National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Resource History and Description of Existing Conditions
1. food preparation and dining to the north (Kitchen, Scullery, Dumbwaiter, Refrigerator,
Kitchen Store Closet, Service Dining Room, Service Pantry, and Cook's Room),
2. laundry to the southeast (Main Laundry, Service Laundry, Boot Room),
3. rooms for male staff to the southwest (Butler's Room, Second Man's Room, Third Man's
Room, Service Trunk Room),
4. storage around the circular hall (Wine Cellar, Box Closet, Bicycle Room, Trunk and Store
Room),
5. and the Housekeeper's Office and Store Closet south of the kitchen offices.
Following this arrangement, the rooms used for work (the Kitchen, Laundry, and
Housekeeper's Room) are to the east, while the west is devoted to off-duty hours with male staff
rooms, the Cook's Room, and Service Dining Room. A men's bath and a lavatory as well as
storage closets surround the hall's ellipse. The Vanderbilt amendments to the floor plan were
the addition of storage rooms by partitioning the ellipse, the Third Man's Room, and the Wine
Cellar.
In order to clarify the various names and uses of the basement service rooms, a
comparison has been made between three sources; McKim, Mead & White's plan, the room
names in the housekeeper's key closet, and oral interviews with Theresa Farley conducted by
Charles Snell. In some cases, other sources suggest additional room names, and these have been
noted in the narrative that follows. Diagram 4 outlines the room names.
Hall
The basement service Hall is oriented north-south with an exterior entrance to the north
and a large ellipse at its center. The Hall includes access to the sub-basement and the service
stair hall and elevator. McKim's plan included only three small closets and three walk-in closets
on this floor. No accommodation was made for trunk rooms or larger storage. Over time
basement storage was created by partitioning the hall and other rooms. The Hall partitioning
resulted in three new storage rooms on the west side of the ellipse. Based on the order in which
Mrs. Farley and George Palmer walked through the rooms, it appears the northern-most closet
of the three on the west side of the ellipse did not exist in 1947. 858 Farley also discusses the
closet or armoire which now stands just west of the entry to the Cook's room vestibule.
Originally it stood on the north wall of the cook's vestibule, and it was used in the Vanderbilt
period and by the NPS for vase storage. Today it is a broom closet.
The two remaining partitioned store rooms in the ellipse were reported by Mrs. Farley to
be a trunk room to the west and a pressing room to the south. 859 The housekeeper's key closet
includes three keys labeled "Box Closet" (.02), "Housekeeper's Store Closet" (.05), and "Bicycle
Room" (.06). At this time, it is not clear whether these room names and functions refer to the
partitioned store rooms on the ellipse.
The walls were originally painted a buff color with varnished baseboard, chair rail, and
picture rail like those in the third floor service areas. 860 The current paint is dark cream below
the picture rail with cream above the rail and on the ceiling. Four square structural columns
858
Farley.
859
Farley.
860
Snell, "Master Plan Development Outline," 26. Snell cites an interview with Frederick Traudt,
February 15, 1957.
154