The Writing Closet at the Abel and Mary Nicholson House
The 295-year-old Abel and Mary Nicholson House in rural Salem County, New Jersey couldn’t be more inconveniently located, but it’s uniquely special and profoundly memorable. This place is one of the few sites to make it through all the hurdles and achieve the status of National Historic Landmark. The exterior is considered “perhaps the finest and most complete surviving example of patterned brickwork from the earliest years of the phenomenon” in a county where patterned brickwork was more elaborate than anywhere else. Inside and out, according to one architectural historian, the house is entirely intact—"hinges, locks and shelving, to floorboards, roof framing, and chimney pieces.” The Nicholson house “joins the ranks of iconic early American structures.” Another historian went so far as to claim that the house is “kind of architectural Rosetta stone that gives new direction to understanding the larger tradition.”
Credit: National Park Service
Inside, just by the hearth in the parlor is one of the very few remaining examples of an extraordinarily rare feature—a writing closet. It’s basically an early 18th-century study carrel, complete with built-in shelves for books, a desk surface and a bench. The original window was bricked in when the family extended the house in 1859 and since the house was never wired for electricity, light would have to have been provided by candles or a lantern.
Credit: Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption, 1720-1920 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
The Nicholson House isn’t a place where I’ve been able to write, or even spend much time. I’ve only visited once, more than a dozen years ago, as part of a charrette studying the place. During a precious few hours on site, I became fascinated with the writing closet. Here was a profound statement about reading and writing where there didn’t have to be anything of the sort. Was this a holdover from earlier designs brought over from England or Europe? No one seemed to know for sure.
I felt pulled into the space as if by a force field. And once inside, I was completely comfortable. Wanting to imagine using the writing closet amidst a busy household (the Nicholsons had a big family) I pulled the door closed behind me and felt perfectly at peace. I imagined the masonry hearth to my back warm in winter and cool in summer. I could almost feel the evening light streaming in though the western-facing window. Maybe here was one of the first original personal workspaces in the heart of the home? It felt that primal. It felt just right.
You can find more info about how to participate here.
