt compelled to do it full time.
“It’s not about fame or any of that, it’s just about connecting with people. I started to play everywhere,” he said. Then he got invited to a prison, and thought, why not?
“And then when I saw broken people react so strongly, I thought, wow.”
Genuis has gone through a lot of trouble to bring his music to people.
A day’s schedule might begin with packing up from the evening concert at midnight, driving three hours to the next city over, where a prison has invited Genuis to perform, taking a nap mid-trip at a rest stop, going through prison security early in the morning to get all of his equipment in, playing three concerts at the prison and wrapping up by late afternoon, and then getting prepared for his evening concert in that city almost straight away.
“I’m in a lot of dark places in the world,” he said. “It’s very tough, I cannot tell you how many times at 3 a.m. in the morning I’m driving from one location to another, and I’m exhausted, and I think: ‘What am I doing? I should be home sleeping!’ And you start questioning everything. Is there purpose? What is this?”
But Genuis is positive by intention, and he says it really does come down to the music. He believes in it wholly.
“This is the greatest thing I have to offer, and I am going to move mountains to offer it.”
“Through this music, I was able to live what I really believe,” he said. “I feel like it has been a gift to me and my humanity to provide this, I feel very lucky. Life is short, and for a short window, I can share this music.”
When Genuis composes, he reaches for hope. It’s this combination of awe and wonder, like a child picking up a block and seeing a castle, he explained. “That’s hope, because the awe and wonder for life, ‘Oh I wonder what I can build with this Lego,’ leads to ‘Oh, I wonder what life has in store for me.”
“All this awe and wonder and hope, it’s humanity, it’s life. When that gets squashed in someone at 10 years old and nothing matters, like this 23-year-old [talking about his three life sentences], his hope was dead a long time ago,” Genuis said. But if you can show people hope, you can remind them of their humanity, and music—just ephemeral wavelengths—does it in a way words can’t.
“You bring them hope and you help them realize, you are human,” he said. “And even if you have to spend the rest of your life in prison, you can read books, you can discover things, you can always elevate your humanity. It may not turn into a big paying job but it can challenge you intellectually, it can challenge you spiritually, emotionally.”
“We all recognize beauty when we see it, and it’s not something you can discuss or you can describe or you can comment on. Really it’s a language beyond,” he said. “A language beyond words that reaches and connects with us and we know it.”
“When we’re in a vulnerable situation like suffering and pain and we have an encounter with something beautiful, and we’re not distracted with other things—if we’re happy and joyful and running around busy with other things, maybe beauty doesn’t really knock us between the eyes—but when we’re poised and we’re reflective and it sort of elevates us, we know it, and it’s sort of involuntary,” he said. “It’s not even controllable.”
“Like this boy [moved by the violin], if he is starved for beauty so much, so is everybody else. The question is, why aren’t we giving it to them? I go in and play at universities, they don’t even know what a cello is,” he said. “[Music] has always had an entertainment quality but it’s never just been what it’s supposed to be.”
“There is this whole world, like a cave full of diamonds, a whole world that we’ve not explored, in our children’s education … and the result of that is this boy puts his hand over his heart and says, ‘Why have I never been exposed to that?’ It’s like he was begging for his humanity. ‘Why have I not been able to feel like who I am?'”
After a concert Genuis gave at a PTSD clinic, a man who went from running fearlessly into battle to not being able to even set foot in a drugstore came up to Genuis and hugged him fiercely.
“He said: ‘I’ve done a lot of terrible things in war that I fear I’m going to have to pay for. I don’t feel like I can ever be forgiven or I can forgive myself. I don’t even remember what it’s like to feel human or to feel myself,'” Genuis said. “And then he says: ‘I remember who I am right now. I don’t want to let go. I fear if I let go, I’ll forget who I am again.'”
“It’s a story of suffering, but it’s a story of redemption. And who’s not in need of redemption? We all are, and we all should seek truth to do all we can to bring hope and to bring redemption to other people’s lives,” Genuis said.
