Wednesday, June 10, 2015

The Old-Fashioned Powder Room


One of the many things I love about 1930s-era issues of House & Garden and House Beautiful is the attention given to rooms that once epitomized sophisticated living. Take, for example, the powder room.  The powder room of yesteryear was a slightly different affair from today's powder room, which is basically a small guest bathroom with a sink and toilet.  But back in the 1930s, the term "powder room" referred to a small dressing room that allowed ladies to powder their noses and touch-up their lipstick in privacy.  Frequently outfitted with little more than a dressing table and chair, the thirties powder room rarely functioned as a lavatory.  That role was left to the guest bathroom, which was typically, though not always, located adjacent to the powder room.  (Take a look at the photos below, and you'll see that none of the powder rooms had sinks nor toilets.)  However, space obviously dictated both the arrangement and the location of a powder room, because I have seen examples of old powder rooms with sinks as well as powder rooms- sans sink and toilet- situated far apart from a bathroom.  Suffice to say, not all powder rooms were alike. 

Just as they do today, decorators of the thirties-era understood that small spaces beg for outsized decorating.  Look at the photos below, and you'll see that feminine touches abounded. (These spaces were, after all, dedicated to women and their personal grooming.)  Swags, of both the wallpaper and fabric varieties, seemed practically a requirement for powder rooms, as did mirror, which was used on both walls and glamorously-appointed dressing tables.  Pairs of small dressing-table lamps were ubiquitous in powder rooms, while perfume bottles, powder boxes, and brush sets ensured that ladies were equipped to refresh themselves.

I suspect that the Second World War rendered the old-fashioned powder room somewhat obsolete, because by the 1940s, magazines, having moved on to more practical domestic issues, devoted little if any space to the powder room.  In fact, I wonder if the war and its subsequent housing and domestic-staff shortages meant that the powder room became a luxury that few houses could accommodate.  Perhaps it was the post-war era that saw the powder room joining space and function with the guest bathroom, becoming the powder room that we know today.  I'm not sure, and I need to investigate further.  But what I do know is that the old-fashioned powder room, like those other lost-to-history rooms such as the cocktail room and the telephone room, harks back to a time when function and style often went hand-in-hand.  After all, if one must powder one's nose or talk on the telephone, why not do so in style?       

        

This powder room appeared in House Beautiful's "Bride's House" show house in 1934.  The room's wallpaper had a pink background with pink and blue ribbons printed on it.  The chiffon draperies surrounding the mirror were blue, in keeping with the pink and blue color scheme.  According to the magazine, the white fur rug provided "a final bit of feminine fluff."


A mid-1930s powder room, which was decorated by Mimi Durant.  The wallpaper was red and white, while the material covering the dressing table was black cellophane.  How fabulous was that?



This powder room, which dates to the mid-1930s, was located in a house in Morristown, New Jersey.  Decorated by Margery Sill Wickware, the room had beige wallpaper with a coral, green, and cream swag drapery border.  The dressing table had a green taffeta skirt, while a henna-colored carpet covered the floor.



A Thedlow-decorated ladies powder room from 1935.  The color scheme was gray, royal blue, and white.  Crystal accessories, including the pair of lamps, the oval mirror, the ceiling fixture, and even the curtain tiebacks, added a note a glamour and femininity to the space.



Two of design history's most memorable- and sublime- powder rooms were those at the homes of the Kersey Coates Reeds and the James D. Zellerbachs. Both powder rooms were decorated by Frances Elkins.



This ladies' lounge, decorated by Miles Redd and located at a Houston house, is a more recent example of a powder room, though one designed on a much larger scale. (Architectural Digest, Thomas Loof photographer.)

15 comments:

  1. Enjoyed your research as always Jennifer. First time to see that beautiful lounge by Miles Redd and like everything about it. Thank you !

