Why does House Crazy Sarah adore historical writer’s houses?
Well friends, if you have ever stepped foot inside the former home of a writer, you might be able to understand the mystique of being immersed in the physical space where these rare beings of creative genius once spent their days and nights.
It would be difficult to visit them all in a lifetime, so House Crazy Sarah has compiled a collection of virtual tours for your convenience and viewing pleasure.
One writer close to House Crazy Sarah’s fickle heart is American poet Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886). Little known during her life, she has posthumously become regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Emily Dickinson
Her former home and birthplace in Amherst, Massachusetts, is now an old house museum where visitors can become engrossed in the life and times of the beloved poet in the very rooms where she lived and wrote.
The Emily Dickinson Museum actually comprises two historic houses in the center of Amherst, both associated with Emily Dickinson and members of her family during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Homestead was the birthplace and home of the poet Emily Dickinson.
The Homestead
The Evergreens, next door, was home to her brother Austin, his wife Susan, and their three children.
The Evergreens
The Evergreens was built by Emily’s father, Edward Dickinson, in 1856 as a wedding present for Emily’s brother Austin.
(Don’t we miss the days when people were given homes for wedding gifts!)
Both houses are preserved as a single museum and are open to the public with guided tours.
The houses are located at 280 Main Street, across from the First Congregational Church (constructed in 1739).
The Emily Dickinson Home is a US National Historic Landmark, and the properties comprise the Dickinson Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
For this post, we will focus on Emily Dickinson’s house – the Homestead – where incidentally, the bulk of her poems were discovered in her bedroom after her death.
Emily Dickinson’s paternal grandfather, Samuel Dickinson, built the Homestead in 1813. It is a stately mansion on Amherst’s main street, which became the centerpiece of Dickinson family life for a century.
Emily Dickinson lived at the Homestead for much of her life. Her longest absence from the house was between 1840 and 1855, when the family’s finances necessitated a move.
The Homestead began as a red brick Federal-style house and was probably the first brick house in Amherst. Subsequent changes to the house in the 1830s and 1840s introduced Greek revival architectural features.
Emily’s father Edward Dickinson made extensive interior and exterior alterations to the Homestead starting in 1855. He built a brick addition for the kitchen and laundry on the back of the house, erected a veranda on the western side, embellished the roofline with an Italianate cupola, and built a conservatory for Emily’s beloved plants.
He had the home’s exterior painted in an ochre and off-white color scheme, which it bore until 1916, when new owners sandblasted all the old paint back down to the red brick, and painted the woodwork white per early twentieth-century colonial revival tastes.
In 2004 the Homestead was repainted in its late-nineteenth-century colors to show it as Emily Dickinson knew it. The restoration also removed aging storm windows, repointed areas of failing masonry, and restored nearly 100 shutters and other architectural elements.
This home was beloved by Emily. She spent the better part of her life here, including her final days.
In recent years, the poet’s former home has undergone interior restorations to bring the rooms as close as possible to how they appeared when Emily lived in the house.
Let’s have a look inside…
Upon entering the Homestead, you are greeted by many of the same sights that visitors in the 1800’s would have seen. The foyer holds a center hall with a rather narrow staircase leading to the second floor.
Restorationists have done an exceptional job of recreating the home as it looked when Emily lived there, complete with a portrait in the parlor of the three Dickinson children: Austin, Emily, and Lavinia.
The Parlor
Replica wallpaper and carpeting have also been installed.
The piano, though not the actual one Emily played, is from that period.
The Dining Room
This is the room that held many Dickinson family dinners – not the grandest dining room, but a rather cozy space with warm wood floors, and of course, books.
The Conservatory
This was the room that Emily’s father had built as an extension off the house so that she could have a place for her exotic plants.
The Kitchen
As old house enthusiasts know, kitchens were historically not the public spaces they have become today. They were often the domain of servants, and rarely – if ever – seen by visitors.
This is reflected in the paired-down state of the Dickinson family kitchen – although Emily herself spent a fair bit of time in here as she enjoyed cooking for her family and was known to be an avid baker.
The Indoor Toilet Room
This is something you don’t see every day – even in old house museums!
Preservationists working on this home have wisely kept the stool in the water closet of the Homestead house. This is truly a peek into the intimate past of the home’s historical inhabitants.
Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom
This bedroom in the Homestead is where Emily spent much of her time.
One of the most fascinating things about our poet Dickinson is that she is known to have lived much of her later life in seclusion. Considered an eccentric by those in her town, she developed a penchant for wearing white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, near the end of her life, to even leave her bedroom.
She never married or had children, and most of her friendships were based entirely on correspondence
Her isolation began in the 1850’s when she increasingly stayed home and took to interacting with visitors through closed doors.
Reclusive writer in a grand old house? What’s not to love about that!
The Gardens
Emily did, however, leave the house to tend the flower gardens, and to visit her brother’s family next door.
As it happens, Emily had quite the green thumb, and her wonderful gardens were widely admired by the locals in her town.
Today, local horticulture groups volunteer to recreate and tend to the gardens that Emily once lovingly cared for.
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Although Emily Dickinson was a prolific writer, her only publications during her lifetime were one letter and 10 of her nearly 1,800 poems.
She died in 1886, and her funeral service was held in the Homestead’s library, a fitting send-off for the reclusive poet.
According to Emily’s wishes, her younger sister Lavinia destroyed most of her correspondence. Lavinia found the bulk of Emily’s poetry in a locked chest in Emily’s room, and immediately recognized the collection’s significance. Lavinia sought about getting many of the poems published. The rest, as they say, is history.
Fun Fact: according to Ancestry.com, Emily Dickinson is distantly related to contemporary fellow tortured poet (and crooner) Taylor Swift.
Today, Emily Dickinson’s legacy is felt throughout Western culture; her works are still studied from middle school to university courses.
Her former home now serves as a testament to both her creative genius and her peaceful, albeit solitary, domestic life.
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. Dwell in possibility. Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
– Emily Dickinson
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/emily.dickinson.museum
https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson
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