From a first floor plan of Whitemarsh Hall drawn in 1916 by Horace Trumbauer, architects for White, Allom & Co. decorators, showing the original labels.

Source: Getty Research Library, Duveen Brothers Records, Stotesbury files, gri_960015_ff018_009

During the construction process, the Stotesburys decided to change the large room on the northwest side of Whitemarsh Hall from what originally was designated as the Library to "Mr. Stotesbury's Sitting Room." They then converted the smaller Salon room next to the Ballroom into the Library, which also became known as the Book Room or Small Library. This made a cozier atmosphere for the Library and for its primary feature, the portrait of Lady Maria Conyngham by Sir Thomas Lawrence, which E.T. Stotesbury had purchased from Joseph Duveen in 1913.

The Book Room, or Small Library, at Whitemarsh Hall

The ceiling of the Book Room was modeled after the ceiling of the "Wren Chapel" at the Royal Hospital Chelsea in London, which was designed by the famous architect Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1687. The chapel ceiling was designed with a barrel-vault framed by symmetrical compartmented plaster panels decorated by gilded rosettes and ornamental scrollwork, all created by the plasterer Henry Margetts.

The Book Room maintained the style of the barrel-vaulted ceiling with panels and ornamental scrollwork in frames, but it omitted the gilded rosettes at the intersections of the frames.

The Book Room (Small Library) at Whitemarsh Hall circa 1923

Ornamental plaster scrollwork from the Wren Chapel ceiling, 2026

Ornamental plaster scrollwork from the Whitemarsh Hall Book Room, circa 1923

Perhaps as an alternative to the gilded rosettes, the Stotesburys added a quote from William Wordsworth's famous 1807 poem "Personal Talk" as an inscription carved around the four sides of the plaster base of the barrel vault ceiling. It read as follows:

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good:

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.