The Hunt-Morgan House

Personally, I was not really a fan of the Hunt-Morgan House. In my opinion a lot of the items in the house did not seem genuine. With a restoration project like this one, I can understand how difficult it is to completely restore the house to it’s original form, but I felt like there was a lack of effort. I’ll start off by discussing the dining room, which was covered in one of the ugliest green colors that I have ever seen. I know I am not exactly well versed in the interior styles of the 19th century, but the green color did not seem to fit. I have seen many movies and documentaries about this era and don’t think that I have ever seen a color like that used so heavily throughout one room, I am used to much more neutral colors. I was also not very pleased with the tour guide because there were multiple times throughout the tour where she stated that she wasn’t sure if a particular item would have actually been included in a house of that time (then why have it in there???) However, as we moved into the parlor I was much happier, the whole room seemed to be very well put together. All of the colors were pleasing to look at and the furniture in the room made sense. There was a lot more space in this room than in the dining room and all of the pictures inside were of the family or someone close to them. The overall design of these two rooms didn’t really make sense to me, they were not as cohesive as I thought they should be. The colors in the dining room as well as the space were off, the room seemed to cluttered and the balance of the room was totally offset.

I noticed a ton of things throughout the house that have changed over time, some of which I don’t really think made sense to have in the house but I’ll go with it. The first thing I noticed was a very small door in the master bedroom. At one point in time it was a normal sized door that led to a bathroom, but when the decision was made to restore the house they thought it would be better to shorten the door instead of get rid of it altogether. On top of this, in the daughter’s room they left wallpaper and a fireplace from the Victorian era which did not match at all with the rest of the house. I did not understand why they would leave things like this in a house that they are trying to restore to its original version. I honestly was very confused by a lot of things that the guide told us about the house and the reasoning behind leaving these things in the house. The colors and textures of the daughters room were very off putting. Throughout the upstairs I found a pattern of unbalanced and inharmonious rooms, the only things that looked like they should be there were the beds and I would say the emphasis was put on them in both rooms, even though the proportions of both seemed ill fit.

In conclusion, I can’t say that I really enjoyed touring this house, sure there were interesting things throughout the house. But, as a whole, I did not think there was enough cohesion from room to room. I don’t really understand why they set the house up with some things being representative of the original owners and other things just thrown in. I would recommend taking a tour, but I probably won’t visit make another visit anytime soon.