Pianist and composer Eric Genuis on his world tour. (Courtesy of Eric Genuis)(Kirsten Butler Photography)
Drayton Hall, an 18th-century estate built just outside Charleston, South Carolina, exemplifies the Colonial Revival style. (Brent Hull)
A series exploring America’s traditional architectural styles
In a series, master woodworker Brent Hull will introduce readers to the different architectural styles that were popularized throughout American history, explaining their significance and unique design features.
In the early 1920s, two men of great wealth were investing their time and money into large restoration and preservation projects. These two men, H. F. DuPont and John D. Rockefeller Jr., both heirs to great fortunes, felt a nostalgic and patriotic pull to the architecture and ideals of colonial America.
Many things were happening in the 1920s culturally. The United States was fresh out of World War I, a war that established the United States for the first time as a major world power. This newfound status caused Americans to reflect deeper on their history. Also, 1926 was the 150th year anniversary of America’s founding in 1776—a milestone many were eager to celebrate. It was a glorious time.
DuPont, in his fervor, began to collect historic rooms of all ages from across the country. Today, his collection, totaling over 175 rooms, is open to the public via a museum converted from his estate, called Winterthur. These rooms represent a tremendous cross-section of American style and taste from 1640 to 1860, from high-style Philadelphia mansions to simple New Hampshire taverns. They demonstrate a level of craft and skill that are amazing, considering that there were no power tools or Pinterest boards for inspiration at the time.
The Hampton Room in the Winterthur museum. It was used as a guest room for DuPont’s visiting friends. (Courtesy of Brent Hull)
Meanwhile, Rockefeller poured his focus into rebuilding the early capital of Williamsburg, Virginia. Colonial Williamsburg, as it is known today, is a national treasure. I was there a couple of years ago on a sketching tour and was blown away by the charming and beautiful architecture. These buildings stand with a wonderful confidence. There’s no attempt to be showy, but rather, with humble elements and simple decoration, these buildings inspire.
It’s been nearly 100 years since DuPont and Rockefeller invested in and were enraptured by the Colonial Revival style. The Colonial Revival era spans from 1920 to 1940, an architectural style that takes the best of Georgian and Federal-era homes and blends them into a successful aggregate. When strolling through the cobblestoned streets of Colonial Williamsburg or the halls of Winterthur, it’s hard not to long again for the wonderful detail and simple beauty of these homes and rooms. Unfortunately, we can’t seem to build homes with the same level of execution, and our faster and cheaper homes appear disposable and no longer timeless.
Colonial Revival-style houses in Williamsburg. (Brent Hull)
I was consulting with a client recently who was building a new home and had hoped to capture the spirit of her 1920s neighborhood. She shared her current plans with me and wondered what was missing. They had attempted to capture the past but had missed. “What is it about these houses?” she asked me. Why are we not able to capture it today in our home? I find this is a common sentiment among homeowners, and yet there is a fix.
When my company builds period houses, we’re focused on authentic details and subtle elements. Sometimes doing less is more impactful. It requires breaking habits of the last 50 years of building.
In truth, there are dozens of important decisions that need to be made when building a house. However, these decisions are much easier to make if you have a clear focus of what you’re building. I often ask our clients, is this home from 1760, 1820, or 1850? I’m asking for specific dates because that will help determine the styling, the hardware, the moldings, and a myriad of other details.
A recent home we built was inspired by Drayton Hall, the great Southern home built outside of Charleston, South Carolina in the 1740s. By tethering our client’s house to this historic home, we were able to determine many details such as the brick, the windows, the entryway, and the aesthetic of the home. There was no intention of a direct copy, but rather a desire to capture the spirit of this home and its authentic details.
Attention to historical detail allowed us to enliven the character of the home:
The windows are scaled and sized very carefully. Windows are the eyes of the home and the most important element to get right. We used graduated fenestration (the arrangement, proportioning, and design of windows and doors in a building) here, meaning the first floor windows are slightly bigger than second-floor windows. This establishes hierarchy and helps proportion the home with a heavier base and a lighter top.
