Two Architectural Gems: The Rose and Rowley House Rooms

A room with built-in woodwork elements surrounding a fireplace on one wall. Tableware is stored on open shelves at left. The woodwork extends along the lower portion of the two other visible walls, as well as along a beam on the ceiling.

Room from the Rowley House, Hebron, Connecticut, 1770–71. White pine and paint. Yale University Art Gallery, Mabel Brady Garvan Collection

Patricia E. Kane, Friends of American Arts Curator of American Decorative Arts, discusses two rooms from Connecticut houses that were installed in Street Hall as part of the Yale University Art Gallery’s 2012 renovation. One is from the Rose House, built in North Branford about 1725. The other is a parlor from the Rowley House, constructed in Hebron about 1770–71. The rooms share many similarities as well as notable differences. This Gallery Talk explores the architectural techniques practiced by Connecticut house carpenters and joiners to create elaborate interior woodwork.  

Conservation and reinstallation of the period rooms made possible by the William S. and Lora Jean Kilroy Foundation. 

Meet by the central column in the Gallery lobby. Space is limited.