In modern English and American houses of the smaller class the staircase is a part of an elongated entrance hall, and there is often no vestibule.  In many of the more important new houses the stairs are divided from the entrance hall, so that one staircase will do for the servants, family and all, and the privacy of the entrance hall will be secured.  In my own house in New York, you enter the square hall directly, and the staircase is in a second hall.  This entrance hall is a real breathing-space, affording the visitor a few moments of rest and calm after the crowded streets of the city.  The hall is quite large, with a color-plan of black and white and dark green.  You will find a description of this hall in another chapter.  I have used this same plan in many other city houses, with individual variations, of course.  The serene quality of such a hall is very valuable in the city.  If you introduced a lot of furniture the whole thing would be spoiled.

I used an old porcelain stove, creamy and iridescent in glaze, in such a hall in an uptown house very similar to my own.  The stove is very beautiful in itself, but it was used for use as well as beauty.  It really holds a fire and furnishes an even heat.  The stove was flanked by two pedestals surmounted with baskets spilling over with fruits, carved from wood and gilded and painted in polychrome.  Everything in this hall is arranged with precision of balance.  The stove is flanked by two pedestals.  The niche that holds the stove and the corresponding niche on the other wall, which holds a statue, are flanked by narrow panels holding lighting-fixtures.  The street wall is broken by doors and its two flanking windows.  The opposite wall has a large central panel flanked by two glass doors, one leading to the stairway and the other to a closet, beneath it.  Everything is “paired,” with resulting effect of great formality and restraint.  Very little furniture is required:  A table to hold cards and notes, two low benches, and a wrought iron stand for umbrellas.  The windows have curtains of Italian linen, coarse homespun stuff that is very lovely with white walls and woodwork.  There are no pictures on the wall, but there are specially designed lighting-fixtures in the small panels that frame the niches.

In several of the finer houses that have been built recently, notably that of Mrs. O.H.P.  Belmont, the staircase is enclosed, and is in no way an architectural feature, merely a possible means of communication when needed.  This solution of the staircase problem has no doubt brought about our modern luxury of elevators.  In another fine private house recently built the grand staircase only goes so far as the formal rooms of the second floor, and a small iron staircase enclosed in the wall leads to the intimate family rooms of the bedroom floor.  The advantage of this gain in space can easily be appreciated.  All the room usually taken up by the large wall of the staircase halls, and so forth, can be thrown into the bedrooms upstairs.