Stairway

“ This stairway leads to it—come, let us ascend;
I’ll show you the model I spoke of, my friend.
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’Tis long after midnight;—we reach very soon,
Up by the dark stairway, the room through the gloom;
And here in the corner, where burns a pale light,
Sits sewing and shivering a woman to-night. ”

“ The stairway rises from about the middle of the hall in easy steps to the second floor, the spindles are rather primitive and the entire stairway has a provincial air. The white baluster rail is matched by a handrail and supported by half a matching newel post; wherever the cornice breaks, it turns against itself. An amusing feature, one found sometimes in old houses, is an inside window opening from the back drawing room into the hallway.
If the stair is simple, certainly the woodwork in the upstairs front room is most ambitious. ”

“ Its novel conception, perfect fitness, and rare splendor of material, make the grand stairway unquestionably one of the most remarkable features of the building. It presents to the spectator, who has just passed through the subscribers' pavilion, a gorgeous picture. ”

“ No one can doubt but that a front stairway, entirely separated from the one in the rear, is the best thing to have; however, it is easy to understand that a combination stairway may be used for reasons above stated. In some of the plans a stairway is shown, starting from a stair-hall in the rear of reception-hall or room. Under such circumstances, a combination is not necessary. One can come from the kitchen and go upstairs without being observed from the other parts of the house. ”

“ Many are the women, in all parts of the earth, who have sought to climb into the world of fashion by the broad and apparently easy stairway of charity. But most of them have failed because they were unaware of the secret of that stairway, an unsuspected secret which I shall proceed to point out. It seems, as I have said, a particularly easy stairway—broad, roomy, with invalid steps. It is, in fact, a moving stairway so cunningly contrived that she—it is usually she—who ascends keeps in the same place. She goes up, but at exactly her ascending rate the stairway goes down. ”

“ Very often an old boxed-off stairway, built in the days when it was thought unseemly to show a connection with the upper bedrooms, can be relieved of its door and walls, to the increase of space in the lower room, and of the beauty of its appearance. ”

“ The hall, large and light, with its open staircase, is at once the keynote of the whole house, welcoming all who may enter. For convenience, a rear stairway leads from the service pantry to a landing over the side entrance where it joins the main staircase. ”

“ The usual front hall is dispensed with, and the stairway is placed where it is more convenient and accessible, and is not a conductor of cold drafts through the house. Many think it necessary to have stairways share with the parlors the most valuable and conspicuous position ”

“ It is generally found desirable to have a girl’s room near the rear stairway, and to cut off that part of the house from the front by means of a door. There should be means of lighting, artificial and otherwise, at the beginning and landings of all stairways. ”

“ The stairway, even when cut in the rock, has often forty or fifty steps so narrow, that the ascent from platform to platform is actually precipitous. The entire series of steps, from the bottom of the hill to the top, is roofed over with sheets of corrugated iron, until the whole looks like a covered way to the clouds. ”

“ It is not very necessary to describe the lands or the people; and really the most remarkable thing in the place was a staircase, of a very wonderful character. Let the reader imagine, if he can, a splendid stairway, sixty-five feet from balustrade to balustrade, consisting of two vast flights, each of one hundred and twenty-five steps, of eight inches in height, by three feet broad, connected by a flat resting-place sixty feet in length, and running from the palace wall, on the edge of the precipice down to meet a waterway or canal cut to its foot from the river. ”

“ The only form of stair not shown which the student may be called upon to build, would very likely be one having an elliptical plan; but, as this form is so seldom used—being found, in fact, only in public buildings or great mansions—it rarely falls to the lot of the ordinary workman to be called upon to design or construct a stairway of this type. ”

“ Lay the Third Floor (Fig. 67) , cutting a three by seven inch stair opening, and fastening the boards in place as you did those of the second floor.
Stairways.—While each stairway should be built before the floor above is laid, in order that the work can more easily be done, they have been left for description here, that they might be spoken of in a general way. In Figs. 71, 72, 73, 74, and 75 will be found complete details for these.
The first things to prepare are
The Stair Stringers, or supports for the steps (treads and risers) . ”

“ I thought at first that the entrance to the secret stairway must have issued from the lavatory, but examining the boards closely, although they sounded hollow to the knuckles, they were quite evidently plain match boarding, and not a concealed door. The entrance to the stairway, therefore, must issue from the clothes closet. ”

“ On one side a narrow stairway is cut into the earth leading down to its base, and at the foot of this stairway a small hole is cut through into the chamber. Our curiosity is aroused. What is this subterranean place for? ”

“ Nothing but rats' nests, break-neck wooden stairways, whose warped steps tremble and creak beneath your feet; low and dark passage-ways, whose floors, instead of being covered with soft carpets, consist of badly-laid tiles, of a faded red color, and glazed, glazed, slippery, slippery. ”

“ Such arrangement is only possible under certain lighting conditions
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The stairs that rise from this living-room are designed to take up as little room as possible. In this they are very successful and little of the banister rail and stair woodwork can be seen
Where there is a large room made dignified by architectural decoration the twin stairways curving either side of a main flight are decidedly impressive ”

“ It is square in plan but with a large projecting porch on one side. The middle portion is a huge quadrangular mass of brickwork supposed to be solid, but between this solid centre and the outside there are upon the lower three of the five storeys of the building external terraces and internal corridors with stairways connecting the floors, in the thickness of the walls. Dark and sombre within, it is easy on descending from the upper storeys to choose wrong stairways and to wander about as in a maze. ”