Historically, houses made from brick were solid masonry, meaning the exterior walls were made of bricks two to three layers thick. The layers were tied together with bonding bricks, meaning bricks that tied the layers together. The layers were essentially woven together, unlike today, where the brick is a single layer or veneer in front of a wood framing. On our client’s house, we used this historic knowledge and introduced a historical bonding pattern. This means that every 5th course was laid up with header bricks. This breaks up the running bond of the brick face (brick that faces the outside world) by creating a subtle coursing pattern.
We also made sure the windows and doors were capped with a brick arch. A brick arch is a historic structural trick that physically spans an opening. While today, a steel lintel is used, historically the brick arch kept the brick above from collapsing. True brick arches are rare today and require a custom order from the brick manufacturer.
Louvers (window shutters with horizontal slats) used to be a working part of home air circulation systems. Closed in the morning to block sun and heat, they would be opened to allow light and air movement. With the arrival of air conditioning in the 1950s, windows gradually become non-operable, and large picture windows were introduced. Shutters were turned into a decorative feature, and on many homes, they’re screwed or nailed to the wall. Working shutters is a small thing that makes a big difference, because the authentic hardware and shadow lines add depth to the face of the home.
These are just a few of the examples of what makes for charming Colonial Revival homes. Remembering and practicing these historic building elements makes for a more beautiful home. In order to build great Colonial Revival homes today, we must be students of the past. We live in an age where the art of building has been lost. With careful work and attention to details, we can build better again.
Brent Hull is the owner and founder of Hull Works, a workshop dedicated to building period millwork, crafting houses, and restoring historic buildings. He consults and works all over the country. To continue studying traditional building practices, follow Brent on his Instagram @hullmillwork_hullhomes, his YouTube page, or www.BuildShowNetwork.com/go/brenthull.
Laine and Kevin Berry's Conway, Arkansas house dates to 1909, late Victorian style. Laine often drove by this house as a teenager and dreamed of owning it. (David Hatfield)
If walls could talk, what stories would they tell?
During the Civil War, Union soldiers occupied the region of Helena, Arkansas. They quartered inside a Greek Revival-style home that belonged to a local Confederate soldier. It was a stately mansion built in 1858, with a robust pediment and tall, elegant columns on its facade. Union Gen. William Sherman is said to have stayed in the home while planning his battles.
When the house went up for sale, Laine and Kevin Berry—avid lovers of old houses with history and fine craftsmanship—couldn’t resist.
When the couple first viewed the house, they were stunned. Etched glass panels glimmered in the dining room’s double doors, depicting two Biblical figures, Ruth and Naomi, standing on pedestals and surrounded by ornate leaf patterns.
Laine and Kevin in their home. Laine is a bridal gown designer and operates a local salon, while Kevin owns an advertising and marketing business. (Sam)
Later, the couple went looking through the home’s records and discovered that Laine has ancestry in common with its previous owners. The papers list the name of Laine’s five times great uncle.
In a way, as Laine explains in a video on the couple’s YouTube channel, Our Restoration Nation, it was like she was returning to a family home.
Preserving History
The couple has taken on a number of ambitious projects—houses that have completely rotten foundations or electrical wiring held together by duct tape—that most wouldn’t consider worth salvaging.
They began buying and rehabilitating old houses across the southern United States about 20 years ago. Laine said that she and Kevin, spurred on by a passion for history and fine architecture, “both felt like the best way to preserve some of our nation’s heritage was to tackle these wonderful historic structures.”
For the couple, the homes are a reflection of American culture. “Preserving them helps not only preserve our culture, but it helps educate people—to understand where we’ve come from and what got us to where we are today,” Laine said.
The interiors incorporate many antique items for a time-worn feel. (David Hatfield)
About a year ago, they started documenting their projects on YouTube, with practical tutorials on topics ranging from how to restore historical picture frames, to the best method for stripping lead paint from wood.
They also film tours of historical houses on the market—many in surprisingly good condition given their age—explaining architectural elements in loving detail.
The couple has amassed a steady following of people who cherish old things and yearn to “see, and touch, and feel a product that their labor has created,” Laine said.
