Around and Around the Staircase

(Note: this was posted on one of my blogs months ago, and as I'm closing that old blog, I thought I'd repost it here as it has rather cool pictures.)

Here's piece I had written on a defuct blog featuring old postcards. This piece is all about old postcards featuring old staircases, and trust me, the pictures are kind of cool, so read on...

A word of caution: viewing these postcards may make you dizzy. :-)

Among many postcards that I collect, one category is stairs. As you can see from the postcards below, this category isn't  as boring as you might imagine. I had thought this would be a fairly quick post, listing some of the best of my collection. But, it ended up taking hours because I wanted to learn more about these staircases, and I've included links for each staircase in case you want to know more about them. (This is one cool thing about postcards -- they often depict history.)

Chateau de Chambord
Loire Valley, France

No relation to the liquor Chambord, though a trip up or down this big-ass staircase may make you feel as if you have one too many Chambord drinks. Note that this staircase is a double spiral, meaning there are two separate staircases going around each other without actually meeting. I visited this castle back in early 1980's, and trust me, the postcard doesn't do this justice. Random factoid: this castle has 84 staircases, albeit most of them not as spectacular as this one.

 Trustees' Office, Shaker Village
Pleasant Hill, KY

This awesome staircase rises 5 floors in one of the buildings at Shaker Village, which was a Shaker religious community, now a tourist destination. (Aside: somewhere, there surely must be a town named Unpleasant Hill.)

 

Lloyd Center
Portland, OR

I don't know if it was intentional but this staircase does look quite a bit like a DNA helix. By the way, not that you care, but this shopping mall houses the home ice rink of notorious figure skater Tonya Harding.

 Old Capitol
Iowa City, IA

While these stairs at Old Capitol, called a reverse spiral staircase, may not be as wild as others in this post, I am including this because it is an architectural thing of beauty. Look at these round stairwells, at this floor and the floor above. I may be mistaken, but I believe this goes up to the building's rotunda.

Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Spiral Staircase
Shelburne Museum
Shelburne, VT

It does seem that this staircase at the art museum indeed has its own name. I see from both postcards above that a chair has been placed thoughtfully in a corner, presumably so you can take a break from the stair climbing, sit down and stare at a nearby painting. Since the chair in both postcards look identical, I wonder if it is the same chair?

Wannalancit Mill Complex
Lowell, MA

This was a 19th textile mill and has been renovated into an office building today. However, I suspect that a lot of people don't take advantage of this beautiful staircase and just use elevators.

 Miraculous Staircase
Loretto Chapel
Santa Fe, NM

Legends abound about this particular staircase. It seems that when the chapel was built in 1878, nobody thought to build a way to access the choir loft (isn't that kinda like building a house without a door?) A conventional staircase would have taken up too much room in this small chapel, and apparently, people were allergic to ladders back then. One carpenter appeared out of nowhere, riding a donkey. He built the thing and then disappeared without giving his name or asking for payment or anything.

One reason that people say the staircase is miraculous is that there are no obvious means of support. Personally, I don't know about that -- many staircases shown on this post are like this and nobody calls them miraculous.

Oh, by the way, did you notice that this staircase has a 720-degree turn, meaning you turn around twice before reaching the top of the stairs? (It appears from the postcard above that the loft is at least two stories high.)

 

Mission Inn
Riverside, CA

Here's a winding staircase done in Spanish style, complete with a traditional water fountain and red title on the bottom. It looks like something from the Mediterranean parts of Europe, but it's actually a historic hotel in Riverside, California, in the Mission Revival  style.

Charles L. Shrewsbury House
Madison, IN

If you went by the top postcard only, you would think this staircase goes up a very tall tower. In truth, the staircase only goes to the top of the three-story historic house.  In addition to its classic beauty and the obvious function of getting people up to the , this staircase -- and probably some of the other older staircases -- serves a cooling function, pulling hot air from the lower floors up the stairwell and through attic windows.

By the way, check out how smooth the bottom side of the staircase is. If you somehow turn the house upside down, you'd have an awesome spiral slide.

 Biltmore House
Ashleigh, NC

We close the post with this postcard, not because this house is the largest private home built in US, or of the main staircase, which is certainly beautiful, but because -- my God, look at that big-ass chandelier. Doesn't it tempt you to leap from the stairs to the chandelier, and make a Zorro-style grand entrance, swinging from it?