“ The details shown in the front finish are continued around the sides and rear. The hight of the rear wing is one story less than the main house. While the appearance of this house is agreeable on every side, the most pleasing is from the southerly direction.... Cellar, (fig. 159.) —Hight of ceiling 7 feet, of which 4 feet are above ground. All parts are well lighted with windows, except the hall, which has a sash-door [216] with iron guard. The Laundry has an open stairway to the kitchen, and is provided with wash-tubs. A water-closet is placed under the stair. ”

“ The noble staircase of the east front of the building leaps over three arches; under one of which carriages pass to the basement door; and, as you approach from the gate, the eye cuts the ascent at right angles, and the sky, broken by a small spire at a short distance, is visible beneath. Broad stairs occur at equal distances, with corresponding projections, and from the upper platform rise the outer columns of the portico, with ranges of columns three deep extending back to the pilasters. ”

“ From the door a stone stair curves upward spirally, passing two landings, and terminating in a third one, its steps all shapeless and hollowed by the tread of so many generations of the seekers after knowledge. Life has flowed like water down this winding stair, and, waterlike, has left these smooth-worn grooves behind it. ”

“ The thickness of the walls immediately above the solid is twelve feet; at the top of the stone staircase they are eight feet, and where the walls are thinnest, immediately under the cornice, they measure two feet. A drop hole formed in the courses of the staircase and solid, provides for the range of the weight of a revolving light. The ascent to this building, as at the Bell Rock, is intended to be by an exterior stair or ladder of brass, and the interior communication between the several apartments by means of flights of circular oaken steps. ”

“ The hall, no longer a tunnel of darkness, gave me a glimpse as we went by, of various secluded corners, and it seemed as if everywhere I looked I saw—a clock. I counted four before I reached the staircase, all standing on the floor and all of ancient make, though differing much in appearance and value. A fifth one rose grim and tall at the stair foot, and under an impulse I have never understood I stopped, when I reached it, to note the time. ”

“ The sides of these stairs are charged with reliefs of figures holding vessels in their hands, camels, triumphal cars, horses, oxen, and rams. At the head of the stair is a relief of a lion seizing a bull. This stair leads to the great hall of forty or fifty pillars, in nine rows, of six each; of which fifteen remain entire, from seventy to eighty feet high; the diameter at the base twelve feet, and distance between the columns twenty-two. Their pedestals are curiously wrought, and little injured, the shafts fluted to the top, and the capitals adorned with a profusion of fret-work. ”

“ To our right is a massive oaken staircase. We ascend in gloom, for the staircase being built in the middle of the house, only a few straggling rays of light can reach it, and whence they proceed is a mystery. Every few steps we mount we are upon the point of stumbling into the door of some cupboard or apartment ”

“ The stairs of a staircase have naught to do with the top of it and the abode to which it leads, yet are means to the reaching of both; and if the climber left not behind the stairs below him until there were no more to climb, but desired to remain upon any one of them, he would never reach the top of them nor would he mount to the pleasant [3] and peaceful room which is the goal. ”

“ The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it knew what to do with, were working towards the room. ”

“ On such staircases as these furniture can be conveyed up and down without damage to the walls, or injury to the furniture. Architects who build modern narrow and steep staircases, forget that often a coffin has to be conveyed with its tenant down them; and this can be done neither with convenience nor dignity upon them.
But let us think of the staircase on a brighter occasion than a funeral. The grand old flight of steps with its landings, and with sometimes its bay-window with seats in it on one of the landings, how it lends itself to the exigencies of a sitting-out place at a ball. ”

“ The stairs are an important feature of a building. On entering a house they are usually the first object to meet the eye and claim the attention. If one sees an ugly staircase, it will, in a measure, condemn the whole house, for the first impression produced will seldom be totally eradicated by commendable features that may be noted elsewhere. ”

“ The old brownstone has a new face, the front bricked up and the door bolted. Business is good on the Avenue, but many of the people who come in seem tight-lipped and hurried. The Seven Stairs is not there either.
But when we start looking up old places, it means we have forgotten them as symbols. The Seven Stairs was an adventure of the heart ... a personal search for the Holy Grail, a quest that still continues. Each step up the stairs has brought crisis and someone to help me overcome that crisis and move on to the next. ”

“ They went on and on, and round and round the little corkscrew staircase - then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars - then up another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are - and then on, up a ladder with broad steps - and then up a little stone stair. And at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on the stair side. ”

“ On the right side of the window is a loophole, admitting light to a winding staircase in the south-west angle of the tower, by which its upper stories might be ascended, the entrance to the stairs being by a door, having a Tudor arch, placed in an angle of the interior. The stairs are yet passable, and the view from the top is worth the trouble of an ascent. ”

“ And seven being an enchanted number and stairs moving inward and outward 204as well as upward and downward, the ascent is unending, and every step a new beginning, where we must stand our ground and pay the price for it.
There is a Seven Stairs lurking unbeknown down every street as there was for me on a summer day, getting off the bus at the wrong corner on my way to meet my brother-in-law for lunch and walking along Rush Street, fascinated with the strangeness of the neighborhood. ”

“ To make sure of his game he had likewise ceiled the upper room all around, including the enclosure of the stairs. The door to the chute and the door to the stairs were side by side, and being made of the same boards as the wainscoting, were scarcely visible when closed, while the single knob that was used, being transferable from one to the other, naturally gave the impression that there was but one door. ”

“ In short, the staircases demand an air of magnificence in every part, seeing that many people see the stairs and not the rest of the house. It may be said that they are the arms and legs of the body, therefore as the arms are at the sides of a man so ought the stairs to be in the wings of the edifice. ”