Their Instagram account is filled with the latest updates about their houses, which are dubbed names like Helen, after the region of Helena; Willa, after the Willie family who built the home; and Scottie, after the street where the house is located. Sometimes, a house’s photo is cheekily accompanied by a post written from the house’s perspective.
Growing Trend
Old houses have become an increasingly popular choice among first-time homebuyers.
As the housing market becomes prohibitively expensive and the cost of rent skyrockets in many major cities, the millennial generation is being drawn in by lower prices, while at the same time relishing opportunities to get creative and work with their hands, according to Elizabeth Finkelstein, who co-founded the website CheapOldHouses.com along with her husband.
The site lists historical homes up for sale across the country. Finkelstein created it as a passion project in 2016, hoping to educate people on the value and beauty of old houses.
Real estate agents tend to give little promotion to old houses in disrepair. “What you end up with is a blurry, dusty photo in the dark, taken on someone’s iPhone. But there’s an Art Deco bathroom in there. And then you’re like, wait a minute, no one is going to see this. So I felt the need to show it to people,” Finkelstein said.
Appreciation for the old has struck a chord among the many millennials who make up Cheap Old Houses’ following (more than 1.5 million on Instagram at the time of writing). Finkelstein thinks that “people are getting very, very fed up with, and skeptical of, the superficiality and disposability of so much in our lives right now—fast food, fast restoration, fast fashion—all of it.”
The fireplace area under construction in the Conway house. (Courtesy of Kevin Berry)
Many of the latest trends are not only wasteful, but devoid of meaning. “You want to feel a sense of purpose in your home. And if anything, this pandemic has just brought that out,” she said. A growing number of people, especially after spending more time at home, are considering alternative lifestyles.
Finkelstein said Cheap Old Houses’ Instagram account gained followers at roughly three times the normal rate during the beginning of the pandemic last year.
Laine Berry expressed a similar sentiment about modern life. “We’re always on our phones. We always are on our computers. And I think there’s a bit of a national longing for things, and times, that were simpler,” she said.
The Berrys hope that more people across the country will see investing in a historical home as a viable option.
They want people to watch their videos and see that the work is not that intimidating. But, at the same time, homebuyers must be willing to take on the research to restore homes respectfully.
“You don’t change the footprint. You allow the history of the house to be the main focus, but you rehabilitate it to be livable by today’s standards fully,” Laine said. That means researching “what is and what is not appropriate for the style and period of your home.”
The living room features a Victorian hand-painted folding screen that dates to around 1876. (David Hatfield)
Over the years, the Berrys have accumulated an almost encyclopedic knowledge of how different period styles of mantles, staircase spindles, woodwork, and other elements look.
Twenty years ago, they would go to their local library to find resources on microfilm. Today, much of the information is available on the internet.
They’re excited that a new generation will carry the torch.
“That’s the most exciting thing to me, when somebody says, ‘I never thought I could do this. I’ve been so afraid of this. I thought it was out of reach either emotionally or financially. Watching you guys, I realize this is doable for me,’” Laine said.
The courtyard of the Kessler-Armstrong mansion, an Italian Renaissance Revival home originally built in 1919 and restored in 2019. (Thomas Loof Photography)
How interior designer Chuck Chewning and architect Christian Sottile oversaw a sensitive restoration of one of Savannah’s landmark mansions
In his illustrious design career, Chuck Chewning has executed major projects in Europe and North America, winning big awards. Yet it might have appeared that even someone of Chewning’s virtuosity would need to reach deep into his repertoire to restore the Armstrong Mansion in 2017. This 26,100-square-foot Italian Renaissance Revival palace stands at 447 Bull Street in Savannah, Georgia, across from the 30-acre Forsyth Park with its sensational fountain, and just around the corner from Savannah College of Art and Design, where Chewning studied years before. The sheer scale of the commission was daunting.
How fortunate that his client, Richard Kessler—hotel magnate, real estate developer, and philanthropist—happened to have warehouses filled with decorative arts, musical instruments, and fine-art pieces that he had collected over the years. While working on another commission for a newly built house in Creole plantation style, Chewning and his small staff also bought items for the mansion’s interiors, shopping at auctions for two years. Kessler’s vast inventory helped to get things going much faster.