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  2. Once upon a time in St Louis, was a wonderful house that I think was built in the 1920's. It was a house for a large staff (and had the staff bedrooms for them!). Just inside the front door, was a powder room and lavatory. The powder room was huge and had coat closets, a large double dressing table, a loveseat and a couple of slipper chairs. Off it, was the toilet and wash basin, in a separate room. In its heyday, a maid would have been in the power room to assist any lady who might need help with a popped button, hem or anything else. It had not been decorated in years and was a bit tired, but one could see its former elegance. I believe there was a smaller version for the gentlemen across the hall, but I never saw it

    Alas, the house was sold and torn down as it was deemed too expensive to bring back to its former glory. But the floor plan of this house remains in my mind as the "perfect" gracious home.

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  3. love the powder rooms + great pictures! xxpeggybraswelldesign.com

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  4. Anonymous12:35 PM

    I had never heard of Miles Redd until I cam across your blog, ages ago. While I think the Peak of Chic is fab, I do have to say that Miles is the kind of decorator only an American suburbanite could love. His work is such a parody of continental glamour - a pastiche of stolen ideas held together by banal attempts at playful irony. I have held my tongue long enough on that one, but that ghastly "ladies' lounge" is the straw that has broken this camel's back. The man is over-rated. Would that you gave Alvise Orsini or Tessa Kennedy half the space that Redd gets - 26 items tagged Miles Redd; at least 26 rooms to avoid.

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  5. When the project can support it, my houses have a guest space for gathering one's self, making a phone call, and/or using the facilities. Brits call it a Cloak Room.

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    1. Brilliant and necessary! Whatever happened to "cloak rooms"???? So civilized!
      Call us "old fashioned"!! I like it!!!

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  6. Anonymous8:19 AM

    Think that Mrs Elkins's brother, the brilliant architect David Adler, might have helped with that mirror'd panelled room?

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    1. They collaborated on all the projects they did together! Lucky were they!!! He died way too young! After he died; then she moved to Monterey, California.
      She was in the right place at the right time; her talents were recognized...she did great houses and many of them in Pebble Beach, California.
      She also was one who popularized the "Monterey Colonial" style of architecture (of which her house in Monterey was an original) My very favorite style of architecture!!!!

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  7. Anonymous8:27 AM

    The Reed room never ceases to amaze - the heavy glass moldings, the sleek floor inlaid with little squares of nickel, and the unexpected but perfect flowered rug. Was Elkins the greatest of them all?

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    1. My mother who had the most exquisite taste I have ever known thought so. The greatest of them all!!

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  8. Loving the style in all of these pictures. It's such a classic and fun style!

    -The Office Stylist

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  9. Love the Miles Redd design as it is zesty as well as opulent, which is a great combination. Thank you very much for the great article.

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  10. Anonymous8:43 AM

    I dont think the Zellerbach room ever had sheet mirrror done in the manner of this photograph - it most likely had a wall covering above the dado.

    The flowered carpet in the Reed room was made by Mrs. Lydia Lee, who lived only a short distance away and made these during the 60s and 70s.

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    1. Actually; the Zellerbach dressing room was done exactly as shown. "The Peak" does her research! It is shown on page 114 and 115 of Stephan Salny's brilliant book : Frances Elkins Interior Design. (2005) Foreword by Albert Hadley.

      Ms. Elkins was way way ahead of her time. No wall covering. Mirror. And the Bagues sconces were of "silvered glass and rock-crystal" mounted right onto the mirrored panels. Astonishing!!! And how about the ceiling!!! JEEKERS!!! I just swoon!!! I could move in with my toothbrush to any room in Mr.Salny's book and not change one single lampshade. Good grief! How many years later???? And I never really saw her work until this book was published! Just stories from my mother about how fabulous Frances Elkins was as a decorator....all the while encouraging me to become one!
      Albert Hadley says in his introduction: "Frances Elkins was a frontrunner in her profession...a decorator, perhaps ahead in the races." Yikes!

      Indeed!

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