Henry Whitfield House - Architecture

Architecture

The architectural style of the Henry Whitfield house is very unique for its time period and location. In that it is styled in the tradition of the estates of northern England and Scotland, rather than the lower English and London style found in the rest of New England. When the first settlers constructed the house, they had built large rooms, ignoring the fact that smaller rooms would be easier to heat. They also ignored the abundance of wood available to them to construct an easily heated, yet still sturdy, home.

The original floor plan of the house included a kitchen and great hall (which could be divided by partitions into two separate rooms) on the first floor, a stair tower leading to the second floor, three bedroom chambers on the second floor, and a small attic above the chambers. The great hall, which was probably the most used room in the house, is thirty-three feet in length and fifteen feet in width and was built in a perpendicular ell to the rest of the house. This was the room used for church services, town meetings, feasts, and the housing of travelers. The Whitfield family slept on the second floor of the house, with the room directly above the kitchen used for the younger children because it was kept the warmest in the winter by the rising heat from the kitchen fireplace. The original roof had a sixty degree pitch, though it has been steepened during the house's various restorations. In addition, the house was constructed with six fireplaces, the largest of which is ten feet four inches across and is positioned on the north end of the great hall. This fireplace remains mostly unchanged today, other than the addition of an oak mantel and some masonry. The smaller five have been remodeled several times since their original construction.