Liberty Bell,
Independence Hall.]

The hall and staircase at Cliveden combine distinctive characteristics
of the halls at Stenton and Mount Pleasant. As at Stenton, the hall
itself consists of a large reception room centrally located, and about
which the other principal rooms of the house are grouped. Through an
archway at the rear is a slightly narrower though spacious staircase
hall extending through to the back of the house, where the broken
staircase rises to a broad landing and the direction of the run
reverses. The architecture is as pure Doric as at Mount Pleasant, but of
the denticulated rather than the mutulary order, and altogether more
satisfactory for interior trim in wood. The cornice only is carried
around the room at the ceiling, and in the staircase hall only the
cymatium and corona of the cornice; but over the archway, supported by a
colonnade of four fluted round columns, a complete entablature with
nicely worked classic detail is employed and given added emphasis by
several inches' projection into the reception hall. The columns are
spaced so as to form a wide central archway flanked by two narrow ones,
the effect being a staircase vista unexcelled in the domestic
architecture of Philadelphia. The picture is enriched by a heavily
paneled wainscot and handsome, deeply embrasured doorways with
architrave casings, paneled jambs and soffits.

Except for the single, simple turned newel, the staircase is much like
that at Mount Pleasant. There is the similar ramped balustrade and
paneled wainscot with ramped surbase and dark wood cap rail along the
wall opposite. Little pilasters likewise support this rail, but they are
paneled rather than fluted. There are similar scroll-pattern stair ends
and paneling under the stairs. In this instance the under side of the
upper run is paneled in wood rather than plastered. The turned balusters
are slightly more elaborate than at Mount Pleasant, but are used in the
same manner, three to the stair.

Not built until nearly the dawn of the nineteenth century, Upsala
belongs to a later period than most of the notable houses in
Philadelphia. The lighter grace of Adam design had begun to dominate
American building and is to be seen in the staircase as well as in the
mantels and other interior woodwork at Upsala. The staircase combines
features of the broken flight with a midway landing, such as the
foregoing examples, and of the later development in long halls where the
d