Belle’s “Boarding House” Bedroom Suite

Posted on 9/13/24

Authored & Curated By
M.J.G.

Belle opened the doors to her business in 1891 at this residence, and it was said to be the most elegant establishment in the red-light district. Belle ran a high-class operation, and her girls were not allowed to loiter on the porches or streets or hang out windows. They were told they must dress respectably and act respectably in public. A now-lost photograph from the grand opening, reportedly seen by a few, depicted a high-class gathering inside, with people of various social standings gathered around a lavish table. A band was believed to have been hired for the occasion, and the display of fine china, silverware, abundant food and drink, and dazzling electric lights left a lasting impression. After Belle’s death in 1940, could someone, driven by paranoia, have destroyed the photo to conceal faces that might have ignited a scandal due to their attendance at such an event? We may never know.

What we are about to see is a window into Belle's private bedroom suite which looks more like typical late 19th century interiors than the houses we see in modern movies.

Don't forget to click the pictures to make even bigger!

The two rooms we’re going to see today are located here behind these windows across the entire front of the house on the second floor.

How to determine where these rooms were? To figure it out, one must compare exterior photos with interior ones, paying attention to distinctive features like the bay window and the placement of the fireplace and chimney. It’s also essential to explore other rooms or floors to narrow down the location based on these clues. The Sanborn Map shows that the house had two bay window locations. However, after thorough research, it was concluded that this room could only have been on the second floor, at the front of the house. See map above.

Sitting Room

Here is Belle resting in her private sitting room in the earliest known photo of this suite. It features a unique collection of decorative items, with the ceiling paper, wall and frieze paper, and wall-to-wall carpeting adding to the cozy atmosphere. To the right, there’s an étagère filled with statues and various trinkets. Was it in this suite that she housed her thousands of dollars’ worth of gold and diamonds? In an article Blue Grass Blade 1891 she was said to have lost her diamond earrings worth $1,500. While it states the earrings were found, it paints an interesting picture on how residence struggled to understand the women of this profession stating “…these wretched women have not always been the vile sluts that they are now. All of them were innocent little girls. Every one of them was somebody’s little daughter; somebody[‘s] little sister.” It goes on to explain her life, her childhood and perhaps the reason why she was the way she was.

This tilting water pitcher is an exquisite piece of silverware or silverplate. Such pitchers were quite common in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They are often mistaken for coffee servers, as modern-day observers aren’t accustomed to drinking water from metal cups. Like we saw downstairs, there is a drape over the firebox.

Zooming into this corner of the room, we can see an Eastlake desk with upper shelves showing an assortment of statues, a vase, and a pug figurine.

The wall-to-wall carpeting features an intriguing pattern and a border. Belle spent good money on her home to carpet rooms and furnish them. Here is an example from a catalog she may have reviewed for ideas during her day. You could buy a border for around the perimeter of the room and the wall-to-wall portion would be in 18-inch-wide strips sewn together.

The wooden column pedestal is quite striking, featuring a marbleized finish and a metal-like plaque on the front.

It may still come as a surprise to many, but aquarium keeping was a practice some people engaged in during the 19th century. Although it’s difficult to identify the specific types of fish in this water, it appears to contain at least four fish.

During the 19th century, catalogs and magazines on aquarium care and maintenance circulated widely. Aquariums from that era are truly beautiful, and if you’re fortunate enough to find one today, it’s a rare treasure.

A variety of terrariums, bowls, globes were made available for purchase by the late 19th century.

A polychrome statue of a boy, whose origin remains unknown. If anyone can identify this type of statue, please share your insights in the comments section below.

The fixture combines both electric and gas lighting. Note the pointed Edison bulbs. The mantel clock is really beautiful. In the mirror, you can see the drapery leading into the bedroom through a large open doorway. Sometimes, we will see a second floor Bedroom with a large doorway between them, which gives the owner of the house the opportunity to use the other room as a private sitting room or close the doors and use as an additional bedroom.

Now let’s go through that doorway…

Bed Chamber

Through that large doorway is the bedroom of Belle’s bedroom suite. You can make out on the top left of the picture a small portion of the doorway drapery we saw in the last photo. Furnished with a tall Eastlake Bedroom suite with matching dresser. Unfortunately, this picture is a little blurry so zooming into all the items around the room is a little difficult. It is possible the camera may have been bumped. This picture is sometimes incorrectly identified as a different random bedroom in the home but according to the window placements and reviewing exterior photos, this is the only location it could be, thus making it evident to be the early photo of her bedroom.

Hanging from a wire from the ceiling there is an interesting statue on a swing.

The bedroom is decorated with frieze and ceiling paper, along with a gilt picture rail. The room features a standard combination chandelier from the end of the era. The ornament hanging from the chandelier looks to be a jester hat.

A close up of the dainty ratan chair possibly painted in two colors in front of the window.

This lounge or couch features an eye-catching pattern and is embellished with quadruple ball fringe along the bottom. Such lounges were commonly found in many homes and clubhouses, serving multiple purposes. They provided a spot for lounging when you wanted to rest without going to bed—whether it was midday and you needed a nap, or you were dealing with a headache. For research purposes, it’s important to note that this type of furniture is referred to as a lounge, couch, or chaise in magazines and documents from the period. While it is often called a “fainting couch” today, this term is a 20th-century myth and you will not find this term in any book, journal, trade catalog of the era when researching this furniture.

Wanamaker’s Furniture catalog from the last decade or so can be accessed here.

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The "Boarding House" & Its Parlors

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