“Richard’s personal collections are so vast and in such a range, that it was quite easy to go through and say, ‘Okay, I need Jacobean pieces.’ He had them. That actually was not a problem at all,” Chewning said.
Early 20th-century Italian sculptures sit in the loggia that overlooks Forsyth Park across the street. (Thomas Loof Photography)
When the original architect Henrik Wallin’s completed mansion, with its fireproof concrete construction, was featured in “The American Architect” periodical in 1919, the public rooms on the first floor were decorated in different period styles. Guests were received and entertained there.
“In a way, they’re almost like theatrical stage sets,” Chewning said. “And that really dictated how they needed to be furnished.” The dining room is Georgian, but the music room is a French Louis. Arts and crafts details in a corner room reflect the contemporary trend at the time of the mansion’s construction.
The interiors, done by designer Chuck Chewning, reflect different period styles, with furnishings from the client’s vast inventory of fine-art pieces and objects bought by Chewning’s staff at auctions. (Thomas Loof Photography)
The primary objective was to return the three-story mansion to its original purpose as a home—in this case, for Kessler and his wife. George Ferguson Armstrong, a shipping magnate, first commissioned the project in 1916. After his family’s time in it, the mansion served as a junior college from 1935 (Kessler took classes there before moving on to Georgia Tech). Later, it was briefly owned by Jim Williams, famed as the protagonist of the nonfiction book about a local murder, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” After 1970, it became a law office. Kessler’s acquisition and the restoration program delighted Savannah’s preservationists. While the mansion was well-maintained, it had grit and smudges from nearly a full century of use. Previous owners had also made interior modifications, such as dropped ceilings and built-out walls.
“It was very satisfying to know that the building had been purchased by someone with the means to reverse some of those less sympathetic changes,” said Ryan Arvay, the Historic Savannah Foundation’s director of preservation and historic properties.
The dining room, done in the Georgian style. (Thomas Loof Photography)
Assessing the job ahead, Chewning admitted himself through the solid-bronze front doors with their elaborate Beaux Arts detailing, registered the first floor’s stylistic variations, and ascended the cantilevered solid-marble staircase. He found 13 bedrooms and 19 bathrooms. There are also four kitchenettes and a commodious chef’s kitchen. On the first floor, a crew stripped away the walls shrouding features such as carved walnut panels and a cozy wall fountain. Meticulously molded plaster and dramatically sculpted friezes also emerged.
“We discovered original details and finishes still existing that we were surprised to see because we thought possibly they had been destroyed or lost in the renovations,” Chewning said.
A special challenge was the fenestration. The 125 steel-framed and mullioned windows with bronze hardware had represented something of a breakthrough for their maker, International Casement Co., which featured them in a catalog in 1920. Having determined that the glass panes were originally covered with lace, Chewning set about to replicate the panels. He found a lace mill in Scotland but worried about the effects of Georgia’s summer sun on the natural fibers.
“They would just sort of rot,” he said. The solution was to use a flame-retardant, dimensionally stable polyester yarn called Trevira CS. “That was one thing we were able to do that was innovative but still was in the context of the traditional history.”
The music room, done in the French Louis style. (Thomas Loof Photography)
Then he had to rustle up the damasks, silks, velvets, and tapestries that would be expected inside traditional period rooms. One of the best expressions of his decorative approach was the original music conservatory room, which opens onto the roof terraces. He placed a drum kit, a Hammond B-3 organ, and Kessler’s Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano that was designed by F.A. “Butzi” Porsche. An ornamental theme of Chinese antiques seemed to work with the rest of the house. “And that idea of this decadent chinoiserie party room speaks to the period of the 1920s, when the house had just come to life,” Chewning said.
Meanwhile, the architect behind the restoration, Christian Sottile, proceeded with the structural work. He designed a new carriage house in keeping with the original style and added a pool. Yet the mansion was also technologically advanced for its time, with features like a central vacuum system, some 21 miles of wiring, recirculating hot water system, and rain-head showers.
