Interior Description
Formal staircase in the front hall of the Paris Fletcher House.
The plan of the Fletcher House is a two-story, sidehall structure with a kitchen ell to the rear. The front section consists of one first-floor room and one second-floor room, with a formal stair hall in the righthand (south) bay.
When entering the building through the front door, the main hall passes through the front section of the building to the kitchen ell. The architectural woodwork in the main hall is extremely plain when compared to the architectural treatment of the main facade. Simple Federal-period architraves, consisting of a molded cap and beaded frieze, surround the interior front door composition, the door on the left-hand wall leading to the parlor, and the door leading to the kitchen ell. A similar molding profile is used on the chair rail on three sides of the hall. These molding profiles are similar to those in Plate 14 of Asher Benjamin's Country Builder's Assistant.
The interior walls of the hall retain their original lath and plaster, and are covered in mid-twentieth-century wallpaper. The ceiling also appears to retain its original lath and plaster. The floor treatment in the hall is gray mid-twentieth century linoleum tile. Where the linoleum is chipped near the front door plywood is visible underneath. However, this appears to be a patch or replacement flooring. The original subflooring is intact and visible from the cellar.
The front door itself is a late Federal-period frame-and-panel, six-panel Christian door, with thin echinus moldings surrounding the flat panels on both sides. The door leading to the parlor is also a Christian-type door with flat panels and thin echidnas moldings. The door leading to the kitchen ell is a slightly earlier, beaded flush-panel, four panel door.
The staircase, which rises on the right-hand wall, has a thin banister rail elliptical in section, a simple turned newel post, and attenuated, square balusters. The banister profile is similar to one in Plate 12 of Asher Benjamin's Country Builder's Assistant. Approximately three quarters of the way up is a landing, where the stairs turn to the left for their final ascent to the upper hall.
From the interior, the front door composition is sunken in flat paneled recesses. These recessions are possible because the exterior front wall is about eight inches thick. As a result, the corner posts of the braced frame do not protrude into the interior rooms, which is usually an identifying feature of braced-frame construction. The original glass in the fanlight was replaced in the early twentieth century with purple and orange textured glass. The five-pane sidelights were replaced with single panes of early twentieth century translucent white glass.
The front parlor retains its original woodwork, which is the same as that in the hall. The fireplace mantel is quite plain, and seems to be a simplified interpretation of Plate 20 of Country Builder's Assistant, with attenuated, engaged pilasters, a plain frieze, and shallow shelf. The chimney has been removed. The floor treatment in the parlor is also gray linoleum.
The second-floor stair hall has the same woodwork as that on the first floor. However, the door leading to the parlor chamber and the door leading to the rear kitchen ell are of the flush, beaded panel type. The floors in the upper hall has highly intact nineteenth-century grain painting on them.
The chamber above the parlor has similar woodwork to that in the parlor below, but there is no surviving mantelpiece.
The first floor of the kitchen ell consists of four rooms. The largest room, which takes up the majority of the first floor, southwest portion of the kitchen ell, retains original flush-panel doors, cupboard, and enclosed staircase. It was probably the primary living space of the earlier structure. This room has early 20th century hardwood floors and late 1960s wallpaper. To the right of the door leading into the formal front stair hall of the front section of the house is a tall, narrow cupboard. From the floor it is about six feet tall, and has a flush-beaded panel door.
A smaller room, which is north of the large room, also retains original flush-panel doors and chimney cupboards, though the chimney has been removed. This room was probably a bedroom or workroom. The cupboards, which are above and around the fireplace opening, are only about eight inches deep. They have flush, beaded panel doors.
The rear, or east, room in the kitchen ell is the original kitchen. It is now used as a kitchen for both the Bridport Historical Society and an apartment on the second floor of the kitchen ell. It retains original beaded trim, flush-panel doors, and cellar entry under the enclosed stair. This staircase is accessible from the larger room and this room from separate doors. The cooking fireplace, which is on the rear or west wall, survives intact with woodbox and bake oven. The firebox is in the Rumford style, being quite shallow and tall, and is about four feet wide, three feet tall, and eighteen inches deep. The bake oven is positioned over the woodbox, and both have small openings about twelve inches square. They are located outside and to the right of the main firebox, which is typical post-Revolutionary cooking fireplace construction. The northern section of the kitchen is partitioned off into what was probably a small pantry. Today it houses the kitchen appliances.
Above the kitchen ell are four small rooms that were inaccessible at the time of the survey. They are presently used as an apartment. The curator of the Bridport Historical Society reports that they retain early floorboards, trim, and doors similar to those on the first floor.
The cellar is accessed by a staircase underneath the kitchen stairs as well as a bulkhead on the west wall of the kitchen ell. The cellar consists of two rooms: one under the front section of the house, and one under the kitchen ell. The room under the front section is very low with a dirt floor and rubblestone walls. The floor joists are whole tree trunks (pine) with the bark still on them. Many appear to have been recycled from an earlier structure, as they have unused, randomly placed mortise joints in them. One original five-pane sidelight from the front door composition survives in the cellar, leaning against the north wall.
The rear room under the kitchen ell retains the footing to the cooking fireplace on the western wall. The chimney footing is brick and stone with squared-log cribbing at joist level. Directly in front of this is a large stone cistern with a board-and-batten lid.