PORTLAND, Maine - It's not unusual for visitors to Victoria Mansion to gasp upon entering. The brownstone exterior offers few hints to the opulence inside. While it's a treat to visit anytime, when it is decorated for the holidays, the gilding on this lily sparkles and shines.
Built between 1858 and 1860 as a summer house for Ruggles Morse, the Italianate mansion is fittingly located in a neighborhood at the edge of both the tony West End and the Arts District. It is considered one of the finest house museums in the country and a fine example of pre-Civil War residential design.
Morse, a native of Maine, operated luxury hotels in New Orleans, and he used his industry contacts to retain Henry Austin, a New Haven architect and master of the Italian villa style, and Gustave Herter, founder of New York's renowned Herter Brothers, an interior design and furniture making company. The mansion's interior drips with Victorian ornamentation that in less-skilled hands, could have been ostentatious. But Morse's team made it dazzle. It's filled with visual and textural treasures and technologies that were state-of-the-art then.
Best of all, Austin and Herter's legacy remains largely intact. The four-story tower and three-story central hall with its grand staircase, encircling balconies, and 6-by-25-foot stained-glass ceiling skylight, is considered one of the nation's finest Italian villa-style houses. Inside, the house retains most of its original furnishings. Trompe l'oeil paintings and ceilings, intricately carved woodwork and plaster, ornate gas chandeliers and gilt are everywhere. Paintings by Giuseppe Guidicini, an Italian immigrant who lived in New York and specialized in theatrical scenes, adorn many walls. Much of the furniture was produced by the Herter workshops, some of whose pieces are in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also original to the home are carpets, porcelain, silver, and glassware.
Besides the ornamentation, the house is full of innovations such as the master bedroom with adjoining bathroom, billiards room, and the intriguing Turkish smoking room, with its ornate, colorful geometric designs. Also unusual were the use of stained glass, both in quality and quantity, not to mention central heating, gas lighting, hot and cold running water, and a servant-call system.
While the mansion was a showplace, it was also a home. "It's not just the structure, but the objects that had a lot of meaning for the Morses," says Julia Kirby, deputy museum director. "They brought the ideas of a luxury hotel into a private summer home, creating a place where they could both relax and show off." Morse, she adds, was not from a wealthy family. He was self-made and proud of his accomplishments.
In Christmas season and through Dec. 30, designers and florists volunteer their time and services to decorate, each taking a room and interpreting an annual theme for the 19th century. "One year it was Dickens; another it was 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing,' " Kirby says. "This year's theme, Father Christmas, is especially fitting, given that the Victorians transformed St. Nicholas into the jolly figure known today."
The festive flowers and garland and period decorations add even more frivolity to the already over-the-top decor. It is, as Kirby says, "truly gilding the lily."
Hilary Nangle, a freelance writer in Waldoboro, Maine, can be reached at hilary@hilarynangle.com.