“It was built to the highest standards of its time, really a commercial standard,” Sottile said. “Our thinking with the restoration was to bring in the best technologies of today to show it’s not a museum piece, but it’s in fact a living building.” Air conditioning topped the list of modern amenities to be added. “We ended up with 37 separate air-conditioning units hidden throughout the home so that they’re invisible.” And the building got digital updates, allowing every light switch to be controlled with a smartphone.
Stately granite Ionic columns stand tall in the portico, inspired by the villas designed by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. (Thomas Loof Photography)
Upon completion of the restoration program in 2019, the home—now called the Armstrong Kessler Mansion—received the President’s Award from the Historic Savannah Foundation. Ryan Arvay said this recognition is reserved for projects of unusual scope and complexity. “It’s meant to showcase a standout property in a field of already outstanding projects,” he said. “That is a landmark house, no doubt about it. … It is really an architectural masterwork. Everything that Kessler did on the property, from cleaning the masonry to restoring interior spaces to original configuration, was really exemplary.”
Ronald Ahrens’s first magazine article was 40 years ago for Soap Opera Digest. His contributions to the much lamented Automobile Magazine spanned a 32-year period. Nowadays he’s on a 15-year run with DBusiness (“Detroit’s Premier Business Journal”). Ronald lives near Palm Springs, Calif., where he struggles to understand desert gardening.
Around 2,000 candles are lit in front of Zojoji temple to mark the Tanabata or Japanese star festival in Tokyo on July 6, 2021. (Philip Fong/AFP via Getty Images)
We may be communicating with one another daily, but are we relating? This significant question has been asked in our society in recent years, and it needs to be addressed. Byung-Chul Han’s new book, “The Disappearance of Rituals,” makes useful and necessary philosophical distinctions that allow the reader to further contemplate man’s place in a chaotic world and possibly change not only the way we perceive the world but also to encourage creation rather than destruction.
“Rituals stabilize life,” writes Han. The repetition of rituals leads to a meaningful reflection on the events that we experience. In addition, Han notes that “every religious practice is an exercise in attention,” thus we have to find ways to take care of our souls. One of the ways to move beyond an empty state of being is to not only be aware of the spiritual problems our society is facing but also to learn again how to “linger,” or to be, mindfully, in the present moment. There are many objects that have become part of our lives (such as smartphones) that negate lingering, but it is always within our own power to choose a different path.
This path involves a firm recognition of the necessity of community, as opposed to the collective. We acknowledge our own personhood by rejecting any form of one-size-fits-all ideology, and thus humanize not only ourselves, but others as well. If society is rooted in rituals that imply permanence, then it would follow that each individual would contribute to the stability of the society as opposed to the cruel destabilization of immutable ideas that make us human. As Han writes, “We must defend an ethics of beautiful forms” against the “formless morality.”
According to Han, “rituals are symbolic acts,” and because of the dismissal of the symbols (including rituals) that hold society together, we have been engaging only in production and consumption. Han includes religion, festivals, and morality that recognize beauty and other values among rituals. Symbols rely on the recognition of something higher than ourselves, and “symbolic perception … is a perception of the permanent,” which then, in turn, stabilizes our lives. Today’s perception and use of time “lacks solid structure.”
“It is not a house but an erratic stream. It disintegrates into a mere sequence of point-like presences; it rushes off,” but symbolic rituals can make us feel as if we have found home, he writes.
The idea of home must be, in some way, related to a larger tradition. Drawing on Jewish tradition, Han notes that “Sabbath consecrates the work of creation. It is not mere idleness. Rather, it is an essential part of creation.” There is a sense of historical continuity when people are engaged in such rituals. Quoting Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, Han makes the case that the Sabbath is a “‘holiday of resting and of closely reflecting,’ a ‘holiday of completion.’” Han implies that there is a sense of creative inwardness, a reflection on our inherent dignity and humanity.
By contrast, Han notes that “festivals such as Easter, Whitsun, and Christmas are key narrative moments within an overall narrative which provides meaning and orientation.” While a ritual such as a Sabbath is exemplified by sacred silence and human interiority, a festival such as Easter is an experience of sacred utterance and human exteriority. Both, however, deal with a relationship between a singular person and a community.
