Elwin Chase House
About This Tour
The murals in the Elwin Chase House’s two-story stair hall are unusual as they are extend from floor to ceiling and incorporate oversized motifs. The scene at the top of the stairs is a beautiful ‘sketch’ of rural living.
The Greek Revival Chase House and its original, attached barn perch on a Topsham, Vermont hillside.
The Elwin Chase House
The Elwin Chase House was built ca. 1825 in East Topsham, Vermont and is named after the owner of the house from 1953‐75. The name of this house does not refer to the builder or to the owner who commissioned the murals, as they were most likely completed about 1835 when Erastus Baldwin, a harness maker, owned the property. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as the Elwin Chase House and is also listed in the Vermont Register of Historic Places under the same name.
The Elwin Chase House presents an early example of Greek Revival architecture. The house has a gable-front orientation, meaning that the entrance is placed on the same side as the gable end. The house’s side hall plan and front door surround — which incorporates sidelights, a transom, and an entablature — are typical of Greek Revival residences. However, the detailed, pointed trim at the eaves and rakes is an unusual feature for this style.
About the Artist
For many years, scholars and historians have attributed these walls to itinerant painter and inventor Rufus Porter (1782-1884). Comparison with other murals by Porter, however, suggests that a completely different hand painted these walls. While the artist exhibits an entirely different style of painting, they appear to have incorporated many motifs common in Porter and his followers’ walls and, as a result, this wall can be considered part of The Porter School.
There is a clear indication that the same artist traveled north to the Russell House in Haverhill, New Hampshire. The Russell House has murals with the same color palette and motif approach as those in the Chase House, but those murals have been greatly degraded by wallpaper removal.
About the Art
The Chase House murals are located in the downstairs and upstairs hallways, standard locations for Porter School murals. They wrap around the entirety of the room from floor to ceiling and continue up the stairway. There is also a small sketch or stencil of a ship motif in one of the upper bedrooms, indicating that this room was also once muraled. After the removal of the wallpaper in the hallways in the 1970s, conservator Linda Tucker faithfully restored the murals.
Upon entering the house, the visitor is greeted with floor-to-ceiling murals. Many New England murals of this time period — especially those of the Rufus Porter School — were painted above a chair rail or a faux chair rail so that the murals were confined to the upper two-thirds of the wall. For the Chase House, the painter chose to paint the entire wall.
Unlimited by chair rails or other architectural features, the artist chose to fill the entire wall surface, from baseboard to ceiling, with a bold landscape of tall trees and a plunging waterfall.
The focal point in the downstairs hallway is the enormous steamboat that takes up most of the water wall scene. Steamboats, often with the name of the boat painted across the hull, appear in many Porter School murals, but not at this scale.
As one travels up the staircase, a stenciled house and barn come into view at the head of the stair. Interestingly, the architecture of the stenciled house is also Greek Revival. While it is not mimicking exactly the exterior of the Elwin Chase House, it appears to be a nod to the popular architectural style of the period during which the mural was painted. This choice breaks with the Federal houses typically found in murals painted by Rufus Porter and other Porter School muralists.
A reference to a current event is another element that makes it unlikely that this is a Rufus Porter mural. The ship depicted on the long wall of the upper stairway hall is the Potomac, which travelled around the globe between 1831-34. News reports and published books can be found recounting the ship’s progress, so it is likely that the artist or homeowner was inspired by current events that had been taking place and had them incorporated into the wall design.
Looking at the narrow front hall, one can see how the steamboat is out of proportion to the wall. Use of oversized elements has also been found in muraled walls in New Hampshire painted by unknown artists. One example, the Diamond House in Danville, New Hampshire, can be seen in the Digital Archive.
The Greek Revival farmhouse at the head of the stairs is delicately scaled when compared to the oversized ship in the first floor hall.
This ship in the upper hall is a reference to Commodore John Downes, who sailed the Potomac around the world from 1831-34. Note the yellow and vermilion sunset on the water.