Library - Art and Architecture
This house was designed by famed architect William Waters. Waters designed over 700 buildings in the state as well as the Wisconsin pavilion for the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. He excelled in Queen Anne Style architecture. This home is one of the best examples of Queen Anne Style in brick in the state still to this day.
Victorians had this notion of male and female spaces in a house. This is clearly Henry Rogers' space.
It was a room where he conducted business, as he used it as his office, but it is also where he relaxed and definitely was showing off.
The room features dark cherry woodwork from Wisconsin stands and beautiful furniture. Most of the furniture thoughout the house is of “Eastlake” design (a very modern style at the time, named for the designer Charles Eastlake). Something less than half the furniture now in the residence was owned by the Rogers family. Where a piece had to be added to complete a room, it was carefully selected to make sure that it is from the period and reflects the Rogers' social status.
This room is naturally filled with books to reflect Rogers’ taste, learning, and money - as beautiful books were very expensive. So even the books are about showing off. They also reflect the fact that not only could Henry read, but so could his wife Cremora (who was raised at a time when girls were deprived of education), and also their daughter Florence, who was exceptionally well educated.
If you were literate like the Rogers family, you were current on all of the new ideas circulating throughout the world. For example, the Victorian age saw the rise of interest in the natural world (think Darwin and the popularity of his work). This led to the amateur collection and study of flora, fauna, fossils, and the like. The room includes many examples of each.
Henry is also showing off his love of literature and art in the spectacular tile surrounds featured on fireplaces throughout the house. All of the tiles are original to Hearthstone. This set, like most in the house, was imported from England and made by Minton-Hollins and Company. In fact, most of the tiles in the house are one-off art pieces commissioned by Henry Rogers. This speaks volumes about the money that Rogers was lavishing on his new home. Hearthstone has more Minton-Hollins tiles that any other building in the United States.
Each set of tiles throughout the house showcases a different literary theme. This beautiful set depicts the works of Sir Walter Scott's "Waverly Series". You might be most familiar with Rob Roy, one of the books in this series.