Book cover for “The Disappearance of Rituals” by Byung-Chul Han. (Courtesy of Polity Press)
Han’s book is not simply a short philosophical treatise on the loss of spiritual and embodied life. Rather, by diagnosing the ills, Han creates a space of perception and thought that might take us to a better path. By pointing out the depth and gravity of the problem, Han is not offering a prescriptive and fast solution, which would defeat the purpose and depth of rituals themselves. Rather, his incredible thoughtfulness on the interior and exterior life of an individual and a community is leading us to consider the absurdity of today’s existential entrapment.
In many ways, Han’s message is simple: We must see each other face to face again. If the human face is removed from the very notion of what it means to be a human being, then how can we expect to leave the hamster wheel of joylessness? If the human face is “canceled,” then our relationships are fundamentally changed. A free and flourishing society functions properly only when human dignity is affirmed.
One of the most important aspects of Han’s book is a simple acknowledgment that human beings are not ciphers or bits of data. Rather, to be human is to have an interior life and a soul that, like any life form, needs tending and care. Rituals—be they festivals, or of a religious nature, or simply sitting down with family and friends and sharing a meal—are a way to not only connect but to relate. Every time we engage in a ritual, we affirm that human beings are relational and that our relationships transcend the chaotic impositions of the current times.
“The Disappearance of Rituals” by Byung-Chul Han. Translated from German by Daniel Steuer. Polity Press, 2020.
Emina Melonic writes about books, films, and culture. Her work has been published in The New Criterion, Claremont Review of Books, Law and Liberty, and Splice Today, among others.
Winston Churchill outside a polling station while running for Parliament, circa 1924. (FPG/Getty Images)
As 1920 ended, Winston Churchill seemed headed for obscurity. The British failure at Gallipoli brought his political career to collapse in 1916. While partially restored before the Great War ended, he was stalemated in a dead-end cabinet position as 1921 opened. His judgment was widely questioned. He was experiencing financial difficulties.
When 1921 ended, everything seemed changed. His political star was rising again, and his finances were secure. Far from heading to insignificance, Churchill was again heading to a destiny of leadership.
“Oblivion or Glory: 1921 and the Making of Winston Churchill,” by David Stafford, tells the story of Churchill’s transformative year. It was a year of great opportunity and great tragedy for Winston Churchill.
Churchill’s professional fortunes reach a nadir as the year opens. His anti-Bolshevik policies against Soviet Russia collapse. Churchill then becomes colonial secretary and leads the Cairo Conference that reshapes the Middle East. As colonial secretary, Churchill becomes deeply involved in negotiating a settlement in Ireland. He would see this through to a successful conclusion. In turn, his efforts lead to a positive reevaluation of his judgment. Churchill also closes the year inking a lucrative book contract, sealing his reputation as an author as well as a politician.
(Book cover image courtesy of Yale University Press)
Stafford shows the role of family and heritage in Churchill’s life during this tumultuous year. Churchill gained stability from his marriage to Clementine and his circle of family and friends. An inheritance unexpected that year provided Churchill financial independence. Churchill’s Irish roots helped seal the Irish deal. Yet family also offered disruption. A beloved cousin made common cause with the Soviets that year, sculpting Lenin. His brother-in-law committed suicide. Churchill’s mother died in July, his youngest daughter in August. Stafford shows how Churchill soldiered on despite tragedies.
Stafford breaks his story into seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn, providing an arc to the story. A cold, barren winter leads to a spring in which the seeds in Churchill’s future success are planted. A fruitful summer follows, and Churchill harvests the fruits of his endeavors in the autumn.
“Oblivion or Glory” is a story about the value of perseverance in the face of disappointment. It shows the importance of patience and the necessity for seizing opportunity when it appears. It offers fascinating insights into Churchill’s character using an almost-forgotten year from his life. It was a year that rescued Churchill from oblivion and set him on a path to glory.
“Oblivion or Glory: 1921 and the Making of Winston Churchill,” by David Stafford, Yale University Press, 2021, 288 pages.
Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, Texas. His website is MarkLardas.com
