Expert: Rikki Nyman - 3/10/2010

Question
Hello,

I visited a home today that was built in Upper Arlington, OH in 1927. The foyer closet is too shallow to put modern hangers in. Why were the closets designed to hang coats with the coats facing out? I've tried in vain to find the answer on the Internet.

Thank you

Answer
I've seen a couple different reasons for this. One is that people had less stuff. The front hall closet was often used for guests, so it needed to have some hooks mounted on the wall to accommodate a few coats, an umbrella or two, and a few pair of overshoes or galoshes.

The second is there was closet hardware available where the rail telescoped out (toward you). With the closet door open you could pull the rail out, get your coat, then push it back in. One manufacturer was the Garden City Plating & Mfg. Co. that offered the Garcy Clothes Closet Garment Carrier. It supposedly allowed you to store twice as much as a regular closet in less space.

The average square footage of early 20th century homes was fairly small by our standards ... often only 1000 square feet, so finding storage solutions was a challenge. People during the 1920s seemed to really like built-ins that folded away into the walls, so a closet system in a small foyer would probably have been rather appealing.

There may be other possibilities too, but without seeing the closet in question, it's difficult to be absolutely sure.

Hope this helps.

Rikki Nyman
Editor
www.antiquehomestyle.com