Evolution of the Closet Met the Needs of Changing Societies
By Bill Primavera
When I first moved to Westchester, my new home was an old home, a very old home, built originally in 1734, with wings added in 1797 and 1861.
It was interesting that in the original wing of the house, a saltbox structure, there were no closets, but a past owner had turned one small bedroom into a large walk-in closet. In the 1861 wing, there was one very small closet. Other than that, I was left on my own to construct closets in other bedrooms in the space between the outcropping of a fireplace and the side wall.
In America’s early history, clothes were simply folded and placed in drawers, or hung on hooks.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, closets came into being and in some cases were promoted as an incentive to buy a residence, as evidenced by the first closets built and advertised for The Dakota apartment building in New York City. In the 1870s, The Dakota used closets to appeal to wealthy tenants.
When homes were built in colonial America, most individuals didn’t own more than a few articles of clothing, greatly reducing the need for closet storage. Later, as people needed more space to store their clothing, they began using the freestanding pieces of furniture that we call wardrobes, armoires or chifforobes. Modern houses have large closets in every bedroom simply because contemporary inhabitants typically need more storage space for lots of clothing items and related accessories.
For those who might fall in love with an older house with limited or no closet space, as I did, there are several creative ways to get the storage space that is needed.
Go “old school.” Decorate your home with chests of drawers, armoires and similar storage furnishings. This will retain the historic look and feel of the home while providing the storage space needed for modern life.
Add closets. Give up a few feet of bedroom floor space to build a “reach-in” closet the full length of an interior wall, as I did.
Convert a room. If there is a master bedroom (or any other bedroom) near a smaller room, the smaller room can be converted into a huge walk-in closet.
At its simplest, a closet is a room, cabinet or recess designed to hold clothing, china and other possessions. It should come as no surprise that such a fundamental and helpful space would have been around for some time.
In France during the 16th century, the armoire came to popularity among the upper class to store weapons, tools and clothing. There were closets in England as early as the 1550s. However, these early closets had more in common with walk-in closets than the reach-in closet we have today.
It turns out that some of the earliest people to use a closet were Roman soldiers. The soldiers needed a more practical way to store and transport weapons and armor, especially on long journeys. These storage units were called “armoriums.” As one might guess, the Latin word armorium became what we know today as an armoire.
As industrialization spread around the world and goods were more affordable and easier to produce, people had more possessions to store. This led to a change in how people viewed and used the closet, but it wasn’t until much later that the modern closet started to take shape.
The idea of the closet, as a dedicated space built into the home for storage, happened in the United States around 1840. It was Americans who established the closet as its own space built directly into the wall during the 19th century.
The convenience of the closet built into the home rapidly became a standard feature in many American homes. It wasn’t until the 1950s, after World War II, that we started to really see what we think of as the modern closet.
The economic boom following the war led to an even larger consumer culture in America and increased the need for a place to keep everything. More people began moving to the suburbs and buying larger homes. These larger homes came with closets, and by this time, Americans had plenty of new clothes and accessories to fill them with.
Bill Primavera, while a publicist and journalist, is also a realtor associated with William Raveis Real Estate and founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc. (www.PrimaveraPR.com). To engage the services of The Home Guru to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.
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